The
Sword, Pitchfork and Pike.
Towards a
Peoples Socialist History of Wales.
Introduction
Land and
Liberty Struggle.
Prior to the Owain Glyndwr led war of Welsh Independence 1400 –
1416 – 1421 Welsh Land was owned by Native and Anglo –
Norman Lords. The 1282 Conquest of Wales an subsquent Colonial Settlement that
establised a new Colonial and Collaborationist Order, much of Welsh Land was
made over to the English Conquistadores and the new Borough Towns that were
associated with English Castle rule. In some areas as in Y Berfeddwlad
(Denbighshire) and on Ynys Mon there was large scale ethnic removals of the
Native Welsh as had occurred in earlier times in South Penfro and Vale of Glamorgan by the Normans
who had brought in and resettled Flemish Settlers. However, a broader and
larger Colonial settlement would not occur due to fact that the English were
recovering land from the Sea on their long East Coast and maybe English
population had taken a dip. Further has much of the newly conquored land of
North West and along the West Coast was not exactly that profitable to English
Lords the local petty Welsh Chiefs were allowed to retain as long as they paid
their taxes and made themselves willing servants of English Rule and the new
Colonial Collaborationist Order and thus for the coming 100 years plus Wales
was to be, I guess much same as ‘Vichy France’ during WWII.
This does not mean that
Wales was totally won over as by 1294 the so called 'Madog Revolt' proved not
only were there still some former Welsh Nobility and lesser Chiefs peeved with
the ‘New Order’ but so too were many Free Tribes Men as well as their Bond
population now being made to worker harder for less to help their native rulers
pay their taxes although in most cases as they were reduced to poverty renders where made of live stock and crops. In a native economy that was not used to ‘Money’ the
collection of taxes often unpaid often meant the Tax Collectors turning up with
a body of troops to collect what was deemed as being owed in kind. This meant
bassically taking the food out of ones mouth as Cattle, Pigs and Chickens were
taken but if this was not enough to provoke a Welsh Bad Temper then the
imposition of English Laws and then Conscription to fight in England’s Royal
Wars altogether was to create the tension and the circumstanes that would give
rise to the first Welsh National Revolt that may be seen as also the first
popular War of National Liberation in Wales giving a fore taste of what was to
come with The ‘Glyndwr War’ over a century later. Tax collection in hard times
as in 1315 – 16 with the Llywelyn Bren rebellion and 1344 – 45 troubles in
Northern Wales would also lead to a rise in the banditary of they who became
known as ‘Adar y Greim’ (the Birds of Crime), Outlaws who made the vast forests
of Wales their abode during the 14th Century.
This English rule with it’s
oppression and tyrrany over these years
promoted a growing discontent which with a ‘folk memory’ of tradional ledgend
and myth helped greatly to create a national identity of an ‘oppressed people’
waithing for a day of deliverence. Their deliverer ‘Mab Darogan’ was to be Owain Glyndwr and a number of Native Welsh Lords and
landed Gentry who by 16 Medi 1400 had decided they too had a guts ful of
English Rule and declared for a War of Independence. However, to fight such a
war an army was needed and in a land of about just 550.000 population where
many of it’s old Noble and Gentry class had sold out and made themselves
comfortable as Collaborators this could prove the undoing of the war that was
about to be but for one factor and that was over the 100 years previous the
coming into existance of a Colonial Underclass of impoverished native Freemen
and Welsh Bond familes and Anglo – Norman Serfs as well as those who had risen
to be made Tennants of the Anglo – Norman Lords of the Land. This ‘Colonial Underclass’
which included those with description as being ‘Workers’ such as Ieuan ap
Bleddyn of Ruthin who joined Glyndwr’s first great raid of 18 – 24 September
were to become the Footsoldiers of the War for most part quite a large Peasant
Army with out which the War would not have been sustained for as long as it
was. No doubt trained by Welsh Mercenaries returning from foreign wars on how
to be an effective Infantry and by ‘Adar y Greim’ in the ways of Guerrill
Warfare.
The ‘Glyndwr War’ was thus
as much possibly to some great extent a ‘Peasants War’, take for example Lord
Grey he had 184 serfs at start of the
War but only 8 in latter years of the war post 1416. Now multiply that across the
land regards the enslaved Under Class fleeing the land to join the war, in a
Peasants Army. I cannot see how else Glyndwr could have possibly risen such as
the great army need to take on a mighty English Military Machine, books there are
aplenty about the Glyndwr ‘War of Independence’, suffice I say that we may also
regard it as a War of National Liberation much a popular peasants uprising and
the shape of much to come from a people who had learnt to fight back even if
only armed with a Pitcfork or Pike. At eventual conclusion of this war, for the
‘Colonial Underclass’ there was no returning for most to normality as many
would still have a rebels price on their head as Robat ap Doe brought in as a
‘Rebel’ to Welshpool Castle in 1421 and there hung as many must have been
unless once again taking to the woods to become Outlaw Rebels of ‘Y Gwerin Owain ’ who would as ‘Banditti Cambria’ continue a
Welsh Rebel Resistance up to Tudor Times untill following the last Welsh Nobles
Revolt of 1529 and prior to the 1536 Act of Union, the Tudors sent into Wales
the ‘Hanging Judge’ Rowland Lee to pacify the land as as the Tudors were to
cull Welsh Ponies so to the last remaining ‘Outlaw Rebels’ were to be culled
too.
However, many of Glyndwr’s
‘Peasant Army’ and their familes would escape ‘English Injustice’ and avoid
further oppression and tyrrany by escaping to the margins of the uplands and
lesser desirable Common Land. In these margins of uplands and hidden valleys
they would set up their Tai Unnos and become a relativly ‘Free People’ as
example of those who became known as the Red Bandits of Dinas
Mawddwy . For much of the 16th Century many of
these People’ were left to get on with it, their land unwanted as the Gentry
had better choice pickings in ripping off the rewards of the Reformation and
Robbing blind the riches of the Medieval Religious Orders whom should be
regarded as no more than a form of medieval Corporate Capitalism. Over
time the occupation of the margins become more opportune for those who would
become Workers in lead mines of Ceredigion and in small slate Quarries as
‘Vagabond Quarrymen’ in Gwynedd or Lime stone Quarrymen in the South to supply
Lime for a growing Iron Industry. In these cases often as not ‘Tai Unnos’
Townships were established, often allowed and even encourged as in Gwynedd were
the poor were allowed to set up Tai Unnos and become small holders as thought
better than the expense of rate payers having to fund a local Work House.
Thus for a little while,
little trouble with each to it’s own the afore described peasntry just about
managing whilst the Welsh Genry got rich on the growing British Empire with a
fortune to be made form Tobacco and Suger along with it slaves. But this would
all lead post Tudor Times to the urbanisation of Britain and the early
development of Industry as Woollen Mills and with it a population boom that
required to be fed in a much greater and more efficient manner and to this end
arises the Enclosure laws that would greatly increase throughout Britain a
landless class of people forced to become ‘wage slaves’ or try and stick it out
as best as possible as still a ‘Free Peasantry’ but as often as not only if
they took to becoming the ‘People of the Pitchfork’ and resisted the enclosure
of their land. Such resistance is in Wales, generally a little known story in
public knowledge or imagination unless it is that of the ‘Rebecca Riots’ and 'Tithe Wars' which
as an appeal to the rural religious Small Farmer V Anglicised Gentry
Inheritance of our present day ‘Crachach Newydd’ and Cultural Nationalists but as far as far as the Resistance
of the ‘Underclass’ as of Pobl Ceffyl Pren 'Corn Rioters' and later 'Tarw Scotch' little is known and something needs to be done about thus we set out towards producing and making better known a
Peoples Socialist History of Land and Liberty Struggle. This will be done via The Great Unrest 'History Commission' in theory and via Cymdeithas Lewsyn yr Heliwr in practice of holding Commemorations of 'Workers Remembrance' as already began in blogs as:
CYMRWCH Y TIR YN OL/TAKE BACK THE LAND
Before Rebecca. D.V.Jones.
Hope and Heart Break Russell Davies.
Rural Revolt
TO BE CONTINUED.
