http://www.kimkat.org/amryw/1_clawdd_offa/22_cymru_dros_glawdd_offa_iredentiaeth_0983e.htm
0001z Yr Hafan
..........1864e Y Fynedfa yn Saesneg / Gateway in English
....................0010e
Y Barthlen / Siteplan
..............................1949 Cymru dros Glawdd
Offa - Y Gynhwyslen / Wales beyond Offa's Dyke - Contents Page
.............................................. y tudalen hwn / this page
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Gwefan Cymru-Catalonia
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(dewl 6660) |
0981k Y tudalen hwn yn Gymraeg (Irredentiaeth a Chymru tu
hwnt i Glawdd Offa)
1999c Aquesta pàgina en català (Irredentisme i Gal·lès més enllà
de la Fossa d’Offa)
Some Welsh areas were added to English counties after
the annexation of Wales to England (1536/43) - for example, the Croesoswallt
area (Oswestry) in the north-west, and the cantrevs (cantrefi) of Euas (English:
Ewias, Ewyas) and Ergÿn (English: Archenfield) in the south-east.
These areas retained their Welshness for a long time after their incorporation
into England - Croesoswallt almost until the present day, and Euas and Ergÿn
until the early 1800s. After over four and a half centuries we have accepted
their loss. But maybe it's time to claim them back - maybe as compensation for
the English state's attempts to eradicate the Welsh langugae and culture in
Wales in the 1800s and 1900s.
So welcome to our Irredentism section, where we'll be adding material relating
to these lost lands as we come across it.
Here we'll quote extracts from an article written over seventy years ago which
touches on this matter of the lost Welsh lands to the east.
The Geogaphical Limits of Welsh Home Rule.
In 1927, in the magazine 'Welsh Outlook', there
appeared an extremely interesting article by Professor John Edward Lloyd
(1861-1947 - written when he was 65/66) - 'The Geogaphical Limits of Welsh Home
Rule'.
Here are excerpts from his article:
"The proposal to hand over to a Welsh assembly a
substantial amount of the legislative business now transacted by the Parliament
of the Empire raises an interesting geographical question. What is to be the
Wales of the Welsh Home Rule Act? The answer is not so obvious as might appear
upon the surface. To assign to the new body the twelve counties generally
regarded as Welsh, even if Monmouthshire were added in accordance with recent
custom, would be merely to stereotype divisions made by Henry VIII., without
regard to modern conditions or the needs of a modern community...."
In the past, Wales was somewhat bigger than it is nowadays, although
there was no offical frontier between the lands of the Welsh and the lands of
the English:
"In the middle ages little effort was made to
draw a definite boundary between England and Wales. There were Welsh shires and
there were Welsh principalities, but between the two came the amphibious {sic}
marcher lordships held by English rulers, and yet forming no part of that
England wherein the King's writ ran. Ellesmere, Oswestry, Clun, were not at
that time in the county of Salop, but in the "Marches of Wales," and
a John Kynaston of Ellesmere, charged at Shrewsbury in 1402 with active participation
in the rising of Owain Glÿndwr, successfully put forward the plea, in the Court
of King's Bench at Westminster, that the places where he was alleged to have
been seen in arms (including Oswestry and West Felton) were in Wales, and that
his doings there were consequently of no concern to the King's justices,
commissioned to enquire into offences in the county of Salop. So far as a
border between England and Wales could be laid down in those days, it would of
necessity be drawn so as to give the latter country large parts of what are now
Shropshire and Herefordshore, and even a corner of the county of
Gloucester...."
Owain Glÿn Dwr was not prepared to accept a small Wales which would be under
permanent threat from its larger English neighbour. He wanted to extend the
borders to increase the size of the country and to have Welsh territory
delineated by a clear and easily defendable boundaries; England would thus be
smaller and a less powerful neighbour.
"Owen Glÿndwr meditated, it is well known, a
partition of Southern Britain which would have made Wales a very extensive
area, indeed. In the Tripartite Indenture, he claims for his principality all
the land west of the Severn as far as Worcester; thence the boundary is to run
north to the source of the Trent, and thence to that of the Mersey, from which
point the Mersey is to be the limit until it falls into sea. Owen thus proposed
to annex to Wales large sections of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, and the
whole of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire. ..."
When the Welsh lands were added to England, a system of counties was
created on the English model (as had been done in part of Wales 234 years
previously, after England occupied the territory of Gwynedd). Since everybody
in the newly incorporated Wales was to be technically 'English', there was no
point in administrators taking any notice of boundaries between Welsh and
English communities in the borderlands. In addition, the Act of Union
specifically referred to a policy of eradicating the Welsh language and
replacing it with English.
"It should be remarked that the new counties of
Henry VIII. were aggregations of Marcher lordships, and that no attempt was
made to set up a border which should follow linguistic lines. The Act, indeed,
was not very complimentary to the Welsh language, which it describes as "a
speech nothing like nor consonant to the natural Mother Tongue used within this
Realm," and Henry, who forbade the use of Welsh in the courts of law held
within the Principality, no doubt believed that an early result of his measures
would be the disappearance of a tongue which the memory of his ancestors might
have led him to treat with greater respect. Thus Wales, as defined by him,
excluded Oswestry and the region between it and Denbighshire, where a good deal
of Welsh is spoken to the present day, nor did it include south-west
Herefordshire, where Welsh was undoubtedly current until recent times. Indeed,
in this respect the ecclesiastical boundaries were truer to the facts than the
civil ones, for, until recent changes, the diocese of St. Asaph included
Oswestry and seven other Shropshire parishes, while the diocese of Llandaff has
always included Monmouthshire, and the diocese of St. David's the eleven
parishes in Herefordshire which form the ancient region of Ewias."
John Edward Lloyd suggested that in deciding what the new Wales was to
be the present boundaries should be overlooked:
"The Wales of statute law, therefore, owes its
form largely to accident, and in any scheme of self-government for the Principality,
the question of revising its boundaries may very reasonably come up for
consideration... A bold draughtsman of the Home Rule Act might, indeed, be
tempted to go some little way in the direction taken by Glÿndwr and suggest the
annexation of Shropshire and Herefordshire, counties with which at present
Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire, and Brecknockshire are closely linked by ties
both economic and administrative. Shrewsbury and Hereford are at present great
border centres, and it is conceivable that the future Welsh Parliament might
find the former a more convenient meeting place than Cardiff. University bodies
have long found that, given the present railway facilities, Shrewsbury is the
natural centre and meeting place for delegates drawn from all parts of Wales
and the penchant of other representative gatherings for Llandrindod
Wells is, in effect, an admission that this is the case; the delightful
watering place on the Radnorshire hills is chosen as the nearest approximation
to Shrewsbury, in point of railway convenience, which is actually on Welsh
soil."
But Professor Lloyd also states:
"Wales, it is safe to say, will never reach the
noble dimensions allotted to it in the far reaching schemes of the Seer of Glÿn
Dyfrdwÿ {= Owain Glÿn Dwr}."
In spite of this the matter of extending the boundaries ought to be
addressed:
"Certain it is, that, when the intensely
practical questions which gather round the subject of Home Rule begin to be
discussed, it will be realised that such matters as railway communication,
regional markets and currents of trade must be taken into account... there is
some risk that a Wales may be brought into existence free and self-controlled,
but actually at the mercy of Liverpool, Manchester, the border counties, and
Bristol."
·····
0983e Gwefan
Cymru-Catalonia. Some territories with Welsh populations were incorporated into
English counties after the Acts of Union (1536/42). Examples are the area
around Croesoswallt (Oswestry) in the north-west and two cantrevs (cantrefi) in
the south-east which were included in Herefordshire. It's about time we started
a campaign to have them returned to Wales. Welcome to our irredentism page!
Ble’r wÿf i? Yr ÿch chi’n
ymwéld ag un o dudalennau’r Gwefan "CYMRU-CATALONIA"
On sóc? Esteu visitant una pàgina de la Web
"CYMRU-CATALONIA" (= Gal·les-Catalunya)
Where am I? You are visiting a
page from the "CYMRU-CATALONIA" (= Wales-Catalonia) Website
Weø(r) àm ai? Yuu àa(r) vízïting ø peij fròm dhø "CYMRU-CATALONIA" (=
Weilz-Katølóuniø) Wébsait
Adolygiad diweddaraf - Latest Update 2000-07-09