11th June, 2024 in History, Local & Family History

Has the dragon become a daffodil?

By Chris Butler

Our national history helps shape our personal identity, but history does not accrete like permanent stratigraphic layers. Serendipitous research can sometimes shatter received assumptions, and we may find that we are not quite the product of a past that was taught to us. Chris Butler author of 100 Reasons to Celebrate Welsh History discusses the literature and politics from Welsh history.

Consider these three commendations written by English authors – sequentially, A. N. Wilson, Philip Toynbee and Winston Churchill:

“The greatest English novelist of his generation”

“The greatest… poet in the English language”

“The greatest Englishman who ever lived”

These tributes were, in order, to John Cowper Powys, Dylan Thomas and T. E. Lawrence all of whom had Welsh rather than English roots. These are not the only examples of mis-attributed praise. In 1996, The Vagina Monologues were represented as a revolutionary liberation for women to celebrate their genitals. In fact, the Welsh poetess, Gwerful Mechain from mid-Wales had blazed that trail in the 15th century. The Welsh erotic poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym had done much the same for the nether male anatomy in the 14th century. It took hundreds of years for Anglo-Saxons to smash the equivalent boundaries.

Again, it is commonly asserted that the re-establishment of commercial wine-making in the UK was in 1952 – the pioneer viticulturist being identified as Major General Sir Guy Salisbury-Jones at Hambledon in Hampshire. No, the first commercial winery since the Middle Ages was based around Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch in 1881 in south Wales under the tutelage of the 3rd Marquess of Bute.

Is there a pattern here of underplaying the achievements of Welsh history? The English historian, A. N. Wilson, thinking the Welsh cupboard was bare, once wrote: “The Welsh have never made any significant contribution to any branch of knowledge, culture or entertainment”. Welsh Nationalist historians have not supplied sufficient ant-venom, because, macerated in their own misery, they have chosen to highlight Roman, Norman and Saxon oppression followed by capitalist exploitation. The acclaimed Welsh singer, Cerys Matthews, asserts: “Every day when I wake up, I thank the Lord I’m Welsh”. The time has come to give her 100 confident reasons to celebrate her Welshness.