Yr Hen Iaith fifty six: A literary battle for hearts and minds

We continue the history of Welsh literature to accompany the second series of podcasts in which Jerry Hunter guides fellow academic Richard Wyn Jones through the centuries. This accompanies episode 56.

Jerry Hunter

A Literary Battle for Hearts and Minds: Morgan Llwyd

O Bobl Cymru! Atoch chi y mae fy llais: O Drigolion Gwynedd a’r Deheubarth, arnoch chi yr wyf i yn gweiddi. Mae’r wawr wedi torri, a’r haul yn codi arnoch. Mae’r adar yn canu: deffro (O Gymro) deffro; ac oni chredi eiriau, cred weithredoedd. Edrych o’th amgylch a gwêl – Wele, mae’r byd a’i bilerau yn siglo.

‘Oh, People of Wales! It is to you that my voice [calls]: Oh, Inhabitants of Gwynedd and Deheubarth [North and South Wales], it is upon you that I am calling. The dawn has broken, and the sun is rising over you. The birds are singing: awake (Oh, Welshman), awake; and if you do not believe words, believe actions. Look about you and see – Behold, the world and its pillars are shaking.’

This is how Morgan Llwyd addresses his readers in Gwaedd yng Nghymru yn Wyneb Pob Cydwybod (‘A Call in Wales in the Face of Every Conscience’), a short work published in 1653.

Celebration

This is a Welsh Puritan’s triumphant celebration of a new dawn; like most religious radicals, Morgan Llwyd supported Parliament during the military conflicts with the monarchy, and the third and final of those ‘civil wars’ had been won by Parliamentarian forces two years before Gwaedd yng Nghymru appeared.

The supports of the known world had indeed been shaken; King Charles I had been executed in 1649 and the monarchy had been abolished and replaced with the Commonwealth.

Morgan Llwyd was born in 1619 the parish of Maentwrog, Merionethshire. He attended School in Wrexham, and during his teenage years he was exposed to the ministry of the Puritan Walter Cradoc. He joined Cradoc in helping to establish the first Dissenting church in Wales at Llanfaches in Monmouthshire.

He spent time in Puritan strongholds in England and travelled with Parliamentarian forces during the wars, preaching to the soldiers and acting as an unofficial chaplain. The Act for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales, passed in 1650, appointed Morgan Llwyd as one of the ‘approvers’ tasked with travelling throughout Wales and preaching.

The Act expired in 1653, and scholars have often noted that this helps to explain why Morgan Llwyd began publishing in that year. Like most Protestant thinkers, he was heavily influenced by John Calvin; however, his writings display a dizzying constellation of other influences as well, including the Lutheran mystic Jakob Böhme, the Quakers and the ‘Fifth Monarchists’, millennialists believing that the end of history was at hand.

Like many millennialists at the time, Morgan Llwyd thought that the year 1666 – containing that portentous number, 666 – might see the start of God’s rule on earth. This immediate context helps explains the earnest passion driving his desire to bring other Welsh  people into the ranks of the righteous before that final dawn.

While Morgan Llwyd was on the triumphant side when the wars ended, the vast majority of the Cymry were not. Most Welsh people were conservative politically and religiously, and the only real Puritan footholds in Wales were in larger towns like Cardiff and along the border with England.

Suspicious

The majority of the Welsh population would’ve seen the radical beliefs embraced by Puritans as hallmarks of a ‘foreign’ and ‘English’ kind of Christianity. Thus, when Morgan Llwyd began publishing in 1653 he was attempting to reach the hearts and minds of people who were extremely suspicious of – and even openly hostile to – the kinds of ideas he was presenting to them.

Another short piece, Llythyr i’r Cymry Cariadus (‘A Letter to the Loving Welsh’), was the very first work which Llwyd published in 1653. In it he tells the reader that he is writing ‘to awaken you in time’ (‘i’th ddeffro mewn pryd’).

Drawing upon his vast experience as an itinerant preacher and employing considerable literary talents, this text, like the Gwaedd, is a memorable piece of passionate prose. We might suggest that the authorial voice which we ‘hear’ addressing us through these printed words is the most powerful of Llwyd’s literary creations.

This voice calls upon the reader, combing kindness with command, using compelling words in well-crafted sentences which urge spiritual action. Take this exhortation, for example: ‘Deffro, deffro, deffro, a rhodia fel plentyn y dydd’ (‘Awake, awake, awake, and walk as a child of the day’).

The rhythmic repetition of the word deffro ensnares the reader before presenting that wonderfully enticing call to become a child of the day. Morgan Llwyd also seeks to forge a close bond with his readers by stressing their shared Welsh identity.

The lone reader is often described as Cymro, ‘a  Welshman’, and addressed warmly at the start of the Llythyr like this: ‘O Gymro Caredig’, ‘Oh, Kind Welshman’.

Suggesting a mystical understanding which seems to drive much of Llwyd’s work, another sentence in the Llythyr informs the reader that the writer knows him: ‘y Cymro, ni wn i mo’th henw di er fy mod i – drwy oleuni Duw – yn canfod dy naturiaeth di’ (‘The Welshman, I don’t know your name although I am able – with God’s light – to perceive your nature’).

Nation

He also describes the Welsh as a nation, sometimes using meaning-laden terms emphasizing their status as the original inhabits of the Island of Britain: ‘caredigion Duw yw llawer o’r Brutaniaid’ (‘God’s loved ones are many of the Britons’).

In the Gwaedd, the collective readers are urged to meditate on their own history: chwi, hil ac epil yr hen Frutaniaid, gwrandewch ar hanes eich hynafiaid, a chofiwch pa fodd y bu, fel y dealloch pa fodd y mae, i gael gwybod pa fodd y bydd, fel y galloch baratoi.

‘You, descendants and offspring of the Old Britons, listen to the history of your ancestors, and remember how it was, so that you might understand how it is, in order to get to know how it will be, so that you might prepare.’

As was discussed in episode 30 of this series, there was a tradition which helped Welsh people consider their past, present and future in productive association. It can be suggested that Morgan Llwyd adapted these complex historiographical-prophetic mechanics in order to present his millenialistic call to prepare for God’s rule on earth.

Interestingly, while embarking on an energetic publishing career in 1653, Morgan Llwyd simultaneously questioned the very medium he was using.

In the Gwaedd he tells us that ‘it is not in paper and ink where the life of the spirit is, nor in opinions and words’ (‘Nid mewn papur ac inc y mae bywyd yr enaid, nac mewn opiniynau a geiriau’).

The very first sentence of the Llythyr describes the proliferation of ideas via the printing press: ‘Mae llyfrau fel ffynhonnau, a dysgawdwyr fel goleuadau lawer yr awron ymysg rai dynion.’ (‘Books are like wellsprings, and teachers are like many lights now amongst some men’). If lights can lead, they can also mislead, like dangerous will-o-the-whisps.

Continuing on this theme, Morgan Llwyd states then that ‘it is vain to print many books’ (‘Oferedd yw printio llawer o lyfrau’). This is an astounding statement, coming as it does from an author who would publish more than ten works in five years! However, there are several ways of understanding Llwyd’s assault on the very medium he was employing so energetically, as will be discussed in future episodes.

Further Reading

Thomas E. Ellis (ed.), Gweithiau Morgan Llwyd o Wynedd: two volumes (1899 a 1908).

Thomas Richard, A History of the Puritan Movement in Wales from the Institution of the Church at Llanfaches in 1639 to the Expiry of the Propogation Act in 1653 (1920).

M. Wynn Thomas, Morgan Llwyd (1984).

M. Wynn Thomas, Morgan Llwyd [:] Ei Gyfeillion, Ei Gyfoeswyr A’i Gyfnod (1991).

R. M. Jones, Cyfriniaeth Gymraeg (1994).

Goronwy Wyn Owen, Rhwng Calfin a Böhme [:] Golwg ar Syniadaeth Morgan Llwyd (2001).

Jerry Hunter, ‘The Red Sword, the Sickle and the Author’s Revenge: Welsh Literature and Conflict in the Seventeenth Century, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 36 (2018).

Jerry Hunter, ‘Perygl Geiriau, Oferedd Print: Cyd-destunoli Pryderon Llenyddol Morgan Llwyd’ yn Ysgrifau Beirniadol XXXV [:] Gweddnewidiadau (forthcoming in 2025).

Episode 30 in this series: https://nation.cymru/culture/yr-hen-iaith-part-thirty-prophecy-poetry-and-pre-modern-proto-nationalism-the-cywyddau-brud-and-the-wars-of-the-roses/