Wales - a country?

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

This one may cause me trouble.

I am struggling here. The question I asked myself was, ‘Was Wales ever a country until the English defined it as such?’

A glance at its history will show that from earliest times it was pretty much like anywhere else – a ragbag of little kingdoms whose borders changed with war and marriages. Sure there were big areas like Gwynedd and Deheubarth and others but they were no more Wales than Mercia and Wessex were England.

Now Llywelyn the Great was the first guy to style himself ‘Prince of Wales.’ I concede that he was the premier prince in Wales and that the princes or kings of other areas paid homage to him. However, at that time, there were parts of the area still run by English barons, so it ain’t a country as we know it today.

The next and last guy to style himself ‘Prince of Wales’ was Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the grandson of the above. His power base like his predecessors was in Gwynedd and whole chunks of the south were ruled by English Marcher Lords. Large parts of central England pushed well into Wales as we know it today.

So the wars continued and eventually in 1267, we had the Treaty of Montgomery in which Henry III recognised Llywelyn as Prince of Wales.

Finally in 1284, we had the Statute of Rhuddlan (aka Statute of Wales) and that subjugated Wales to England in perpetuity. Edward I built his castles and that was that.

I have read many references on this subject and the conclusion is simple. Wales as we know it today was never a fully united country in the past and its present boundaries were defined by the English. I blame Offa from my home town, Tamworth. He had the Dyke built and said, 'OK you lot to the West are Wales, got it?' Would they ever have got that idea by themselves, I wonder.

We should have disabused them of the whole idea. It would have saved a lot of moaning.