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when the Danish invaders were occupying the attention of the English), there is evidence that the Cymric tongue made considerable inroads upon English-speaking territory eastward of the Dyke, though not to the extent of ousting the English speech altogether. In other respects, the incoming of the Danes made little difference to Wales, as far as language was concerned. Their descents on the coast of North Wales, and their settlements in South Wales, seem to have left no permanent trace in the language of the country.

The policy of the Norman kings in the institution of lordship marchers along the eastern and southern fringes of Wales was attended with important results to the linguistic condition of the Welsh Marches. Every Norman castle and town became a centre, at first no doubt partly of French, but afterwards mainly of English, customs and speech. The number of English names among the litigants mentioned in the Ruthin Court Rolls (just published in the Cymmrodorion Record Series) will furnish some indication of the extent to which English settlers poured over the Welsh border in the train of their Norman lords. This foreign influence was doubtless much more permanent in certain districts than in others. The towns of Wales remained largely English-speaking down to John Penry's time. But as a general rule the descendants of the English settlers became sooner or later absorbed in the Welshspeaking population. There were, however, some conspicuous instances in which the English language finally prevailed over the Welsh. In South Pembrokeshire, which was ruled over by the Clares and early organised on the model of an English county palatine, the displacement of the earlier inhabitants and their language by the English and Flemish invaders was complete and permanent. In the Vale of Glamorgan, won from the Welsh by Robert Fitzhamon and his traditional twelve knights, the process of displacement was less thoroughly carried out; but it appears very probable that the English-speaking

* See the whole question discussed in a very able paper in Y Cymmrodor (1889), by Mr. A. N. Palmer-a paper which even those who do not agree with its conclusion cannot fail to appreciate for its admirable statement of the facts.

element in the Vale must have been at least as strong five hundred years ago as it is now. Another district which became thoroughly Anglicised was the peninsula of Gower, which remained until the time of Henry VIII. an independent lordship, separate from the rest of Glamorgan.

We come now to consider the question of the English-speaking districts on the eastern border. This question stands in intimate relation with the formation of the Welsh shires by Edward I. and Henry VIII. and the consequent final settlement of the eastern limits of Wales. The Statute of Rhuddlan, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Edward I., provided for the government of the dominions of Llywelyn by dividing them into shires, organised after the English manner. But the dominions of Llywelyn (with those of his brother Dafydd) had included a part of what is now Flintshire. A new county was therefore formed out of this eastern portion of the domain of the Welsh princes, and placed under a sheriff of Flint in an anomalous kind of dependence on the adjacent county of Chester. The county thus formed, with a few later additions, became the modern Flintshire. The remaining five eastern counties, viz., Denbigh, Montgomery, Radnor, Brecknock, and Monmouth, were formed by Henry VIII. in 1536 out of the ancient lordship marchers, which were then finally abolished; and the eastern border of Wales was finally settled in its present form.

It is scarcely necessary to say that, in determining the geographical limits of Wales, neither Edward I. nor Henry VIII. were influenced in the least by linguistic considerations. The mother-tongue of Edward I. was Norman French; and, although he was well acquainted with English, he would probably have regarded both English and Welsh as destined ultimately to give place to the French language. The attitude of Henry to the Welsh tongue was not so much one of indifference as of

positive hostility. As is well known, it was part of his settled policy to discourage and suppress by every means in his power the use of the national language in Wales. We need not therefore be surprised that

the political boundary line of Wales, as settled by these two sovereigns, by no means coincided with the linguistic one. The county of Flint contained from the first an English portion (including among other districts the whole of Maelor Saesneg) as well as a Welsh portion. Under the settlement of Henry VIII., several districts which had hitherto been regarded as in Wales, and which were wholly or partly Welsh-speaking, were annexed to adjacent English counties. Such were the lordships of Oswestry, Whittington, and Ellesmere, which were now joined to Salop; and several lordships in the south-east of the modern Herefordshire. On the other hand a considerable fringe of the newly created counties of Denbigh, Montgomery, and Monmouth was English-speaking. The most striking example of the transference of Welsh territory to England occurred in the case of the newly created county of Monmouth, which was formally withdrawn from the judicial system of Wales, and placed under the jurisdiction of the courts at Westminster. But this purely legal But this purely legal

distinction between Monmouthshire and the rest of Wales was not recognised by popular sentiment, and in the next century we find writers of repute still speaking of the "thirteen shires of Wales.' In our own day the unity of Monmouthshire with Wales has once more been decisively asserted and has received official recognition.

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It should be noted that boundaries of the Welsh dioceses in many cases follow the older limits of Wales more closely than do the modern shire-divisions. Thus, Oswestry and Whittington are in the diocese of St. Asaph; Monmouthshire is in the diocese of Llandaff; on the other hand, the fact that the Gower peninsula belongs ecclesiastically not to Llandaff but to St. David's is an interesting reminder that, previous to 1536, the lordship of Gower had a separate jurisdiction from that of the county palatine of Glamorgan.

When Wales, then, received its present limits in 1536, the exclusively Englishspeaking districts within its borders would comprise the eastern portions of Flint (including English Maelor) and of Denbigh, a fringe of Montgomeryshire and Radnor

shire, the peninsula of Gower, and the larger half of Pembrokeshire. The Vale of Glamorgan, and most of the towns throughout the country, were also very largely English-speaking. Everywhere the upper classes were beginning to abandon their Welsh. The oft quoted testimony of John Penry* shows decisively that a knowledge of English was at least as widely diffused in Wales in his time as it was fifty years ago. Sir Thomas Phillips calculated that the population of Wales in 1570 would be about 325,000, of whom 75,000 would be English monoglots; but if Penry's statements are to be trusted, the number of those well acquainted with English must have been very much greater.

In the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries the fortunes of the Welsh language seemed to be at their lowest ebb. To this result many causes contributed besides the attitude of the Tudor sovereigns toward the tongue of their Cymric ancestors. We have, above all, to take account of the

decay of Welsh literature. The magnificent literary achievements of the middle ages had been followed in Wales, as in nearly every other country of Europe, by several centuries of intellectual sterility. In England this period of literary decline was terminated earlier than in other Germanic countries by the splendid outburst of poetic Elizabeth and the early Stuarts, and which activity which marked the reigns

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went hand in hand with a remarkable development of national sentiment and pride ed for a moment as though the Welsh in England's greatness. It certainly seempeople were about to be swept along in this tide of enthusiasm for all things English to the extent of forgetting that they had a history, a literature, and a language of their own. At the beginning of the seven

"Admit we cannot haue Welsh preachers, yet let vs not be without English, where it is vnderstood. There is neuer a market towne in Wales where English is not as rife as Welsh. From Cheapstow to Westchester (the whole compasse of our land) on the Sea-side they all vnderstand English. Where Munmoth & Radnock shiers border vppon the marches, they all speake English. In Penbrok sheer no great store of Welsh. Consider Anglisey, Mamgymru, Caernaruon, and see if all these people must dwel vpon mount Gerizzin and be subiect to the curse, because they vnderstand not the English toung."-Humble Suppli cution (Oxford, 1587). The whole pamphlet contains most valuable information on the linguistic condition of Wales in Penry's time.

See Mr. Ivor James' able essay, "Welsh in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," (Cardiff, 1887.)

teenth century Welsh was still spoken throughout the greater part of Wales, but had practically abdicated the position of a literary language.

From this condition of degradation and decay the Welsh language was rescued by

the translation of the Bible into Welsh in the early part of the seventeenth century. The Welsh people were thus supplied with a literary model which made them less dependent upon English as a medium of cultivated expression. Doubtless, too, as Mr. Ivor James has so ably pointed out, the spread of English was further checked by the decay of education consequent upon the impoverishment caused by the Civil Wars. In spite of the well-meant efforts of Gouge and others in the latter part of the seventeenth century for teaching Welsh children English, it seems tolerably clear that by the end of that century the population thoroughout the greater part of Welsh Wales was relapsing into a state of complete monoglottism. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that English was even then slowly gaining ground on Welsh along the eastern border of Mid and South Wales. This process continued steadily during the next century, when portions of Brecknock and Monmouth, and the greater part of Radnorshire, became exclusively English-speaking.

But influences were already at work to counterbalance this wearing away process on the English border. In the eighteenth century occurred that great religious awakening known as the Methodist movement, as the result of which the bulk of the Welsh people became dissenters from the Church of England. From the first the new movement took a distinctively Welsh character. Welsh was the language in which the great preachers of the revival swayed the throngs who listened to them; Welsh was the language of the hymns in which the "sweet singers" of the movement expressed the thoughts and emotions which

• George Owen in his Description of Penbrokshire, written in 1603 (Cymmrodorion Record Series, 1892), tells us that Welshmen in his day "allthough they vsvallye speacke the Welshe tongue, yett will they writte eche to other in Englishe, and not in the speache they vsvallye talke. The reason is the vse they haue to writte in the one, and not vseinge to writte in the other," (p. 36). Other testimonies to the same effect may be found in Mr. Ivor James' paper.

were stirring the hearts of thousands; Welsh was the language of the theological literature which grew up as a result of the revival. Outside the domain of religion the national literature was showing signs of renewed vigour; and antiquarian interest in the literary past of Wales was being revived. At the same time, the circulating schools of Griffith Jones, Llanddowror, giving short shrift to the hoary-headed folly of ignoring Welsh as a medium of instruction, were teaching Welsh children by the tens of thousands to read their native

tongue. Thus, by the end of the eighteenth century, Welsh had once more become the organ of literary expression for the Welsh nation; and the way was prepared for that extraordinary development of literary and journalistic activity which has done so much in the nineteenth century to maintain the Welsh language in vigorous life.

At the beginning of this century Welsh had disappeared from five-sixths of Radnorshire, and from the adjoining north

eastern corner of Brecknockshire. It was

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still spoken over the greater part of the county of Monmouth. In other respects the boundary line between the two languages in South Wales was much as it is at present, though there can be no doubt that everywhere, especially in Glamorgan and Brecknock, the proportion of English monoglots was much smaller than it is now. North Wales the boundary line has receded scarcely at all, except in Montgomeryshire. We know on the authority of Gwallter Mechain where the linguistic boundary line ran in this county in 1828. Between then and now Welsh has receded a few miles to the west and south-west of Newtown, elsewhere scarcely more than a mile, at some points not at all. Probably at no point west of Gwallter Mechain's line is Welsh absolutely dead.

The first census of the population of England and Wales was taken in 1801, and we are henceforward on comparatively safe ground. The population of Wales in that year was 587,245. If the above account of the boundary line between Welsh and English Wales be approximately correct the census of 1801 will also afford us data from which we can make a fairly accurate

guess at the number of the English monoglot population at the beginning of the century. I think we shall not be far wrong in putting their number between 100,000 and 120,000; and I incline to think that the latter figure is nearer the truth than the former. Within the next fifty years the population of Wales has almost exactly doubled, and at the census of 1891 it had something more than trebled. Many estimates have been made during the century of the relative proportions of the English and Welsh populations in Wales. It will be sufficient to cite two of the most reliable. Sir Thomas Phillips estimated that in 1841, out of a total population of 1,045,958, the number of the Welsh-speaking inhabitants of Wales might be put at 700,000, or about 67 per cent. According to the very careful and exhaustive enquiries made by Mr. Ravenstein thirty years later, the proportions of the Welsh and English populations had not greatly changed during the interval. His estimate of the proportion of Welsh speakers to the whole population, which was calculated on the basis of the census returns for 1871, was 662 per cent. According to the census returns of 1891, the proportion had then fallen to 545 per cent. Assuming, then, that my estimate of the English population of Wales at the beginning of the century is correct, the relative growth of this population during the last ninety years is as follows:

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From another point of view, the matter may be represented thus: The whole population of Wales has trebled during the past ninety years; the Welsh-speaking portion of the population has rather more than doubled in that time; but the purely English population has increased nearly seven-fold.

The question remains to be asked,--How far is this enormous increase of English monoglots in Wales due to the immigration of English-speaking people, and to what extent has it been brought about at the expense of the Welsh-speaking population? The reply is, that it is partly due to both

causes, but that of the two factors immigration has been far the most important. Of the 1,771,451 persons residing in Wales and Monmouthshire in 1891, only 1,491,590 were born there. The remainder, numbering nearly 280,000 persons, are immigrants into Wales, and for the most part, of course, unable to speak Welsh. Threefourths of these immigrants reside in the most English counties of South Wales; so that the great majority of their descendants may be likewise presumed to be English monoglots. If to these be added the descendants of earlier generations of immigrants during the century, we cannot be far wrong in assuming that over one-third of the present population of Wales are either English immigrants or the descendants of such. ants of such. Whilst thus the population of English Wales is constantly swelled by fresh arrivals from England, the more Welsh-speaking counties ar ever being depleted of their population by emigration to England and elsewhere. But there is also no doubt that the English language has considerably enlarged its borders at the direct expense of Welsh, during the century; and that in three ways. the first place, there has been a great immigration of Welsh-speaking people from the rural districts into the more English portions of Wales and Monmouthshire. In 1891, for example, there were over 110,000 natives of other parts of Wales residing in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. The descendants of such immigrants, in so far as they are to be found in English towns like Cardiff and NewEnglish in speech. Again, English has unport, would tend to become exclusively doubtedly gained on Welsh along the eastern border. In Monmouthshire, Welsh has steadily decreased throughout the century. In Brecknockshire, Welsh has receded considerably during the past twenty years. The strip of territory which the English language has won from the Welsh during the century in Montgomeryshire has been described above. Finally, the exclusion of Welsh from the day-schools has undoubtedly tended, in many districts already bilingual, to depress Welsh-speaking in favour of English. favour of English. The fact that, in spite of all these disadvantages, the number of

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Welsh speakers is still on the increase in Wales, is a marvellous testimony to the vitality of the language.

It thus appears that we are rapidly approaching a state of things in which the English-speaking and the Welsh-speaking portions of the population of Wales will balance each other. From the nature of the case, the growth of the English population must continue to outstrip the growth of the Welsh. But the "Welsh-speaking million" (to use a phrase of the late Dean Edwards), will be a permanent element in the population of Wales for some time to come: and as to the time when Welsh shall cease to be a spoken language, that is a point on which no sensible man will care to make rash prophecies. Some there are, who never tire of assuring us that the growth of the English language in Wales will be followed by a revolution in the attitude of the Welsh people towards questions of great public importance. I confess I do not see what ground there is for this opinion.

There is no Ulster in Wales. There are not even the materials for a Welsh Ulster. On all matters of public interest, ecclesiastical and political, the voice of Welsh and of English Wales is one. It is the singular good fortune of Wales that the stranger within her gates, who has no part in her past, and does not share her picturesque traditions, should have joined hands so heartily with her in striving to realize her national aspirations, and to shape her future according to her own ideals.

NOTE ON THE LINGUISTIC CENSUS OF 1891.

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In the foregoing article, I have assumed that the returns of the linguistic census may be taken as substantially correct. aware, of course, that their accuracy has been questioned by two different parties, one complaining that the number returned as speaking "Welsh only" is too large, the other that the number of those stated to speak English only" is too large. Both parties are right, and for precisely the same reason. At the time of taking the census, it was generally understood that no mere smattering of either language was to count. This, of course, cut both ways. It is a great pity that the bona fides of the returns should have been called into ques

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tion. They are quite as near the truth as returns on such a matter as language can ever be expected to be. The different degrees of proficiency in Welsh and English to be found among the inhabitants of Wales are such as to be quite incapable of precise tabulation, and it is doubtful whether there is any possible method of taking a linguistic census which would not be open to cavil. The extraordinary variations in the linguistic returns for Ireland from one census year to another, show how difficult it is to obtain precise data on such a subject. The following, for example, are the numbers of those returned as speaking Irish in the last three censuses: in 1871, 817,875; in 1881, 949,932; in 1891, 680,174. It cannot be seriously contended that the number of Irish speakers increased between 1871 and 1881 by more than 132,000; but I am not aware that anyone has ever called the bona fides of the Irish returns into question. It is much to be regretted that the Registrar General, in his Report, should so needlessly have thrown suspicion on the Welsh returns. However, as this official has now admitted that he has no evidence of anyone having wilfully made a false return in Wales, it is clear the "organised mendacity," which he was assumed to have "so mercilessly exposed," was a mere phantom of the imagination.

The following table, which I have compiled from the census returns, may possibly be of use in illustrating some portions of the preceding article:

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