Wales. National Library (of Wales), Aberyst with. = CATALOGUE OF TRACTS COMMONWEALTH PERIOD RELATING TO WALES AND Aberystwyth 1911 ed 4/13/48 Introduction. THE more or less ephemeral literature, produced in such profusion by both sides during the Civil War and the Commonwealth, has long been recognised as a valuable means of elucidating and illustrating the course of events during that troubled period of our history. The issue in 1908 of a complete Catalogue, chronologically arranged, of the Thomason Tracts in the British Museum, has further emphasised the value of that collection, and the volumes issued by the Chetham Society, dealing with the Civil War Tracts relating to Lancashire and Cheshire respectively, show what a valuable source of local history lies more or less hidden. Some of the Tracts relating to Wales are reprinted in the second volume of J. Roland Phillips' Memoirs of the Civil War in Wales and the Marches, 1874. This work ought to be revised and republished. The following Catalogue contains such Civil War and Commonwealth Tracts relating to Wales and its immediate Borders as are at present in the National Library of Wales. It is by no means a complete list, and if it leads to some of the missing tracts being added to the collection, it will have served one useful purpose, and may hereafter be followed by a more complete catalogue. The publications dealing with the actual operations of the Civil War and the controversies connected therewith, so far as they relate to Wales, have been included as a matter of course. A certain number have also been included vi because they were written by, or relate to Welshmen, or persons prominently connected with Welsh affairs. These include such names as James Howell, a native of Carmarthenshire; Judge Jenkins, of Hensol Castle, Glamorgan; Arise Evans, a native of Merionethshire; Griffith Williams, Bishop of Ossory, a native of Carnarvonshire; Thomas Herbert, born at Montgomery and a brother of Lord Herbert of Chirbury; William Thomas of Aber, Carnarvonshire, M.P. for Carnarvon; and prominent controversialists such as Christopher Love, William Erbury, Vavasor Powel, and Alexander Griffith. On the other hand tracts written by people bearing Welsh names, but having no direct connection with Wales, have been excluded. The adoption of this rule keeps the Catalogue within its proper limits, while at the same time it cuts out at least two interesting and diverting groups of publications, viz., the writings of the meddlesome Hugh Peters (a Cornishman), and the Lady Eleanor Davies (wife of Sir John Davies, Attorney General for Ireland). Incidentally it may be mentioned that among the very few women contributors to the controversies of the Civil War period, not one had any connection with Wales. The satirical tracts, very inadequately represented in this Catalogue, form an interesting group, inasmuch as the Welshman was a popular subject with the satirical writers of tracts and broadsides. The Welshman was a butt for English witticism at least as early as Shakespeare, and possibly earlier, but it is not too much to say that during the Civil War controversies the theme was considerably developed, and it survived down to the well-known satires of the first half of the eighteenth century. The causes may be found in the number of men of Welsh birth and origin, who took part in the conflicts, military and literary, of the Civil War and Commonwealth period, and in the important part which Wales played in the War. |