MORNING SERIAL
Wales: England’s Colony?
HE MAINTAINED this would be ‘a very graceful gesture’ to a nation that ‘played its part so nobly during this war and during every war, and has always shown its loyalty to the Crown and to the Government of this country’.
His question summed up the dominant Welsh identity from the late nineteenth century.
It was, for most, a distinct nation that existed within another nation.
It was loyal to that other country and eager for a recognition that was not always forthcoming.
The prime minister replied to Owen that the case needed careful consideration, but the Royal Arms remained unchanged, with England, Scotland and Ireland represented on it, but not Wales.
Yet Welsh identity was never straightforward. It meant different things to different people and was constantly evolving.
In the late nineteenth century, on the back of economic buoyancy and anger at English disdain, Welshness was recreated around Nonconformism, Liberalism and a series of national institutions.
In the face of economic problems, socialism replaced Liberalism as its defining political characteristic. But, in time, this too diminished, as did the place of religion in Welshness.
For a few, a new vision of an independent Wales emerged, but more commonly Welsh identity became a civic concept, based not on class or culture but on living in Wales and being subject to the jurisdiction of the Assembly, its government and a host of other national institutions.
The Welsh language was always important, and it became more political as its decline quickened, but this made some feel excluded and it opened a rift in Welsh identity.
Sport, on the other hand, was not political, did not raise awkward questions but did offer opportunities to beat the English, or at least remind them of Wales’ existence.
It thus became a cornerstone of popular Welshness.