Shakespeare's Attitude Toward the Welsh
Many explanations may be advanced to account for Shakespeare's friendly interest in and sympathetic attitude towards the Welsh people.
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“Shakespeare's Attitude Toward the Welsh” from Shakespeare and the Welsh by Frederick James Harries, 1919.
In 1896, as the first Chancellor of the University of Wales, King Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, delivered an address which, affording, as it does, an excellent idea of the intellectual status of the Welsh in the Tudor period, and containing an interesting reference to the Welsh characters of Shakespeare, may usefully be quoted at some length:
"From very early times, in spite of difficulties and adverse circumstances, the Welsh people have seldom failed to display a marked love for literature and learning. Even in so remote anage as the sixth century, works were produced in which scholars perceive a standard of literary taste very noteworthy for those early days. Schools of systematic learning in Wales existed only in its monasteries, and from St. David's came forth Asser to aid Alfred the Great in his work amongst his West Saxon subjects. Throughout the Middle Ages we find the profession of letters held in universal respect in Wales, its exponents protected by privileges and treated everywhere as honoured guests and the objects of popular regard; while Welsh scholars absent from home constituted a conspicuous element in the cosmopolitan crowds which flocked to mediaeval Oxford.”
“The troubles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries fatally obstructed the development of permanent educational institutions west of Offa's Dyke; but when England under the Tudors opened its colleges to the scholastic ambition of Wales, Welsh students were again found thronging to the English Universities, and adding distinguished names to the rolls of the learned professions. Nor is it without significance that Shakespeare, with his intuitive perception of character, representing at this epoch three highly finished portraits of Welshmen, depicted them all the soldier, the divine, and the feudal chieftain as men of thought and learning.”
Shakespeare indeed did this, but he did more: he embodied in his three Welsh personages the outstanding characteristics of the Welsh race. In the character of Glendower we are presented with the mystical, idealistic, and the poetical side of the Celtic nature; Sir Hugh Evans is the shrewd, homely, Bible-loving Welshman; while Fluellen displays the war-like, chivalrous, and loyal attributes of the Welsh people. It will thus be seen that in his representation of the Welsh character Shakespeare rose above the racial prejudices of his fellow-countrymen, which found congenial expression in the old Anglo-Saxon doggerel wherein Taffy is described as a persistent purloiner of other people's goods. Indeed, we may claim Shakespeare as a champion of Welsh nationality, for in King Henry V. the fiery Fluellen makes an English braggart eat the leek, while Gower severely admonishes Pistol for ridiculing the Welsh.
There is one trait, however, in the character of the Welsh people which Shakespeare has not represented namely, their mirthfulness, although we catch a glimpse of it in the gusto with which Sir Hugh Evans "turns the tables" on "Mine Host of the Garter," and urges his fairies to "pinse and burn" the too fleshly Falstaff.
Many explanations may be advanced to account for Shakespeare's friendly interest in and sympathetic attitude towards the Welsh people. To begin with, he lived at a time when a Queen of Welsh descent occupied the throne of England a Queen to whom he was personally known, and who, tradition tells us, was proud of her Welsh lineage. A second reason that suggests itself is that through his association with Thomas Jenkins and other Stratford citizens Shakespeare may have come to cherish a liking for the people from beyond the marches. It is also probable that he was influenced by his friend Drayton, the Warwickshire poet, who had a considerable knowledge of Wales, and wrote much that was highly complimentary to the Principality. A fourth, and it seems to us a very plausible, explanation of Shakespeare's interest in the Welsh nation may be found in the circumstance that the poet was evidently convinced of the truth of the tradition that his paternal ancestors fought at Bosworth Field on the side of Richmond, and received from Henry VII., "in reward for valiant and faithful services, tenements and lands in Warwickshire. “
There was also a claim made that his mother, Mary Arden, was descended of an ancient and distinguished family connected with "John Arden, Esquire, of the Body of Henry VII." The poet's father certainly applied for a grant of arms in the year 1596, and on October 20th of the same year a draft, which is still extant in the College of Arms, was prepared under the direction of William Dethick, Garter King of Arms, granting John Shakespeare's petition. Dethick declared that he had been by credible report informed that the applicant's "parentes and late antecessors were for theire valeant and faithfull service advanced and rewarded by the most prudent Prince King Henry VII. of famous memorie sy thence whiche tyme they have continued at those partes [i.e., Warwickshire] in good reputacion and credit.” The question as to the accuracy or otherwise of the declaration made to the Garter King of Arms does not concern us here. It is sufficient for our purpose to know that Shakespeare himself believed that his ancestors had fought for and had been rewarded by Henry the Welsh King.
Shakespeare's Welshmen are all good men and true. Henry V. ("Harry of Monmouth") is "a mirror of all Christian kings"; Henry VII . is "England's hope"; Glendower is brave and affable and generous; Sir Hugh Evans is peaceful and pious; Fluellen is loyal and chivalrous; the Welsh captain is "trusty”; the supporters of Henry VI. in the Principality are loyal and "loving"; Belarius claims that those who come from Cambria are "gentle" and honest; and it must not be overlooked that Shakespeare described Queen Elizabeth as "a pattern to all princes," though this remark may be due to the courtier rather than the love of things Welsh. With the exception of Westmorland's report of the Battle of Brynglas there is not a single reflection on the Welsh character in the plays. And it is significant that Shakespeare displayed this independence of judgment at a time when the old Taffy slander was in full currency, and Beaumont and Fletcher considered the speaking of Welsh a proof of dishonesty. It is probable that Shakespeare's defence of "an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour,” was due to the knowledge that he had Welsh blood in his veins. In the next chapter we shall see what justification exists for this view of the matter.
Harries, Frederick James. Shakespeare and the Welsh. T. Fisher Unwin, 1919.
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