Let’s be proud of our role in the Union
THE petition by a pro-independence group against the Union flag design on a UK Government office, with its talk of the subservient status of Wales, seems deliberately designed to whip up passions and prejudices against England and the Union simply for its own purpose of promoting a very questionable Welsh independence.
On the contrary, when Welsh prince Henry Tudor, with hordes of Welsh soldiers in his army, won the English crown at the Battle of Bosworth, Wales shared in the elation of victory. Many Welsh people followed him to London and remained among key Tudor advisers for generations. Welsh was still spoken at the Tudor court at the time of his granddaughter Elizabeth I.
Henry Tudor added the Red Dragon to the Royal coat of arms. His accession to the throne was celebrated by bards as fulfilling an ancient prophecy that the Welsh would one day retake Britain from the English. Talk of Wales as subservient and being treated as a “colony” is of much later historical origin and did not gain any real currency until the beginning of the 20th century.
A far healthier way of looking at the Union is to be proud of our splendid Welsh players in rugby’s British Lions. Or to share the delight when we read that the National Museum of Wales has been shortlisted for the Kids in Museums Family Friendly Museum Award in competition with museums up and down the UK.
We can all be proud to be Welsh and proud of Wales. But we have thrived and still thrive as part of the United Kingdom.
Dr Jean Silvan Evans
Vale of Glamorgan