WALES | The Power of Place

A Welsh estate and the family
that lived there.

Wales has always puzzled me. I used to go through it six times a year, on my way from Dublin to Yorkshire when I was at school at Ampleforth College in 1952-55.

It was difficult to figure out how to pronounce some of the place names, or how to remember their spelling. They seemed to belong to some medieval travel book.

As Thomas More said to Richard Rich in “A Man For All Seasons”: “It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . but for Wales?”

I have been spending time with two recent books that have helped me focus on understanding the importance of Wales.

Nannau

The first book is by Philip Nanney Williams, about his family estate, Nannau, in Wales and the people who lived there. https://bit.ly/2CHO3Zc.

As I have read the book, and some other sources to fill in my huge ignorance about Wales, I begin to understand that Wales was never a consolidated nation like England, but rather a collection of Celts who fled to Wales after the Norman Conquest. They were somewhat protected by protected by the topology of the land, their language, and their decentralized structure.

One of my questions about Wales has been: Why is it not represented in the Union Jack? Scotland and then Ireland are woven into the St. George's Cross through the saltires of St Andrew (blue) and St Patrick (red).

My epiphany was learning that it was a Welshman, Henry VII, who conquered Richard III and founded the Tudor dynasty, taking in Henry VIII and Elizabeth I with a few more Tudors in between. These royals laid the foundation for modern Britain and Wales can take pride in that. At Oxford and Cambridge, the dividing line between the "old" and the "new" colleges is the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, 1603.

Welshman Henry VII brought together the Houses of Lancaster and York that had been warring with one another. Though proud to be a Welshman, he never looked back and became a strong English monarch. His son Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church, his daughter Mary I became England's first queen, seeking to restore Catholicism, and Henry VIII's daughter Elizabeth I in her long, tolerant reign shaped modern Britain.

Marians on the Mawddach

Paul Walton with his book.

The other book is by Paul Walton, Marians on the Mawddach, about his Welsh school, St. Mary's, named for Queen Mary I, the Counter-Reformation Catholic Queen.

The Marians are the students and alumni of St. Mary's.