Welsh Journals

not descend into quiescent torpor, but pursued their partisan conflicts with unabated vigour, fuelled by the legacy of confusion surrounding the surrenders and re-charterings of the 1680s. In many boroughs there was no agreement as to which was the governing charter and this was a crucial point, for the specific terms of the charter were acquiring a new significance in the increasingly legalistic mode in which partisan differences were being contested. Legal proceedings at King's Bench, rather than an appeal for a new charter, had (following royal example) become the favoured means by which to eliminate enemies within the corporation. Herein lies Halliday's second irony: the process by which King's Bench displaced the king's Council through the developing use of the writs of quo warranto and mandamus provided the institutional means by which partisan politics could be pursued within borough corporations without the 'body politic' of the corporation becoming irreparably fractured. Thus Halliday accounts for the precipitous decline in the numbers of charters granted to English towns following the Glorious Revolution. Moreover, there was a disinclination on the part of the crown to risk the political implications of interfering in the charters of parliamentary boroughs. By the 1690s the fundamental basis for the pursuit of these partisan loyalties had undergone a decisive shift, from that of religion to parliamentary politics. Halliday becomes less sure-footed when dealing with the eighteenth century, when a host of new variables which would complicate his interpretation demands to be included in the equation. One might also question whether he is justified in being quite so certain that religious issues retreated so rapidly in the wake of parliamentary legislation. Halliday has an impressive command of sources which he deploys very effectively, but this inevitably raises more questions which it was not within the scope of his study to answer. The internal politics of the corporations, the role of the freemen, relations with the gentry in each town all would repay further study. A stimulating interpretation has been outlined but there are still many details to be filled in. ROSEMARY SWEET Leicester THE WELSH LANGUAGE BEFORE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. Edited by Geraint H. Jenkins. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1997. Pp. xiv, 455. £ 15.95 (paperback). This volume is the first fruit of the collaborative research project on the social history of the Welsh language which is currently in progress at the