Of Wales and Its Princes

WELSHMEN break into song as readily as lesser men tell jokes, and after an evening in any Welsh pub, it is perfectly possible to believe that all who sing off-key are packed off to England at the age of 15. Their songs are stirring, and the best dwell on the eternal glory of the nation. "Wales will be as Wales has been," pledges Men of Harlech, "so great in freedom's story." Reserved Northerners and more outgoing Southerners alike take great pride in the brave Welsh heritage. The real heroes remain those ancient warriors who fought successive invaders so long ago.

Welsh history is the story of "phantoms following phantoms in a phantom land . . . a gleam of spears, a murmur of arrows, a shout of victory, a scream of torture, a song . . ." Welshmen proudly call themselves the first Britons. They were Celts who migrated from Central Europe. Once in Britain, they fought against the Romans and later the Saxons, who forced them out of England and west into the area they occupy today. (It was the Saxons who were responsible for the name Wales. It is derived from the Saxon word wealas, or foreigners; Welshmen call their country Cymru, or homeland.) The Welsh continued to battle against Danish, Norman and finally English invaders. In the mid-13th century, the Welsh erupted under the leadership of Llywelyn. They were crushed by Edward I of England, and Llywelyn, last Welsh Prince of Wales, was slain.

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In an effort to appease the defeated Welshmen, Edward made sure that his first son was born at Caernarvon in North Wales. In 1284, so legend goes, the infant was presented to the assembled Welsh barons with the royal assurance that their new Prince could not speak a word of English. Seventeen years later, he was formally invested as the first English Prince of Wales, thus establishing the tradition that made heirs to the throne bear that title.

It was not a happy beginning. In his teens, Prince Edward developed a firm homosexual attachment to a young Gascon courtier named Piers Gaveston. On the Prince's accession as Edward II, he raised Gaveston to the highest rank in the peerage, carried on the affair despite marriage, and in the meantime proved himself a most unlucky leader. At Bannockburn, Scots forces under Robert the Bruce drove Edward's army from the field, and Edward himself fled the battle. Disgusted, his wife Isabella later sailed off to France, took a lover, and returned at the head of an army that flung the King into prison. He was savagely put to death in 1327.

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The next Prince was more fortunate. Edward the Black Prince (so called because of his black armor) was a great lover, generous friend and brave warrior. It was the Black Prince's power that crushed the French at the Battle of Crecy. There, so legend has it, Edward saw the body of blind King John of Bohemia with its crest of ostrich feathers and the motto Ich Dien (I Serve). He took the crest and motto for his own. Succeeding Princes kept it.

Wales, however, remained turbulent. Late in the 14th century, Welshmen under the leadership of Owen Glendower fought 14 hard years for freedom, but English might prevailed once more. Glendower himself vanished--legend says he and his men still sleep in some forgotten cave, ready to come forth again when Wales is in need. After the end of Glendower's rebellion, relations with London quieted down, a process aided mightily by the accession to the English throne of Henry VII of the Welsh house of Tudor. In 1536, the Act of Union bound Wales to England. The quality of the succeeding princes was unspectacular.

Sorriest of all were the heirs of the house of Hanover. Frederick Lewis, son of George II, was damned by his father as "the greatest ass in the world." Under Victoria, last of the Hanoverian line, a measure of esteem was restored to the title. Her son, properly known as Prince Albert Edward but immortalized as "Bertie," carved out a flamboyant reputation as the best-known playboy of his day. He held the title for almost 60 years, then reigned for only nine. Bertie's grandson, invested at Caernarvon in 1911 and the first Prince of Wales ever to assume the title in Wales itself, spent an even shorter period as King. In 1936, after ruling just eleven months, King Edward VIII abdicated--to marry "the woman I love." All in all, most of the 20 men who preceded the present Prince of Wales have been an unhappy lot. Six did not live long enough to become King, four died violently after acceding to the throne. Two abdicated. It is a sobering heritage, but Charles can reasonably look forward to better prospects, thanks to the advance of medicine--and the decline, concurrent with the dwindling importance of the throne, in the practice of regicide.

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