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.

WW2: Baedeker Raids Start, Apr 23, 1942

Target Handbook for
 the Baedeker Raids, 1942.

Apr 23, 2017—This day in 1942 Germans began their “Baedeker Raids” on England, bombing several medieval cities. Almost 1,000 English civilians were killed in the bombing attacks.

Unlike the earlier bombings of English cities in 1940-41, which were strategic, to kill civilians and destroy buildings to weaken  the English public's will to fight with Germany, the April-June 1942 bombings of cities were targeted at historic cities. They were a retaliation for the RAF raid on the German port of Lübeck on March 28, when 234 British bombers destroyed 2,000 buildings, killed 312 civilians and left 15,000 Lübeck residents homeless.

In reprisal, the Luftwaffe attacked English cathedral cities. The Germans called their air attacks “Baedeker Raids” for the German publisher of its famed tourist guidebooks. Exeter was the first city to be attacked. Much of the city was damaged and 70 people were killed. Baron Gustav Braun von Sturm of the Luftwaffe said: “’We shall go out and bomb every building in Britain marked with three stars in the Baedeker Guide." The task was given to Luftflotte 3.

Exeter was bombed again twice in the next fortnight. Bath was attacked April 25 and 26, York on April 28 resulting in the destruction of 15th-century Guildhall, and Norwich on April 27 and 29. The RAF then launched a "1000 Bomber" raid on Cologne (Köln). The Luftwaffe responded by targeting Canterbury, which was bombed on May 31, June 2 and June 6. It was reminiscent of Mahatma Gandhi's statement: "An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind."

Despite the tit-for-tat vandalism, Oxford and Cambridge were spared. Oxford is on any three-star list in England. Dr Malcolm Graham, Head of Oxfordshire Studies at Westgate Library, in his book Oxfordshire At War, says that Oxford's escape from Baedeker raids "has never been satisfactorily explained."

Oxford had been one of the cities included in the invasion plans for 1940, which included only central Oxford, not the farther-out Morris Radiators factory on Woodstock Road or the Cowley works. A squadron of Heinkel III bombers was reportedly on its way to obliterate Morris Radiators and probably Cowley on August 30, 1940. It was attacked by RAF fighters and turned back, and no second attempt to bomb Cowley was tried.

See also: Why didn't Hitler bomb Oxford?