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LadyEllen -> RE: Independence for Wales - NOW! (10/15/2008 2:19:22 AM)
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Gothgirl - the earliest history is confused. The traditional view is that the English arrived here as mercenaries hired by the British (generally thought to be the Welsh, but actually a whole load of tribes) when the Romans left, to fight off the Picts (a wild people believed to be from Scotland, though no trace of them remains). The English mercenaries did the job and beat the Picts off, but then they thought what a nice place Britain was and saw how weak the natives were and sent for their families and kinsfolk, who duly arrived, whereupon they began conquering the place for themselves, driving the British into the far south west (Cornwall and Devon, once known as south Wales), forcing some to take ship to Britanny (northern France) and forcing others back into what is now Wales in the west and Cumbria (which means Wales) and Dumfries in the south of Scotland.
This traditional view sets the stage for the sort of nationalistic urges and resentments that can rear their heads from time to time. But in more recent times it would seem the evidence points to something very different to conquest - an orderly progression of settlement moving from the south and east to the west, and a mixing of the two peoples and their cultures through common habitation. The natives took the English language, tools and weapons (the English swords of the time were as well made and deadly as Samurai blades a thousand years later), the newcomers took on Christianity and the remnants of the Roman culture attached to it.
This second account totally undoes the traditional, Victorian view of things - a view which was as much generated by nationalist causes and a Romantic fascination with folkish things that was common in Europe as a whole - and which in Germany became later bound up in the ideas of the national socialists. It also undoes the idea of the English as some ravening horde intent on killing and enslaving and plundering.
Throughout almost the entirety of this settlement period though, there was no England as such. The place was made up of small kingdoms, in competition, trade and occasionally at war with one another. The local kingdom where I live was Mercia, which stretched across nearly the whole of the centre part of England - it bordered what is now Wales and guess what, this English kingdom was allied with the Welsh against the others. The last pagan king was the king of Mercia, Penda - a Welsh name.
The Vikings' arrival changed that picture - again the traditional view is that they slaughtered and plundered their way across the island; they certainly did some of that, but its notable that the English women preferred Viking men because they washed regularly! English men didnt wash regularly since becoming Christian, since washing was regarded as potentially sinful due to its associations with the Roman bath houses and what went on there. Again, whilst there was undoubtedly war, the Vikings settled down here as farmers in the north of England, as well as in Ireland (Wexford, Waterford and Dublin are Viking cities), the southwest of Wales (Milford Haven is a Viking placename) and in various places in Scotland.
We are a mixed up bunch in other words!
But the trouble really only starts with those other Vikings, the Normans. Their kings first ravaged England when William the Bastard defeated Harold Godwinson at Hastings, then over the following centuries went on to do the same to Wales, Scotland and Ireland. It is this period, starting in the early Middle Ages from which the trouble starts and by which the view of the English by their neighbours is made so poor - and it wasnt even the English that did it - it was the Normans! And, sad to say perhaps, it was the same bunch of bastards that were still ruling the place in later centuries that did more of the same - to the Scots, to the Welsh, most especially to the Irish - and would you believe it, to the English too.
As to the "Prince Of Wales" thing - it was a Norman trick, so I'm told, to force the Welsh to acknowledge a Norman as their rightful and legal overlord and to relegate Wales to a Norman fiefdom.
E
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