every direction, and in the end changed the speech of the natives from Welsh to English, in town, village, hamlet, farmstead, and cottage. The castles manned by Englishmen were many, and they had been planted at every important centre of population. The religious societies in abbey and monastery were thickly scattered over the face of the county, and to a great extent probably the mission of monk and priest was to teach English. The way to office, to commercial success, and wealth, to municipal and political and ecclesiastical distinction, was through English. As a consequence the change was rapid and thorough. In "English Pembrokeshire " Welsh ceased to be a spoken language probably long before the Reformation. The amalgamation of the two races was perfect, and the amalgamated race inherited the animosities and hatreds of the Norman invaders and their English mercenary troops.

Radnorshire presents to us a case perhaps the most interesting, and certainly the most significant of all. Its English boundary is scarcely more extensive than that of Montgomery. It stretches to within twenty miles of the Irish sea. The mountains are very numerous, and, comparatively speaking, very high, and the population, which is extremely sparse, is cut off by the mountains and the rivers almost as much from the rest of Wales as from England. The only considerable towns are at the extremes of the county, which, taken as a whole, is, it might be held, perfectly isolated. The population generally is exceedingly poor. Two-thirds of the whole of the land was waste within living memory. Since the Norman Conquest there have been no wealthy resident gentry, except some one or two perhaps on the borders. Of a former owner of Abbey Cwm Hir it was said that he was the only man in the shire worth five hundred a year. Abbey Cwm Hir, itself situated at the base of the Montgomeryshire mountains, was the only religious foundation. But the influence of the English Barons, who from the earliest times dominated the neighbouring counties of Hereford and Brecon, and to whom Radnorshire fell an easy prey, seems to have given a bent in the direction of English to the language of the inhabitants. The market towns, which, with one exception, are on the English borders, contributed largely to the result throughout the centuries. The progress of the revolution, as might have been expected in the circumstances, was very slow, but also very sure. The bent once given, there was nothing to disturb from outside the growth of the English tongue. The civil wars of the seventeenth and the Welsh religious revival in the eighteenth century exerted scarcely any influence. The population was too small, straggling, and poor to attract the armies of King or Parliament in the one period, or the leaders of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists in the other. Lewis Morris, about 1757,

wrote to the effect that near Penybont the population spoke better Welsh and much better English than their neighbours in Montgomeryshire. He notes the fact, however, that the children were taught Welsh first. At the church of Beguildy, on the borders of Shropshire, service in Welsh was occasionally performed down to 1730. About 1757, during Lewis Morris's visit, the language at New Radnor was Welsh. In 1743 Glascwm had been for some time bilingual. At St. Harmon's Church, near Rhayadr, Welsh service was occasionally continued to about 1850.*

The progress of the conflict of the languages can be traced step by step. Where Radnor bordered on the Marches, in 1587 the people all spoke English. In 1757 Penry's words would have been equally true of Penybont, in the middle of the county. In 1850 Welsh was finally expelled from the parish church of St. Harmon's, on the confines of Cardiganshire. Of all the counties with the exception of Cardigan, Merioneth, Carnarvon, and Anglsea, Radnorshire presented the least promising ground for the successful introduction of English. In face of the history of Radnorshire, Gower, and English Pembroke, the difficulty is to explain the reason why Glamorgan, Brecon, Carmarthen, Welsh Pembroke, Montgomery, Flint, and the greater part of Denbigh, with their many castles and religious houses and towns, all dominated for centuries by the Norman and the Saxon, are not exclusively English in speech to-day.

What is known of the higher education of the Welsh in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is perfectly consistent with Penry's picture. In a paper which I read in London in the spring of last year, I gave the evidence from which I drew the conclusion that previous to 1640 the clergy and gentry had been educated at the grammar schools, the great public schools of England, and the two ancient universities. Books of the first importance written in Latin and English by Welshmen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be reckoned by hundreds on the shelves of the Welsh Library at the South Wales College. When Oxford was in the greatest confusion at the close of the wars a considerable proportion of the members of the University bore Welsh names. I have given elsewhere the names of nearly one hundred and fifty Welsh Doctors of Divinity, Bachelors of Divinity, and Fellows of Colleges flourishing from 1628 to the middle of the last half of the century. It is pretty certain that the clergy and gentry generally were graduates. I calculate that nearly a third of the undergraduates at Jesus

*For these interesting particulars the writer is indebted to the kindness of Canon Latham Bevan, of Hay.

College, not to speak of other colleges, between 1630 and 1650 were described as of plebeian origin. At the Record Office there remain the English MS. letters of many thousands of the Welsh landholders who suffered from fines, decimations, and sequestrations. The language of these letters is clear, pointed, terse, and idiomatic. In these papers there is nothing to distinguish them from similar compositions of the county gentry of England at the time. Of the lesser gentry, very many who had not received a university training became exceedingly prominent in London, men of the stamp of Colonel Phillip Jones, John Jones, the Regicide, Rowland Dawkins, Rees Williams, of Newport, and Henry Williams, of Montgomery. I have not come across a single intimation that they compared unfavourably with prominent English Parliamentarians. From 1558 for more than one hundred years Wales supplied a comparatively greater number of bishops to the English and Welsh Episcopal Bench than any other portion of the kingdom. From the time of Henry VII. the State papers record the names of an extremely large number of Welshmen who held high official positions in every public department in England. The facts were not overlooked by the English writers of the time, including the famous Camden, who as master of Westminster School had educated a great many Welsh boys. "Since the Welsh," he says, 66 were admitted to the Imperial Crown of England, they have to their just praise performed all the parts of dutiful loyalty and allegiance most faithfully thereunto; plentifully yielding martial captains, judicious civilians, skilful common lawyers, learned divines, complete courtiers, and adventurous soldiers."

For the agencies which produced the results which I have tried to describe we must look partly to the castles and the monasteries in pre-Reformation times, and in subsequent years to the grammar schools and the established clergy, and in all ages to the influence of the Court, of the professions, and of commerce. The English language opened the way to wealth and distinction, and during many generations a movement such as we have of recent years observed in Norway and Switzerland prevailed in Wales. Of all the influences, however, the castles with their English mercenary troops and retainers were the mightiest. That the Norman lords were followed by hosts of English persons of all sorts and conditions is amply proved by documents still extant. Harleian MS., 1220, written in the time of Elizabeth, puts the case clearly enough: "And the said Lords," says the writer, "espying out the best and most fertile parts in each county, builded them castles for themselves and towns for their own soldiers and countrymen which came with them to remain near about them as their guard, and to be

always ready to keep under such of the country inhabitants as would offer to rebel."*

The number of the castlest has been given as nearly one hundred and fifty, distributed for the most part over nine counties. In the land from the Teivy to Holyhead the influence of the Lords Marchers was much less than in all other parts of the Principality. Where are the ruins of the strongholds of the Welsh Princes? I am not able at this moment to point to the ruins of more than one or two Welsh castles held as against the Normans. On the other hand I know of no considerable ancient town which does not contain the remains of Norman castles-always excepting some of the towns of Cardigan, Merioneth, Carnarvon, and Anglesea. But even in those counties we have the castles of Cardigan, Aberystwith, Harlech, Criccieth, Carnarvon, Beaumaris, Bangor, Conway, &c., and a very considerable number of remains of religious houses besides.

But in the course of ages the castles which had been a source of oppression and terror became the centres of protection.

* The MS. proceeds thus :-"Where the lords parted the Englishmen that came with them and gave them lands, the Welsh customs were not used; but they held all their lands according to the laws of England, and the eldest son had the whole inheritance, and for this cause in many lordships there is a Welsh Court for the Welshmen by themselves, where their Welsh customs were observed, and the Englishmen had another court in part for themselves, and in common speech among them. The one part is yet to this day called Englisherie, and the other part the Welsherie; examples hereof you will find in Gower, where is the Englisherie and the Welsherie; in Mid-Glamorgan, Coyty Anglicana and Coyty Wallicana; Avon Anglicana and Avon Wallicana; English Talgarth and Welsh Talgarth; and in Pembrokeshire is the like; also in Formisoca, Kydwely Anglicana and Commota Kydwely Wallicana; in Llanstephan, Dominium Anglicanum and Dominium Wallicanum, and in many other lordships in Wales," &c. Again, "It seemeth that there was no lord marcher without a castle, and his charge was to keep a sufficient garrison to suppress those of the country of Wales that should seem to arise and annoy the King's subjects. And, therefore, it seemeth that all those little towns, whereof we see many in Wales, were built close to most castles to keep those garrisons, and the ancient inhabitants of all those towns were Englishmen kept of purpose by the lords, as a trusty garrison of his own countrymen, to subdue those of the country at such time as they should offer any revolt as before is said, which appeareth by that it was enacted by Parliament anno 4th Henry IV., cap. 32, that the garrisons of castles and walled towns in Wales should be sufficiently provided and stored with valiant English persons, strangers to the seignories, where the said castles should be set," &c.

In Glamorganshire there were at least thirty castles, viz. :-Caerphilly, Cardiff, Peterston, St. George, St. Mary, Beaupre, St. Donat's, Ogmore, Coyty, Fonmon, Llanblethian, Neath, Swansea, Oystermouth, Old Castle, Penard, Castell Coch, East Orchard, West Orchard, Sully, Oxwich, Penrice, Wenvoe, Talyfan, Llancaidle, Llantrisant, Leckwith, and Porthkerry. There were at least nine abbeys and monasteries :-Neath Abbey, Cardiff Black Friars Convent, Cardiff Grey Friars Convent, Cardiff White Friars Convent, Swansea, Margain, Ewenny, Llantwit Major, and Llancarvan.

In Flint there were at least fourteen castles :-Rhuddlan, Diserth, Gannock, Prestatyn, Basingwerk, Holywell, Flint, Eulo, Mold, Bryncoed, Caergwrle, Hawarden, Hanmer, and Garmoc. The Flintshire Abbeys, &c., included St. Asaph Monastery, Rhuddlan (Black Monks), Holywell, Basingwerk Cistercian Abbey, Basingwerk Knights Templars, and Bangor Iscoed.

The English mercenaries intermarried with the native population. The municipalities grew under the shelter of the castle guns; and English became the language of local trade. It is impossible to over-estimate the influence wielded by foreign garrisons, abbeys, and monasteries planted at innumerable points on the richest lands North and South. Where the Norman castles were most numerous in the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries English mostly prevailed. Away from the castles and among the mountains the population throughout the ages probably clung to their ancient traditions and language. But the language itself bears almost as many marks of English influence as the mountains and the valleys. Two centuries and a half ago the castles which for ages had been held by Anglo-Norman barons and their English mercenary troops, and the abbeys and monasteries which were inhabited by monks and sisters who looked to the barons as their natural patrons and protectors, appear to have been no more characteristic of the Welsh landscape than English and Norman words were of the Welsh language as spoken by the native Welsh.

"

It will, I think, be found hereafter that Norman French words were never so numerous in the English language as English and Norman French words were in the Welsh of three hundred years ago. Mons. Barbier, the French lecturer at the South Wales College, at the request of the writer, has very kindly looked through Salesbury's Dictionary, and he finds that of the total vocabulary, some one thousand one hundred words may have been introduced into the Welsh direct from the French. In this connection the remark of Morus Kyffin in 1595 is interesting, "geiriau yn dyfod o'r Ffrangaec yw'r rhan fwyaf o'r rhai y mae'n hwy yn tybied eu bod yn Seisnigaidd "—" words which come from the French are the majority of those thought to be English." It is the fashion to doubt Kyffin's accuracy, but it is possible that Kyffin may be right and his critics wrong.. In the time preceding the Reformation English words were current in colloquial and not in literary Welsh. They had not found their way in any large numbers into the songs of the bards. Salesbury was a man of English education, and it is conceivable that he may have been ignorant of the history of the foreign words which he found in use among the Welsh peasantry, and he treated them all accordingly as if derived through the English language. On the other hand, Kyffin, who was probably a contemporary of Salesbury, and a man of unquestionable learning, may have been well aware of the real state of the case. We may place his express statement, based probably on exact knowledge, against the mere assertions of later writers. As it is, Salesbury's list certainly includes many French words which came into the