Welsh People Possessed a Sense Common Heritage Essay -- Welsh history

In the introduction to the course, Gareth Elwyn Jones states that "the specifics of the history of Wales have compelled its people to conceive of nationhood in quite different terms [to those of other nations]† , these other terms are â€Å"a sense of community, language, culture and a feeling of common heritage† . The course as a whole can then be considered as a brief investigation into these expressions of Welsh national identity. Perhaps Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was attempting to ossify these ephemeral qualities in the late thirteenth century when, in the words of Rees Davies, he sought "to convert the primacy of Gwynedd among the native dynasties into the leadership of a united native Wales whose status as a separate and unitary principality would be acknowledged by the English Crown† , although Davies has to concede that Llywelyn’s efforts were restricted to the â€Å"pura Wallia [of] the unconquered parts of Wales† , referring to those parts of the country that had so far avoided assimilation into Anglo-Norman England in the preceding two centuries. Llywelyn was ultimately unsuccessful, perhaps in large part because the ‘Wales’ that he sought to build was his personal dynastic and political goal of the nation, and was not a goal held nor supported by many of his immediate contemporaries, including his brother . Similarly, Davies’s interpretation of the Edwardian conque st of Wales has not been accepted wholesale, Antony Carr rejects Davies’s notion that Edward’s conquest was a â€Å"national disaster† and reminds us that "for most people the new regime meant little change and the traditional leaders of the community retained their power and influence. Indeed, in some ways Gwynedd may have been better off under Edward than it had been und... ...A182 Block 1 Introduction: Wales and history, Milton Keynes, The Open University, 2009. Williams, G., ‘Religion and belief’ in Barlow, H. (ed.) (2009) Small Country, Big History: Themes in the History of Wales – The Reader, Milton Keynes, The Open University. Jones, G.E. ‘Tudor Wales’, http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/3805/!via/oucontent/course/82/tudor_wales.pdf, accessed 11 January 2011. Jones, G. E. ‘Wales 1880 – 1914’, http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/3805/!via/oucontent/course/82/wales1880_1914.pdf, accessed 11 January 2011 Thomas, P. D.G., http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/3805/!via/oucontent/course/82/theremakingofwalesintheeighteenthcentury.pdf, accessed 11 January 2011. Williams, G. A., ‘Beginnings of Radicalism’, http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/3805/!via/oucontent/course/82/beginningsofradicalism.pdf, accessed 11 January 2011