History
Although the Welsh nation did not arise until the Middle Ages, the territory of Wales was permanently settled from the end of the last ice age onwards. These first farmers left many impressive funerary monuments, as well as settlement sites that speak to a dispersed culture. With the arrival of the Bronze Age, the Great Orme in North Wales became Britain's premier producer of copper, one of the key ores for smelting bronze. It is likely that the wealth of mineral resources in Britain, and especially Wales, attracted the Roman invasion, but by this time the island had become distinctively Celtic in culture, and the Neolithic population was largely replaced. It was this Iron Age Celtic culture, and their common language, that were called the Britons by the Romans.
With the departure of the Romans, Britain fractured into various kingdoms. Despite this, there is a sense in which the Roman withdrawal of 383 created a post-Roman nation of Britons, with Magnus Maximus proclaimed Roman emperor in Britannia and Gaul. Although long before the term Cymry (the Welsh term for the Welsh) had been adopted, the concept of a British people, from which the Welsh would emerge, was created here.
Encroachment by Germanic Anglo-Saxon settlers gradually displaced the indigenous culture and language of the Britons, and one group of these Britons became isolated by the geography of the western peninsula, bounded by the sea and English neighbours. It was these English neighbours who named the land Wallia, and the people Welsh.
The people of Wallia, medieval Wales, remained divided into separate kingdoms that fought with each other as much as they fought their English neighbours. Neither were the communities homogeneously Welsh. Place name, historical records and archaeological evidence point to coastal Viking/Norse settlement in places such as Swansea, Fishguard and Anglesey, and Saxons settled inland amongst the Welsh in places such as Presteigne.
In the 10th century, Hywel ap Cadell, later known as Hywel Dda, formed the kingdom of Deheubarth from inheritances in Dyfed and Seisyllwg, and then gained control of the kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys in 942. With control of nearly all the territory of Wales, he codified Welsh law, a law code that survived the later fracture of his kingdom, and that became a significant step in the creation of the nation. With a common culture and an external threat, the kingdoms of Wales began to see themselves as one people.
A century later the Kingdom of Gwynedd was in ascendency, and Gruffydd ap Llywelyn subdued all opposition by 1057, becoming the only king to unite all of Wales, and parts of England on the border. "Thus, from about 1057 until his death in 1063, the whole of Wales recognised the kingship of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. For about seven brief years, Wales was one, under one ruler, a feat with neither precedent nor successor."
The kingdom did not last, and Gruffydd met his death as a result of a surprise attack by Tostig, brother of the English King, Harold. After Gruffydd's death, Harold married his widow, but she would be widowed again by the Norman invasion of England in 1066.
The Normans followed their invasion of England with incursions into Wales, forming the semi-independent Norman Welsh marches (from the French for borderlands), and dividing them from the unconquered Pura Wallia. The fortunes of Welsh marcher lords and various Welsh princes ebbed and flowed, until Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great) forced all other Welsh princes to submit to him in 1216. Yet Wales was divided again after his death, and it was left for his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffudd to secure the supremacy once more, recognised as Prince of Wales by the English king, Henry III, in the treaty of Montgomery of 1267.
Relations with Henry's successor, Edward I, broke down and led to a war of conquest, concluding in 1283 with English victory. The following year the statute of Rhuddlan ended Welsh independence. Wales was divided between principality, ruled by Edward; and the marches, ruled by feudal marcher lords. This persisted, despite the Welsh rebellion under Owain Glyndŵr of 1400–1415, until the rise of the Tudors, with Welsh support. With the Laws in Wales Acts of Henry VIII, the Welsh became full citizens in the Kingdom of England, with parliamentary representation. The Welsh border was also formally defined and the territory reunited.
The Act of Union 1707 created the Kingdom of Great Britain. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of the British Empire led to a significant increase in mining and exploitation of Welsh natural materials such as metal, coal and slate. The population of Wales expanded rapidly and Wales moved to the centre of the British economy, but the changes bred resentment, this time towards industrialists and not the English state. Meanwhile, a series of religious revivals transformed the character of the nation, beginning a tradition of non-conformism. This carried over into the political sphere too. The rapid industrialisation of parts of Wales gave rise to strong and radical Welsh working class movements which led to the Merthyr Rising of 1831, the widespread support for Chartism, and the Newport Rising of 1839. Strong liberal traditions were forged and later replaced by socialism. Since 1922 Wales has voted Labour in every general election.
From the mid 19th century until 1914, Wales experienced a strengthened political culture, religious and cultural revival, renewed interest in Welsh literature, the revival of Eisteddfodau. There was a thriving economy, a renewed interest in Welsh language, and music, non-conformist Christianity and the emergence of strong national identity, along with the founding of many national institutions. However, the period also saw the publication of a report on education that became known as the Treachery of the Blue Books. The report blamed Welsh language and non-conformism for poor educational standards. This fed the rise of the Welsh nationalist movement, expressed in the Cymru Fydd movement, which advocated for greater autonomy and recognition of Welsh identity within the United Kingdom. Calls for devolution grew over the course of a century, and the Government of Wales Act 1998 created a devolved Welsh assembly for the first time, now renamed the Senedd or Welsh Parliament.
