Rape of the Fair Country

Product Information

But for me, as a very proud Welshman, it can be a little anti-English in its sentiments at times. The author isn't Welsh, though he settled here eventually, and had an obviously very strong affinity with the country. But in his constant anti English rantings;

For it is greed you are discussing not politics. And until greed is taken from the hearts of men you will always have masters and poor, and which way round it is matters little" When we refer to William Crawshay of Merthyr Tydfil we allude to a man who has done more for Glamorganshire, and perhaps for South Wales, than any other living individual. He was one of the few remarkable men who can give a character to a country and a tone to an age. In the extent of his speculations and unbounded enterprise, we cannot name another Cambrian who has done so much and so well or the Principality of Wales.” Have you seen the iron of Cyfarthfa, then?” he asked, struggling up. “Have you even heard of Merthyr, that is dying under Crawshay? Have you heard of Crawshay, even?” Although the story exudes violence, the exploitation of a downtrodden workforce, sadistic floggings and bestial behaviour, it has its gentler and romantic moments. When Iestyn falls in love with his lovely Irish girl, Mari, there are delightful passages describing their courtship amongst the parts of the Usk valley which have yet to be destroyed by coal mines and ironworks. But the hotel is occupied by armed soldiers and their superior firepower forces the Chartists to retreat, with twenty of their number killed and at least another fifty wounded. It is a disaster for the movement, and it is not clear what happens to Iestyn Mortymer – but his likely fate may well have been the same as top Newport leaders like John Frost and Zephaniah Williams, both of whom are transported to Tasmania. Others receive lengthy prison sentences with hard labour. Alexander Cordell clearly put in a lot of research into Chartism to write this book and his in depth knowledge of the history of the movement can be found in every chapter. Aside from the general reader, it should also be on the shelves of every student of English and Welsh social and economic history.I wish to God the English had stayed in England and ripped their own fields and burst their own mountains.” Don’t get me wrong, I love my Welsh history, but even I only just managed to keep up with where Eames was leading. It all felt like there was too much ‘telling’; as though I’d turned up at a history lecture and needed a fast recap on last week’s notes. And that’s fine if you already know what’s going on, but if you are hoping for some kind of introduction to Welsh history, I’m afraid you are going to feel excluded by Eames’s adaptation, and this seemed to cater only for those already initiated. But he was still. Quite still he lay in the fading light of the torches, and his hands were frozen to the musket he held.

My mum suggested this book to me after I watched the episode of the crown that surrounded the Aberfan disaster. My grandfather was Welsh, and my great grandparents came to Canada because the working conditions in Wales were so atrocious. The plot concerns the Welsh iron-making communities of Blaenavon and Nantyglo in the 19th century. The action is seen through the eyes of young Iestyn Mortymer who grows up in times of growing tensions between ironmasters and trade unionists. In 1826, when the book starts, Iestyn is eight years old and already beginning work at the Garndyrus furnaces near Blaenavon. His sister Morfydd has strong feelings about women and children working in mines and ironworks. She sympathises with the Chartist movement and condemns the action of the militant Scotch Cattle groups. In this she is in opposition to Hywel Mortymer, their conservative father who later begins to question his own loyalty to the ironmaster. Six shillings a week she earns on the trams like an animal, too big round the waist for the towing belt. In less than four months she will drop it in coal dust’. There were elements I did enjoy in the latter half of the book. The book does well to capture the community control of the Scotch Cattle and the excitement surrounding the growing Chartist movement. Zephaniah Williams and John Frost were and are giants of the working class campaign for universal (male) suffrage, political transparency and fairness for all. Industrially it was volatile moment in Welsh history and radical politics and protest came to the fore against shameful exploitation and destruction, there were even whispers of a Welsh Republic.The whole book is an emotional journey! I was pleased and relieved when life and relationships went well for the Mortymer family, annoyed by some of the pig-headed opinions inflicted on it from within and without, and saddened by the people who were lost along the way It is about the rise of Chartism in the south est Wales valleys in the early 19th century, seen through the eyes of young steelworker, Iestyn Mortimer. The shift in the piece takes place through his father's changing attitudes - at first, loyal to the owner's, but slowly seeing the inequalities perpetrated by the wealthy landowners, he shifts his perspective. Rape of the Fair Country is a novel by Alexander Cordell, first published in 1959. It is the first in Cordell's "Mortymer Trilogy", followed by The Hosts Of Rebecca (1960) and Song of the Earth (1969). [1] The book has been translated into seventeen languages. In addition to the book having been adapted for numerous plays over the years and more recently. [2] Cordell is at pains to point out through the mouths of his Chartist characters that the appalling conditions the workers endured were not confined to South Wales. He is not, however, interested in giving a social or economic overview, but simply in portraying the price paid by the people of Wales. This short passage, for me, was the most moving: Although Iestyn was the main character, I liked Dada as there was a strength of character in him but also a softer side and a sense of humour, not unlike some Welsh men that I know.