Royalism, Religion and Revolution: Wales, 1640-1688

• Published in: Seventeenth-century news Vol. 80; no. 3/4; pp. 175 - 178
• Main Author: Schwyzer, Philip
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: College Station Seventeenth-Century News 01.10.2022
• Subjects: 17th century; Antiquarian materials; Culture; Families & family life; Religion; Traditions; United Kingdom > UK; Wales

Lloyd went on to quote the words of the storied Old Man of Pencader, who informed an invading English king that though he might triumph temporarily, no other people than the Welsh and no other language would answer for Wales on the Day of Judgment. Yet, Ward Clavier argues, there is little evidence of a defensive or "emotional response" to such barbs before 1642, when the outbreak of Civil War unleashed a flood of pamphlets mocking the Welsh, who were overwhelmingly loyal to Charles I. Such smug parliamentarian satires may well have helped to confirm the Welsh gentry in their royalism (though it was never really in doubt), as well as exacerbating a sense of ethnic division from the English. With their extensive and eclectic libraries, their interest in family and regional tradition, and even their eagerness, in some cases, to cultivate the last of the bards, seventeenth-century gentry families such as the Mostyns and the Wynns provided a bridge between the purported eclipse of native Welsh traditions in the preceding period and the Romantic 'revival' of those traditions in the next century.