Monday 11 November 2013

THE SWORD, THE PITCHFORK AND PIKE. Peoples Struggle in Welsh History.


The Sword, Pitchfork and Pike.

Towards a Peoples Socialist History of Wales.

Introduction

Land and Liberty Struggle.

Prior to the Owain Glyndwr led war of Welsh Independence 1400 – 1416 – 1421 Welsh Land was owned by Native and Anglo – Norman Lords. The 1282 Conquest of Wales an subsequent Colonial Settlement that established a new Colonial and Collaborationist Order much of Welsh Land was made over to the English Conquistadores and the new Borough Towns that were associated with English Castle rule. In some areas as in Y Berfeddwlad (Denbighshire) and on Ynys Mon there was large scale ethnic removals of the Native Welsh as had occurred in earlier times in South Penfro by the Normans who had brought in and resettled Flemish Settlers. However, a broader and larger Colonial settlement would not occur due to fact that the English were recovering land from the Sea on their long East Coast and maybe English population had taken a dip. Further has much of the newly conquered land of North West and along the West Coast was not exactly that profitable to English Lords the local petty Welsh Chiefs were allowed to retain as long as they paid their taxes and made themselves willing servants of English Rule and the new Colonial Collaborationist Order and thus for the coming 100 years plus Wales was to be, I guess much same as ‘Vichy France’ during WWII.


This does not mean that Wales was totally won over as by 1294 the was the so called Madog Revolt which proved not only were there still some former Welsh Nobility and lesser Chiefs peeved with the ‘New Order’ but so too were many Free Tribes Men as well as their Bond population now being made to worker harder for less to help their native rulers pay their taxes. In a native economy that was not used to ‘Money’ the collection of taxes often unpaid often meant the Tax Collectors turning up with a body of troops to collect what was deemed as being owed in kind. This meant basically taking the food out of ones mouth as Cattle, Pigs and Chickens were taken but if this was not enough to provoke a Welsh Bad Temper then the imposition of English Laws and then Conscription to fight in England’s Royal Wars altogether was to create the tension and the circumstances that would give rise to the first Welsh National Revolt that may be seen as also the first popular War of National Liberation in Wales giving a fore taste of what was to come with The ‘Glyndwr War’ over a century later. Tax collection in hard times as in 1315 – 16 with the Llywelyn Bren rebellion* and 1344 – 45 troubles in Northern Wales would also lead to a rise in the banditry of they who became known as ‘Adar y Greim’ (the Birds of Crime), Outlaws who made the vast forests of Wales their abode during the 14th Century.


* Interestingly, the conclusion of the Llywelyn Bren rebellion brought about much ‘theiving’ and along with it a rise in executions and in Cardiff so much so the authorities bought in a good quantity of cheap rope for the hanging of thieves and this becme known as the ‘Penny Rope’ and by the way each execution cost but 4pence.


This English rule with it’s oppression and tyranny over these  years promoted a growing discontent which with a ‘folk memory’ of traditonal ledgend and myth helped greatly to create a national identity of an ‘oppressed people’ waiting for a day of deliverance. Their deliverer ‘Mab Darogan’ was to be Owain Glyndwr and a number of Native Welsh Lords and landed Gentry who on 16 Medi 1400 had decided they too had a guts full of English Rule and declared for a War of Independence. However, to fight such a war an army was needed and in a land of about just 550.000 population where many of it’s old Noble and Gentry class had sold out and made themselves comfortable as Collaborators this could prove the undoing of the war that was about to be but for one factor and that was over the 100 years previous the coming into existence of a Colonial Underclass of impoverished native Freemen and Welsh Bond families and Anglo – Norman Serfs as well as those who had risen to be made Tenants of the Anglo – Norman Lords of the Land. This increasing ‘Colonial Underclass’ which included those with description as being ‘Workers’ such as Ieuan ap Bleddyn of Ruthin who joined Glyndwr’s first great raid of 18 – 24 September were to become the Foot soldiers of the War for most part quite a large Peasant Army with out which the War would not have been sustained for as long as it was. No doubt trained by Welsh Mercenaries returning from foreign wars on how to be an effective Infantry and by ‘Adar y Greim’ in the ways of Guerrilla Warfare.


The ‘Glyndwr War’ was thus as much possibly to some great extent a ‘Peasants War’, take for example Lord Grey he had 184 serfs  at start of the War but only 8 in latter years of the war post 1416. Now multiply that across the land regards the enslaved Under Class fleeing the land to join the war, in a Peasants Army. I cannot see how else Glyndwr could have possibly risen such as the great army to take on a mighty English Military Machine, books there are aplenty about the Glyndwr ‘War of Independence’, suffice I say that we may also regard it as a War of National Liberation much a popular peasants uprising and the shape of much to come from a people who had learnt to fight back even if only armed with a Pitchfork or Pike. At eventual conclusion of this war, for the ‘Colonial Underclass’ there was no returning for most to normality as many would still have a rebels price on their head as Robat ap Doe brought in as a ‘Rebel’ to Welshpool Castle in 1421 and there hung as many must have been unless once again taking to the woods to become Outlaw Rebels of ‘Y Gwerin Owain’ who would as ‘Banditti Cambria’ continue a Welsh Rebel Resistance up to Tudor Times until following the last Welsh Nobles Revolt of 1529 and prior to the 1536 Act of Union, the Tudors sent into Wales the ‘Hanging Judge’ Rowland Lee to pacify the land as as the Tudors were to cull Welsh Ponies so to the last remaining ‘Outlaw Rebels’ were to be culled too.


However, many of Glyndwr’s ‘Peasant Army’ and their familes would escape ‘English Injustice’ and avoid further oppression and tyranny by escaping to the margins of the uplands and lesser desirable Common Land. In these margins of uplands and hidden valleys they would set up their Tai-nnos and become a relativly ‘Free People’ as example of those who became known as the Red Bandits of Dinas Mawddwy. For much of the 16th Century many of these People’ were left to get on with it, their land unwanted as the Gentry had better choice pickings in ripping up of the rewards of the Reformation and Robbing blind the riches of the Medieval Religious Orders whom should be regarded as no more than a form of Corperate Capitalism. These Monastic Orders that came on the heels of the Normans were as huge Capitalist Corporations today, not undr any religious obligations to stop them stealing native 'Llan Land' and essentially for some three hundred years went about our country plundering it's natural wealth and agricultural produce. Over time the occupation of the margins become more opportune for those who would become Workers in lead mines of Ceredigion and in small slate Quarries as ‘Vagabond Quarrymen’ in Gwynedd or Lime stone Quarrymen in the South to supply Lime for a growing Iron Industry. In these cases often as not ‘Tai-Unnos’ Townships were established, often allowed and even encouraged as in Gwynedd were the poor were allowed to set up Tai-Unnos and become small holders as thought better than the expense of rate payers having to fund a local Work House.


Thus for a little while, little trouble with each to it’s own the afore described peasantry just about managing whilst the Welsh Gentry got rich on the growing British Empire with a fortune to be made from Tobacco and Sugar along with it slaves. But this would all lead post Tudor Times to the urbanization of Britain and the early development of Industry as Woolen Mills and with it a population boom that required to be fed in a much greater and more efficient manner and to this end arises the Enclosure laws that would greatly increase throughout Britain a landless class of people forced to become ‘wage slaves’ or try and stick it out as best as possible as still a ‘Free Peasantry’ but as often as not only if they took to becoming the ‘People of the Pitchfork’ and resisted the enclosure of their land. Such resistance is in Wales, generally a little known story in public knowledge or imagination unless it is that of the ‘Rebecca Riots’ which as an appeal to the rural religious Small Farmer V Anglicised Gentry Inheritance of our present day ‘Crachach Newydd’ but as far as far as the Resistance of the ‘Underclass’ little is known and something needs to be done about that but what? any ideas that will help towards producing and making better known a Peoples Socialist History of Land and Liberty Struggle let us know, not least if you wish to be involved in the work of The Great Unrest History Commission or more overtly active out and about with Cymdeithas Lewsyn yr Heliwr.

 G.Gruffydd



Thursday 10 October 2013

5 OCTOBER 2013 CHARTIST MURAL PROTEST and Not a Pitchfork and Pike in Sight Other Than On Great Unrest Banners - A ONE DAY RADICAL CALICO MURAL FOTO FEATURE.


cymrwchytirynol.blogspot.com/








Thursday 3 October 2013

NEWPORT INSURRECTION DAY SATURDAY 3 OCTOBER 2013 DEMONSTRATION AGAINST DESTRUCTION OF THE CHARTIST MURAL - people protest!



  1. Save Our Chartist Mural | Facebook

    https://www.facebook.com/SaveOurMural

    To connect with Save Our Chartist Mural, sign up for Facebook today. .... our demo next Saturday 5th October too: http://bit.ly/NewportInsurrection - the more the ...

  2. Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr

    greatunrest2012.blogspot.com/

    4 days ago - 12pm - Saturday 5th October - John Frost Square - Newport - High NoonInsurrection - to Save Newport Chartist Mural - be there to defend the ...

  3. Campaigners to march for Newport Chartist mural (From South ...

    www.southwalesargus.co.uk/.../10701044.Campaigners_to_march_for_...

    26 Sep 2013 - ... at noon on October 5, the same weekend as Newport's food festival. The mosaic mural off John Frost Square depicts the Chartist Uprising of ... Peter Rawcliffe, of the Save the Mural campaign, called it an 'insurrection' day.

  4. Save Newport Mural (SaveOurMural) on Twitter

    https://twitter.com/SaveOurMural

    Campaign to save the Newport Chartist Mural,a historic public art piece created by ...HOW ABOUT SOME INSURRECTION SLOGANS FOR OUR DEMO ... Goldie Lookin' Chain are giggin' in Swansea on 5th October - does anyone know them ...

  5. Asa Winstanley (AsaWinstanley) on Twitter

    https://twitter.com/AsaWinstanley

    Hello @AsaWinstanley There's demo to save Chartist Mural on Sat Oct 5th at 12 in ...Insurrection brewing in Wales over Chartist mural's destruction as Newport ...

  6. PARTISAN cymru/wales. Partisan To Beliefs, Ideas and Socialist ...

    partisan2011.blogspot.com/

    6 days ago - 5th OCTOBER 2013 HIGH NOON INSURRECTION TO DEFENDNEWPORT CHARTIST MURAL. Also Index of Wales Socialist History Blog ...

  7. Attempts to save Newport's Chartist mural fail - Worldnews.com

    article.wn.com/view/.../Attempts_to_save_Newports_Chartist_mural_fail/

    18 Sep 2013 - Save Our Newport Chartist Mural pt4 (Stephanie Roberts) ...http://chartistnewport.googlepages.com/ - John Wilson, 31 October 2007, v1.0. .....listens at a press conference during the 5th Global In this photo taken Wednesday, Aug..... It was the site of the last large-scale armed insurrection in Britain, the ...

  8. The Independent | News | UK and Worldwide News | Newspaper

    www.independent.co.uk/

    Thursday 03 October 2013 .... The mural depicts a fatal confrontation between democracy protesters and troops at Newport's Westgate Hotel in ... Insurrectionbrewing in Wales over Chartist mural's destruction as Newport City Council plans ..


Tuesday 3 September 2013

CORN RIOTS IN WALES 1793 - 1801 and the Execution of Samuel Hill and Aaron Williams for Participation in the Merthyr Corn Riot 1801 (Research Continues).


Before Rebecca Wales Corn Riots: 

http://hwbhanes.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/

come-join-corn-party-cymru-onward.html


Social Disorder in Britain 1750-1850: The Power of the Gentry, ... - Page 256 - Google Books Result

  1. books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1848855036
    J. E. Thomas - 2011 - ‎History 6, No. 2 (1993). Jones, DJV, 'The corn riots in Wales 1793-1801', Welsh History Review 2 (1964–5). Jones, DJV, 'The Carmarthen Riots of 1831', Welsh History ...

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ukwales2/HelpPagepearlsGLA3.html#CornRiots


08/05/1801Samuel HillGlamorganCardiff Heath
"Aaron Williams""

Records state both were convicted of Highway Robbery.

22 April 1801
At Cardiff Assizes, which ended on Friday last, and occupied the whole of
 the week, three of the rioters at Merthyr, who had committed felonies, were capitally convicted, and received sentence of death, viz. Samuel Hill, 
James Luke, and Aaron Williams; as were Thomas John, and Gwenllin 
Watkin, for sheep stealing. Judgement is suspended on three others of 
the rioters who were found guilty of felonies.

The execution of two rioters

by Anonymous

Location: Marion Löffler, Welsh Responses to the French Revolution: Press and Public Discourse (2012), doc 3.21 On Friday se’nnight were executed on Cardiff Heath, pursuant to their sentence, Samuel Hill and Aaron Williams, two of the Merthyr rioters, who had been capitally convicted at the late Great Sessions of the County of Glamorgan. – They both behaved with the greatest penitence, and seemed fully confident, through the merits of their Redeemer, of having had pardon and forgiveness. – Aaron Williams, during the course of his prayers, before they were turned off, observed “that they were going to suffer for hundreds,” Samuel Hill replied, “yes, for thousands, but I never knew so happy a day as this in the course of my life.”

Shrewsbury Chronicle, 29 May 1801.