C)68 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1805. 



*' breathed the common air : these 

 " have neither opportunity nor in- 

 " clination to learn any other 

 " tongue. Tills is the impregnable 

 <' fortress of the Welsh language, 

 " where a riveted, cordial anti- 

 •' pathy against the English tongue, 

 *' caused by the cruelties of Edward 

 <' 1. and of the Lancastrian family, 

 *' dwells as commander in chief, 

 " storm this garrison, and over-turn 

 " Snowdon from its base !"* 



Some Transactions of the Civil Wars. 

 From an original 3IS. 



On Saturday the 1st of April, 

 1643, by his Majesty's immediate 

 command, I was sent to Oxford, to 

 wait upon Prince Maurice, in his ex- 

 pedition against Sir William Waller. 

 I found his highness the same night 

 at Shudeley (Sudley^ castle, and 



waited upon him unto Tewkesbury; 

 thence, on the 9th, Iwas dispatched 

 by his highness, with authority and 

 instructions to persuade, or other- 

 wise to seduce, some in Brecknock 

 and Radnorshires, and especially in 

 Monmouthshire (who were named 

 and accused to be averse to his ma- 

 jesty's service) and to countenance 

 others, his well-aifectecl, loyal sub- 

 jccts ; and that done, to lie upon 

 the back of Sir William Waller, so 

 to hinder, as far as might, he, his ad- 

 vantages of passing further, that 

 South Wales might be secured, and 

 he inclosed ; for which purpose his 

 highness gave me, out of his own 

 forces, about eighty horse, and about 

 one hundred dragoons, to which I 

 was to join, as occasion served, 

 three companies of Colonel Herbert 

 Price's regiment (whereof two lay 

 at Abergavenn>', and the third at 

 Hereforde) and about an hundred of 

 Colonel Coningsby's regiment. 



With the aforesaid horse and dra- 

 goones, and two of the latter com- 

 panies, 



fl 



« Of the truth of the Ccruelties) said to have been inflicted by Ed%vard I. on the 

 bards, funnel- than proscribing the profession of bardism, there seems great doubt. 

 Aljowins;, however, all that have been alledged to him, in their fullest extent, to be 

 true, these cruelties cannot surely be adduced as just cause for observations., so 

 illiberal, as the above against the present English, living five liundred years after 

 the supposed date of thfsc events. In the lower orders of the Welsh, such 

 prejudices might be ovcr-lnoked, from their ignorance, and the want of knowing 

 better: but from an intclli>rcnt writer, (and a clergyman,) these, and remarks like 

 the following, thouuh too illilieral to wound our feehngs, are certainly inexcusable : 

 "This mode of builciquina the Welsh (for the wrong pronunciation of some 

 « English words,) originated in the ridicule with which the Saxon victors treated 

 « theTr conquered vassals; and which is still carried on, in spite of reason and 

 «' liberality, by the folly and ignorance of the descendants of our once insulting 

 « foes." 



The " boorishness" of the Enghsh peasantry, "has no rival; and of their 

 " ignorance, a clergyman of their own gives us satisfaction, who, a few years ago, on 

 " coming to his paribh within twenty miles of the metropolis, could get no answer 

 " from several of his parishioners, to a very plain question, viz. 'Who was Christ?' 

 " Can we find such ignorance in Wales, the Wilds of Ireland, or the Highlands 

 " of Scotland ?" Sec a statistical account of the parish of Llanymynech in 

 Montgomeryshire, by the rev. Walter Davis, of Mcivod, inserted in the Cambrian 

 Register, i. 280. 



