WHILE I have long had a sense of some Welsh heritage, it is only very recently that I’ve delved into the history of this country and particularly its troubled relationship with neighbouring England.

My mum’s family are from a fairly wide Celtic background but primarily Welsh. If you call her English she will fiercely defend herself as British, definitely not English.

Ex-Telegraph editor Max Hastings recently penned an article in Bloomberg titled “There will always be an England but not a UK.” 

Hastings explores the almost inevitable reasons both Northern Ireland and Scotland will eventually leave the United Kingdom, laying out some of the history of both these countries’ difficult relationships with England, as well as the present situation which makes Scottish independence and Irish reunification seem prospects on a not-too-distant horizon.

His approach to Wales, however, is entirely different.

Judging by his title, it seems close to the infamous Encyclopedia Britannica entry of “WALES, See England.” 

He dismisses Welsh independence as little more than a movement to “reassert cultural identity” and preserving the Welsh language through forcing “hapless children” to learn it in school.

This undermining of Wales is often seen in the English media, Sky News jokingly declared the Welsh language “pointless.” 

The growing calls for independence are often waved away like a slightly rebellious child at a family gathering.

The historical illiteracy on Welsh-English relations is regularly demonstrated in commentary on the independence movement.

Simon Jenkins wrote last month that, unlike Scotland, “Wales has no great claim of maltreatment,” pointing to Henry VIII’s Acts of 1535 and 1542 where Wales was bought officially under English law.

Jenkins, like many others, seems to see Wales as a willing annex to England, but, like the other Celtic nations, Wales holds a bitter and oppressed history with the head of the union. 

Understanding the relationship between Wales and the Tudors is somewhat tricky. Henry Tudor, to become Henry VII, used this Welsh heritage to help rally thousands of Welsh troops to his side in the battle of Bosworth and defeat Richard III.

Whether he was exploiting these links to assure his victory, or genuinely striving for unity between the nations is debatable.

He did continue to use the Welsh emblems that were incorporated into his banner during the campaign, but it is notable that he did not repeal the penal laws against Wales which had been established in 1402.

For centuries Wales had resisted the numerous invasions which Britain had faced, including the Romans and the various Saxon tribes.

The Normans began attempts soon after the conquest of England but, overall, they were unsuccessful.

It wasn’t until two centuries later, in the late 13th century, that King Edward I saw more substantial success in subduing Wales under English control.

Numerous rebellions still arose, most famously that led by Owain Glyndwr.

The Glyndwr Rising would lead to the Penal Laws, which forbade Welshmen from bearing arms and holding senior public offices.

They also prohibited public assembly and limited the education of Welsh children and generally made the Welsh second-class citizens in their own country. 

Rather than repealing these laws, in the latter years of his reign, nearly 20 years after his victory at Bosworth, Henry VII allowed charters to be purchased, at the cost of £2,000 (a high price in those days) by lordships and principalities to bypass the laws for Welsh communities.

More widespread removal of the laws was, in part, implicit in the Acts of 1535 and 1542 which made the English and Welsh equal in the eyes of the law but they were not officially repealed until 1624.

The so-called Acts of Union in 1535 and 1542 were to cement not just the joining of England and Wales but the control of England over Wales.

They brought Wales under English law, destroying the remnants of Welsh political structures, and also declared all public administration was to be conducted in English rather than Welsh and banning Welsh from all public administration.

These changes would not begin to be repealed until well into the 20th century.

It is important to note that while the aristocracy saw a high degree of Anglicisation (along with associated benefits), in the general population the vast majority still spoke only Welsh and a wider spread of English was not seen until the end of the mid-1800s.

The class-based division of the language led to the association of Welsh-speakers as poor and uneducated, an opinion further entrenched by the ‘Brad y Llyfray Gleision’ or “Treachery of the Blue Books.”

The report went as far to call the Welsh language an “evil” which is a “vast drawback to Wales, and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people.”

Contrary to the report’s findings, Wales in fact saw high levels of literacy from the 1700s, mostly thanks to the work of non-conformist education in the country which also came under fire in the Blue Books reports.

However, it still came to be that English became the official language taught in schools.

There is some evidence of corporal punishment for Welsh-speakers with the “Welsh Not” being enforced in schools at least in parts of the country.

The impact of Welsh being lost to at least a generation was significant, with Welsh shown to be a minority language in the 1911 census and spoken by less than half the population, around a 50 per cent decrease.

This marked decrease in just 60 years was also influenced by the influx of English workers during the Industrial Revolution, where Wales was one of the principal regions for iron, coal and slate in Britain. 

In many ways the situation for Wales in the late 20th and 21st century reflects the same fortunes as the ex-industrial regions of the rest of Britain.

Communities across England (particularly the north) and Wales have been largely abandoned by Westminster and now face poverty and unemployment.

The levels of industrialisation in Wales have left a comparable issue of income inequality. Wales has a higher proportion of low-paid jobs compared to most of the rest of the UK, as well as lower median wage and higher unemployment rates.

While the modern history of Wales may be considered another part of the history of the exploited working class by the rich in Britain, particularly considering the benefits that Welsh aristocracy did reap from the Henry VIII’s Acts of Union, a different flavour of bitterness arises from the unequal relationship in the first of England’s many colonies.

This identity lives in the words we use, “Welsh” deriving from the Anglo-Saxon for “foreigner,” while “Cymru” is “countrymen.” 

Although the 20th century saw advancements for equality and preservation of the Welsh language as well as eventual devolution of some powers to the Welsh Parliament (Senedd Cymru), it also saw continued exploitation of the land and people, such as the displacement of the community in Mynydd Epynt by the Ministry of Defence and the flooding of the Afon Tryweryn valley, containing the primarily Welsh-speaking village of Capel Celyn, to create a reservoir to supply Liverpool.

There seems to be a fairly common opinion that any animosity between England and Wales began and ended in the 1500s, but a fundamentally unequal relationship has continued into the present day, particularly towards the common people.

Despite the time that has passed since the English conquest centuries of additional injustices and suppression have continued and a significant number of the Welsh population continue to desire their liberty, which may become more pronounced in the lead-up and aftermath to this year’s Senedd election.

Whether independence is the answer or not, patronising dismissals of this impulse are often thin veils for a continuing sense of English superiority and will not help in holding together a struggling union or an idea of Britishness which perhaps never truly existed.

This is intended as an overview of some of the history of Wales and England which has often seemed overlooked. For further discussions on this topic you may interested in the following:

Gafael Tir (http://gafaeltir.cymru/en/home/) perform shows exploring the history of y werin (“the Welsh common folk”) from the medieval period to the present day. Recordings of their recent online shows are available on their website in both Welsh and English, and are highly entertaining, informative and include wonderful songs throughout.

Michael Sheen’s interview with Owen Jones (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxs64FRSkDY&t=4s) and his talk for the 2017 Annual Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbVdA7zS8dE) raise interesting and provocative points on Welsh identity.

Of course, the work of Raymond Williams himself also deals with many aspects of Welsh social and cultural history.