EMINENT WELSHMEN.
[To THIS EDITOR OF TUE "SPEOTATOR."1 SIR,—May I add a few names of "eminent Welshmen " to those enumerated by the Rev. W. G. E. Rees and Mr. Alfred Nutt in your last issue P Asser, the friend and counsellor of Alfred, was Bishop of St. David's. The Geraldiues who conquered Ireland were Welsh on the mother's side, Gerald of Windsor having married the Princess Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr of South Wales. Giraldus Cambrensis, the father of " popular" literature in England ; Walter Map, the creator of Sir Galahad ; and Gregory of Monmouth were Welsh in spirit, origin, and language. Coming down to more
modern times, no one who is conversant with the inner history of the period will deny that Welshmen, or men of Welsh descent, were largely employed in the service of the State for two centuries after the battle of Bosworth. The Poles were the lineal descendants of the Princes of Powis. Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, was the grandson of Seisyllt
of Allt-yr-yuys. Mr. Rees is in error when he says that he "conducted his private correspondence in Welsh." There is one letter all in Welsh preserved at Hatfield which was addressed to Cecil from Rome in 1567 by Dr. Morris Clynog, the Bishop-elect of Bangor, and a facsimile of which was published by me in the 1903 Transactions of the Cymmrodorion Society. But probably the letter was written in Welsh so as to escape the vigilance of the English Catholics on the Continent, who were bent on compassing the destruction of Elizabeth. But that Cecil was proud of his Welsh descent is evidenced by the number of pedigrees which he drew up in his own hand, and which are still at natfield.
William Herbert, the first Earl of Pembroke of the last creation, was not only a Welshman, but Dr. Griffith Roberts, of Milan, in dedicating his " Welsh Grammar" to him (pub- lished in Milan in 1567), says that at Court the Earl always addressed his countrymen in Welsh. Lord Pembroke, though his fame has been overshadowed, was a great personage in his day, and it is doubtful if Mary or Elizabeth could have ascended the throne without his support. Nor indeed would Henry Tudor have stood much chance of winning the English crown without the aid of Rhys ap Thomas, the ancestor of the present Lord Dynevor, who led fifteen hundred men to the field.
The most famous British adventurer who fought against
Philip of Spain in the Netherlands was Sir Thomas Morgan, of the ancient house of Tredegar. A relative of the same name was secretary to Mary Queen of Scots, and the director of all the Catholic plots against Elizabeth. Still another fought for the Parliament against Charles I., and General Monk would not have dared recall Charles II. had he not first of all secured the support of General Morgan, the soldiers' favourite leader. Another Morgan, " the Buccaneer," by his successful raids established the power of England in the West Indies and helped to save Jamaica, our first Crown Colony.
At home your correspondents make no mention of John Penry, of Martin Marprelate fame ; of John Roberts, the refounder and proto-martyr of the English Benedictine Order, Father Leander Jones, and Father Augustine Baker, the most learned English Catholic of the age ; of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose racy fragment of autobiography shows him to be a fine type of an adventurous " O'Flynn," whose exploits would have been told in song and story had
he chanced to be horn a Scot or an Irishman ; of Howell of the " Letters " ; of John Owen, the epigrammatist ; of Thomas Treharne, who with George Herbert and Henry Vaughan formed a trinity of great devotional poets; of General Michael Jones and John Jones, the regicide ; and of Sir Leoline Jenkins, Secretary of State to Charles II. The list of great lawyers of the period is too long to give here. Among them were Sir W. Williams, the Attorney-General who led for the prosecution in the trial of the Seven Bishops, and the ancestor of Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn ; Trevor, Speaker of the House of Commons and Master of the Rolls ; and the notorious Lord Chancellor, Jeffreys. General Cadogan, Marlborough's right-hand man, and Dyer, the poet, were Welsh. It is a tedious business to go through a list of names, but I cannot refrain from mentioning the names of G. F. Watts and William Morris. What people like your correspondent " C. B." forget is that up to a century and a half ago Wales only had a population of a quarter of a million. She was a poor country,—probably the poorest part of the United Kingdom. At the Reformation she was almost entirely deprived of educational institutions, and she was allowed to relapse into paganism by the State Church. It was only when the Puritan movement, followed in the next century by the Methodist revival, stirred the people to a new energy that Wales began to reassert herself. With the marvellous growth of educational facilities which has marked the history of the last half-century Wales is enjoying for the first time the opportunity of playing her part in world-affairs.—I am, Sit, &c.,
House of Commons.
W. LLEWELYN 'WILLIAMS.
[We cannot publish any more letters on this subject.—En. Spectator.]
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