Prehistoric origins

Thumb — Bryn Celli Ddu, a late Neolithic chambered tomb on Anglesey

Wales has been inhabited by modern humans for at least 29,000 years.^[22] Continuous human habitation dates from the end of the last ice age, between 12,000 and 10,000 years before present (BP), when Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Central Europe began to migrate to Great Britain. At that time, sea levels were much lower than today. Wales was free of glaciers by about 10,250 BP, the warmer climate allowing the area to become heavily wooded. The post-glacial rise in sea level separated Wales and Ireland, forming the Irish Sea. By 8,000 BP the British Peninsula had become an island.^[23] By the beginning of the Neolithic (c. 6,000 BP) sea levels in the Bristol Channel were still about 33 feet (10 metres) lower than today.^[24] The historian John Davies theorised that the story of Cantre'r Gwaelod's drowning and tales in the Mabinogion, of the waters between Wales and Ireland being narrower and shallower, may be distant folk memories of this time.^[25]

Neolithic colonists integrated with the indigenous people, gradually changing their lifestyles from a nomadic life of hunting and gathering, to become settled farmers about 6,000 BP – the Neolithic Revolution.^[25]^[26] They cleared the forests to establish pasture and to cultivate the land, developed new technologies such as ceramics and textile production, and built cromlechs such as Pentre Ifan, Bryn Celli Ddu, and Parc Cwm long cairn between about 5,800 BP and 5,500 BP.^[27] Over the following centuries they assimilated immigrants and adopted ideas from Bronze Age and Iron Age Celtic cultures. Some historians, such as John T. Koch, consider Wales in the Late Bronze Age as part of a maritime trading-networked culture that included other Celtic nations.^[28] This "Atlantic-Celtic" view is opposed by others who hold that the Celtic languages derive their origins from the more easterly Hallstatt culture.^[29] By the time of the Roman invasion of Britain the area of modern Wales had been divided among the tribes of the Deceangli (north-east), Ordovices (north-west), Demetae (south-west), Silures (south-east), and Cornovii (east).^[25]^[30]

Roman era

Thumb — Map of the Roman invasion of Wales

The Roman conquest of Wales began in AD 48 and took 30 years to complete; the occupation lasted over 300 years. The campaigns of conquest were opposed by two native tribes: the Silures and the Ordovices. Caractacus or Caradog, leader of the Ordovices, had initial success in resisting Roman invasions of north Wales but was eventually defeated.^[31]^[32] Roman rule in Wales was a military occupation, save for the southern coastal region of south Wales, where there is a legacy of Romanisation.^[33] The only town in Wales founded by the Romans, Caerwent, is in south east Wales.^[34] Both Caerwent and Carmarthen, also in southern Wales, became Roman civitates.^[35] Wales had a rich mineral wealth. The Romans used their engineering technology to extract large amounts of gold, copper, and lead, as well as lesser amounts of zinc and silver.^[36] No significant industries were located in Wales in this time;^[36] this was largely a matter of circumstance as Wales had none of the necessary materials in suitable combination, and the forested, mountainous countryside was not amenable to industrialisation. Latin became the official language of Wales, though the people continued to speak in Brythonic. While Romanisation was far from complete, the upper classes came to consider themselves Roman, particularly after the ruling of 212 that granted Roman citizenship to all free men throughout the Empire.^[37] Further Roman influence came through the spread of Christianity, which gained many followers when Christians were allowed to worship freely; state persecution ceased in the 4th century, as a result of Constantine the Great issuing an edict of toleration in 313.^[37]

Early historians, including the 6th-century cleric Gildas, have noted 383 as a significant point in Welsh history.^[38] In that year, the Roman general Magnus Maximus, or Macsen Wledig, stripped Britain of troops to launch a successful bid for imperial power, continuing to rule Britain from Gaul as emperor, and transferring power to local leaders.^[39] The earliest Welsh genealogies cite Maximus as the founder of several royal dynasties,^[40] and as the father of the Welsh Nation.^[38] He is given as the ancestor of a Welsh king on the Pillar of Eliseg, erected nearly 500 years after he left Britain, and he figures in lists of the Fifteen Tribes of Wales.^[41]

Post-Roman era

The 400-year period following the collapse of Roman rule is the most difficult to interpret in the history of Wales.^[37] After the Roman departure in AD 410, much of the lowlands of Britain to the east and south-east was overrun by various Germanic peoples, commonly known as Anglo-Saxons. Some have theorized that the cultural dominance of the Anglo-Saxons was due to apartheid-like social conditions in which the Britons were at a disadvantage.^[42] By AD 500 the land that would become Wales had divided into a number of kingdoms free from Anglo-Saxon rule.^[37] The kingdoms of Gwynedd, Powys, Dyfed, Caredigion, Morgannwg, the Ystrad Tywi, and Gwent emerged as independent Welsh successor states.^[37] Archaeological evidence, in the Low Countries and what was to become England, shows early Anglo-Saxon migration to Great Britain reversed between 500 and 550, which concurs with Frankish chronicles.^[43] John Davies notes this as consistent with a victory for the Celtic Britons at Badon Hill against the Saxons, which was attributed to Arthur by Nennius.^[43]

Having lost much of what is now the West Midlands to Mercia in the 6th and early 7th centuries, a resurgent late-7th-century Powys checked Mercian advances. Æthelbald of Mercia, looking to defend recently acquired lands, had built Wat's Dyke. According to Davies, this had been with the agreement of king Elisedd ap Gwylog of Powys, as this boundary, extending north from the valley of the River Severn to the Dee estuary, gave him Oswestry.^[44] Another theory, after carbon dating placed the dyke's existence 300 years earlier, is that it was built by the post-Roman rulers of Wroxeter.^[45] King Offa of Mercia seems to have continued this initiative when he created a larger earthwork, now known as Offa's Dyke (Clawdd Offa). Davies wrote of Cyril Fox's study of Offa's Dyke: "In the planning of it, there was a degree of consultation with the kings of Powys and Gwent. On the Long Mountain near Trelystan, the dyke veers to the east, leaving the fertile slopes in the hands of the Welsh; near Rhiwabon, it was designed to ensure that Cadell ap Brochwel retained possession of the Fortress of Penygadden." And, for Gwent, Offa had the dyke built "on the eastern crest of the gorge, clearly with the intention of recognizing that the River Wye and its traffic belonged to the kingdom of Gwent."^[44] However, Fox's interpretations of both the length and purpose of the Dyke have been questioned by more recent research.^[46]

In 853, the Vikings raided Anglesey, but in 856, Rhodri Mawr defeated and killed their leader, Gorm.^[47] The Celtic Britons of Wales made peace with the Vikings and Anarawd ap Rhodri allied with the Norsemen occupying Northumbria to conquer the north.^[48] This alliance later broke down and Anarawd came to an agreement with Alfred, king of Wessex, with whom he fought against the west Welsh. According to Annales Cambriae, in 894, "Anarawd came with the Angles and laid waste to Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi."^[49]

The southern and eastern parts of Great Britain lost to English settlement became known in Welsh as Lloegyr (Modern Welsh Lloegr), which may have referred to the kingdom of Mercia originally and which came to refer to England as a whole.^{[lower-alpha 5]} The Germanic tribes who now dominated these lands were invariably called Saeson, meaning "Saxons". The Anglo-Saxons called the Romano-British *Walha, meaning 'Romanised foreigner' or 'stranger'.^[50] The Welsh continued to call themselves Brythoniaid (Brythons or Britons) well into the Middle Ages, though the first written evidence of the use of Cymru and y Cymry is found in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan (Moliant Cadwallon, by Afan Ferddig) c. 633.^[15] In Armes Prydein, believed to be written around 930–942, the words Cymry and Cymro are used as often as 15 times.^[51] However, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement onwards, the people gradually begin to adopt the name Cymry over Brythoniad.^[52]

From 800 onwards, a series of dynastic marriages led to Rhodri Mawr's (r. 844–77) inheritance of Gwynedd and Powys. His sons founded the three dynasties of Aberffraw for Gwynedd, Dinefwr for Deheubarth and Mathrafal for Powys. Rhodri's grandson Hywel Dda (r. 900–50) founded Deheubarth out of his maternal and paternal inheritances of Dyfed and Seisyllwg in 930, ousted the Aberffraw dynasty from Gwynedd and Powys and then codified Welsh law in the 940s.^[53]

High to late middle ages

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was the only ruler to unite all of Wales under his rule, described by one chronicler after his death as king of Wales. In 1055 Gruffydd ap Llywelyn killed his rival Gruffydd ap Rhydderch in battle and recaptured Deheubarth.^[54] Originally king of Gwynedd, by 1057 he was ruler of Wales and had annexed parts of England around the border. He ruled Wales with no internal battles.^[55] His territories were again divided into the traditional kingdoms.^[56] John Davies states that Gruffydd was "the only Welsh king ever to rule over the entire territory of Wales... 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."^[3] Owain Gwynedd (1100–1170) of the Aberffraw line was the first Welsh ruler to use the title princeps Wallensium (prince of the Welsh), a title of substance given his victory on the Berwyn range, according to Davies.^[57] During this time, between 1053 and 1063, Wales lacked any internal strife and was at peace.^[58]

Within four years of the Battle of Hastings (1066), England had been completely subjugated by the Normans.^[3] William I of England established a series of lordships, allocated to his most powerful warriors, along the Welsh border, their boundaries fixed only to the east (where they met other feudal properties inside England).^[59] Starting in the 1070s, these lords began conquering land in southern and eastern Wales, west of the River Wye. The frontier region, and any English-held lordships in Wales, became known as Marchia Wallie, the Welsh Marches, in which the Marcher lords were subject to neither English nor Welsh law.^[60] The extent of the March varied as the fortunes of the Marcher lords and the Welsh princes ebbed and flowed.^[61]

Owain Gwynedd's grandson Llywelyn Fawr (the Great, 1173–1240), received the fealty of other Welsh lords in 1216 at the council at Aberdyfi, becoming in effect the first prince of Wales.^[62] His grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffudd secured the recognition of the title Prince of Wales from Henry III with the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267.^[63] Subsequent disputes, including the imprisonment of Llywelyn's wife Eleanor, culminated in the first invasion by King Edward I of England.^[64] As a result of military defeat, the Treaty of Aberconwy exacted Llywelyn's fealty to England in 1277.^[64] Peace was short-lived, and, with the 1282 Edwardian conquest, the rule of the Welsh princes permanently ended. With Llywelyn's death and his brother prince Dafydd's execution, the few remaining Welsh lords did homage to Edward I of England.^[65] The Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 provided the constitutional basis for a post-conquest government of the Principality of North Wales from 1284 until 1535/36.^[66] It defined Wales as "annexed and united" to the English Crown, separate from England but under the same monarch. The king ruled directly in two areas: the Statute divided the north and delegated administrative duties to the Justice of Chester and Justiciar of North Wales, and further south in western Wales the King's authority was delegated to the Justiciar of South Wales. The existing royal lordships of Montgomery and Builth Wells remained unchanged.^[67] To maintain his dominance, Edward constructed a series of castles: Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Harlech and Conwy. His son, the future Edward II, was born at Caernarfon in 1284.^[68] He became the first English prince of Wales in 1301, which at the time provided an income from northwest Wales known as the Principality of Wales.^[69]

After the failed revolt in 1294–1295 of Madog ap Llywelyn – who styled himself Prince of Wales in the Penmachno Document – and the rising of Llywelyn Bren (1316), the last uprising was led by Owain Glyndŵr, against Henry IV of England. In 1404, Owain was crowned prince of Wales in the presence of emissaries from France, Spain (Castille) and Scotland.^[70] Glyndŵr went on to hold parliamentary assemblies at several Welsh towns, including a Welsh parliament (Welsh: senedd) at Machynlleth. The rebellion was eventually defeated by 1412. Having failed Owain went into hiding and nothing was known of him after 1413.^[71]^[72] The penal laws against the Welsh of 1401–02 passed by the English parliament made the Welsh second-class citizens. With hopes of independence ended, there were no further wars or rebellions against English colonial rule and the laws remained on the statute books until 1624.^[73]

Henry Tudor (born in Wales in 1457) seized the throne of England from Richard III of England in 1485, uniting England and Wales under one royal house. The last remnants of Celtic-tradition Welsh law were abolished and replaced by English law by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 during the reign of Henry VII's son, Henry VIII.^[74] In the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales, Wales became unified with the kingdom of England; the "Principality of Wales" began to refer to the whole country, though it remained a "principality" only in a ceremonial sense.^[66]^[75] The Marcher lordships were abolished, and Wales began electing members of the Westminster parliament.^[76]

Early modern period

In 1536 Wales had around 278,000 inhabitants, which increased to around 360,000 by 1620. This was primarily due to rural settlement, where animal farming was central to the Welsh economy. Increase in trade and increased economic stability occurred due to the increased diversity of the Welsh economy. Population growth however outpaced economic growth and the standard of living dropped.^[77]

Prior to the Industrial Revolution in Wales, there were small-scale industries scattered throughout Wales.^[78] These ranged from those connected to agriculture, such as milling and the manufacture of woollen textiles, through to mining and quarrying.^[78] Agriculture remained the dominant source of wealth.^[78] The emerging industrial period saw the development of copper smelting in the Swansea area. With access to local coal deposits and a harbour that connected it with Cornwall's copper mines in the south and the large copper deposits at Parys Mountain on Anglesey, Swansea developed into the world's major centre for non-ferrous metal smelting in the 19th century.^[78] The second metal industry to expand in Wales was iron smelting, and iron manufacturing became prevalent in both the north and the south of the country.^[79] In the north, John Wilkinson's Ironworks at Bersham was a major centre, while in the south, at Merthyr Tydfil, the ironworks of Dowlais, Cyfarthfa, Plymouth and Penydarren became the most significant hub of iron manufacture in Wales.^[79] By the 1820s, south Wales produced 40 per cent of all Britain's pig iron.^[79]

By the 18th century, lawyers, doctors, estate agents and government officials formed a bourgeoisie with sizeable houses.^[77] In the late 18th century, slate quarrying began to expand rapidly, most notably in North Wales. The Penrhyn quarry, opened in 1770 by Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn, was employing 15,000 men by the late 19th century,^[80] and along with Dinorwic quarry, it dominated the Welsh slate trade. Although slate quarrying has been described as "the most Welsh of Welsh industries",^[81] it is coal mining which became the industry synonymous with Wales and its people. Initially, coal seams were exploited to provide energy for local metal industries but, with the opening of canal systems and later the railways, Welsh coal mining saw an explosion in demand. As the South Wales Coalfield was exploited, Cardiff, Swansea, Penarth and Barry grew as world exporters of coal. By its height in 1913, Wales was producing almost 61 million tons of coal.^[82]

Modern period

Historian Kenneth Morgan described Wales on the eve of the First World War as a "relatively placid, self-confident and successful nation". The output from the coalfields continued to increase, with the Rhondda Valley recording a peak of 9.6 million tons of coal extracted in 1913.^[83] The First World War (1914–1918) saw a total of 272,924 Welshmen under arms, representing 21.5 per cent of the male population. Of these, roughly 35,000 were killed,^[84] with particularly heavy losses of Welsh forces at Mametz Wood on the Somme and the Battle of Passchendaele.^[85]

The first quarter of the 20th century also saw a shift in the political landscape of Wales. Since 1865, the Liberal Party had held a parliamentary majority in Wales and, following the general election of 1906, only one non-Liberal Member of Parliament, Keir Hardie of Merthyr Tydfil, represented a Welsh constituency at Westminster. Yet by 1906, industrial dissension and political militancy had begun to undermine Liberal consensus in the southern coalfields.^[86] In 1916, David Lloyd George became the first Welshman to become Prime Minister of Britain.^[87] In December 1918, Lloyd George was re-elected as the head of a Conservative-dominated coalition government, and his poor handling of the 1919 coal miners' strike was a key factor in destroying support for the Liberal party in south Wales.^[88] The industrial workers of Wales began shifting towards the Labour Party. When in 1908 the Miners' Federation of Great Britain became affiliated to the Labour Party, the four Labour candidates sponsored by miners were all elected as MPs. By 1922, half the Welsh seats at Westminster were held by Labour politicians—the start of a Labour dominance of Welsh politics that continued into the 21st century.^[89]

After economic growth in the first two decades of the 20th century, Wales's staple industries endured a prolonged slump from the early 1920s to the late 1930s, leading to widespread unemployment and poverty.^[90] For the first time in centuries, the population of Wales went into decline; unemployment reduced only with the production demands of the Second World War.^[91] The war saw Welsh servicemen and women fight in all major theatres, with some 15,000 of them killed. Bombing raids brought high loss of life as the German Air Force targeted the docks at Swansea, Cardiff and Pembroke. After 1943, 10 per cent of Welsh conscripts aged 18 were sent to work in the coal mines, where there were labour shortages; they became known as Bevin Boys. Pacifist numbers during both World Wars were fairly low, especially in the Second World War, which was seen as a fight against fascism.^[92]

Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925, seeking greater autonomy or independence from the rest of the UK.^[93] The term "England and Wales" became common for describing the area to which English law applied, and in 1955 Cardiff was proclaimed as Wales's capital. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (The Welsh Language Society) was formed in 1962, in response to fears that the language might soon die out.^[94] Nationalist sentiment grew following the flooding of the Tryweryn valley in 1965 to create a reservoir to supply water to the English city of Liverpool.^[95] Although 35 of the 36 Welsh MPs voted against the bill (one abstained), Parliament passed the bill and the village of Capel Celyn was submerged, highlighting Wales's powerlessness in her own affairs in the face of the numerical superiority of English MPs in Parliament.^[96] Separatist groupings, such as the Free Wales Army and Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru were formed, conducting campaigns from 1963.^[97] Prior to the investiture of Charles in 1969, these groups were responsible for a number of bomb attacks on infrastructure.^[98] At a by-election in 1966, Gwynfor Evans won the parliamentary seat of Carmarthen, Plaid Cymru's first Parliamentary seat.^[99]

By the end of the 1960s, the policy of bringing businesses into disadvantaged areas of Wales through financial incentives had proven very successful in diversifying the industrial economy.^[100] This policy, begun in 1934, was enhanced by the construction of industrial estates and improvements in transport communications,^[100] most notably the M4 motorway linking south Wales directly to London. It was believed that the foundations for stable economic growth had been firmly established in Wales during this period, but this was shown to be optimistic after the recession of the early 1980s saw the collapse of much of the manufacturing base that had been built over the preceding forty years.^[101]

Devolution

The Welsh Language Act 1967 repealed a section of the Wales and Berwick Act and thus "Wales" was no longer part of the legal definition of England. This essentially defined Wales as a separate entity legally (but within the UK), for the first time since before the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 which defined Wales as a part of the Kingdom of England. The Welsh Language Act 1967 also expanded areas where use of Welsh was permitted, including in some legal situations.^[102]^[103]

In a referendum in 1979, Wales voted against the creation of a Welsh assembly with an 80 per cent majority. In 1997, a second referendum on the same issue secured a very narrow majority (50.3 per cent).^[104] The National Assembly for Wales (Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru) was set up in 1999 (under the Government of Wales Act 1998) with the power to determine how Wales's central government budget is spent and administered, although the UK Parliament reserved the right to set limits on its powers.^[104]

The Government of Wales Act 2006 (c 32) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the National Assembly for Wales and allows further powers to be granted to it more easily. The Act creates a system of government with a separate executive drawn from and accountable to the legislature.^[105] Following a successful referendum in 2011 on extending the law making powers of the National Assembly it is now able to make laws, known as Acts of the Assembly, on all matters in devolved subject areas, without needing the UK Parliament's agreement.^[105]

In the 2016 referendum, Wales voted in support of leaving the European Union, although demographic differences became evident. According to Danny Dorling, professor of geography at Oxford University, votes for Leave may have been boosted by the large number English people living in Wales.^[106]

After the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020, the National Assembly was renamed "Senedd Cymru" in Welsh and the "Welsh Parliament" in English, which was seen as a better reflection of the body's expanded legislative powers.^[107]

Welsh language

The Welsh language (Welsh: Cymraeg) is an Indo-European language of the Celtic family;^[108] the most closely related languages are Cornish and Breton. Most linguists believe that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain around 600 BCE.^[109] The Brythonic languages ceased to be spoken in England and were replaced by the English language, a Germanic language which arrived in Wales around the end of the eighth century due to the defeat of the Kingdom of Powys.^[110]

The Bible translations into Welsh and the Protestant Reformation, which encouraged use of the vernacular in religious services, helped the language survive after Welsh elites abandoned it in favour of English in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.^[111]

Successive Welsh Language Acts, in 1942, 1967 and 1993, improved the legal status of Welsh.^[112] The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 modernised the 1993 Welsh Language Act and gave Welsh an official status in Wales for the first time, a major landmark for the language. The Measure also created the post of Welsh Language Commissioner, replacing the Welsh Language Board.^[113] Following the referendum in 2011, the Official Languages Act became the first Welsh law to be created in 600 years, according to the First Minister at the time, Carwyn Jones. This law was passed by Welsh Assembly members (AMs) only and made Welsh an official language of the National Assembly.^[114]

Starting in the 1960s, many road signs have been replaced by bilingual versions.^[115] Various public and private sector bodies have adopted bilingualism to a varying degree and (since 2011) Welsh is the only official (de jure) language in any part of Great Britain.^[116]