The
Sword, Pitchfork and Pike.
Towards a
Peoples Socialist History of Wales
Introduction
Land and Liberty
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 subsequent Colonial Settlement that established 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
This does not mean that
Wales was totally won over as by 1294 the was the so called Madog Revolt which 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. 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 basically
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 circumstances 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 banditry 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.
*
Interestingly, the conclusion of the Llywelyn Bren rebellion brought about much
‘theiving’ and along with it a rise in executions and in Cardiff so much so the
authorities bought in a good quantity of cheap rope for the hanging of thieves
and this becme known as the ‘Penny Rope’ and by the way each execution cost but
4pence.
This English rule with
it’s oppression and tyranny over these
years promoted a growing discontent which with a ‘folk memory’ of traditonal
ledgend and myth helped greatly to create a national identity of an ‘oppressed
people’ waiting for a day of deliverance. Their deliverer ‘Mab Darogan’ was to
be Owain Glyndwr and a number of
Native Welsh Lords and landed Gentry who on 16 Medi 1400 had decided they too
had a guts full of English Rule and declared for a War of Independence
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 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 Pitchfork 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 until 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 tyranny 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-nnos 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 up of 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 Corperate Capitalism. These Monastic Orders that came on the heels of the Normans were as huge Capitalist Corporations today, not undr any religious obligations to stop them stealing native 'Llan Land' and essentially for some three hundred years went about our country plundering it's natural wealth and agricultural produce. 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 encouraged 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 peasantry just about
managing whilst the Welsh Gentry got rich on the growing British Empire with a
fortune to be made from Tobacco and Sugar along with it slaves. But this would
all lead post Tudor Times to the urbanization of Britain and the early
development of Industry as Woolen 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’ which
as an appeal to the rural religious Small Farmer V Anglicised Gentry Inheritance
of our present day ‘Crachach Newydd’ but as far as far as the Resistance of the
‘Underclass’ little is known and something needs to be done about that but what?
any ideas that will help towards producing and making better known a Peoples
Socialist History of Land and Liberty Struggle let us know, not least if you
wish to be involved in the work of The Great Unrest History Commission or more
overtly active out and about with Cymdeithas Lewsyn yr Heliwr.
