the same time. The relics were ruthlessly swept away; they were
taken possession of by the agents of Cromwell and destroyed, or sent
to London. The images carried in the village processions were lost--
the images that could keep the superstitious Welshman from hell, or
even bring him back from it, or heal his diseases, or keep his cattle
from the murrain, and his crops from blight. I only know of one of
those relics that can still be seen. It is the healing cup of Nant
Eos, a mere fragment of wood. The people's faith in the relics can
be estimated from the fact that the cup has been used within the last
century.

Again, the monasteries were dissolved. The wealth of the
monasteries, their meadows and barns and sheep-runs and fish ponds,
were coveted by the rich; the poor thought of them as sources of
alms. The monks were good landlords; and they gave freely, not only
the comforts of religion, but of their medicinal herbs and stores of
food. The Welsh monasteries were not so rich as those of England,
and they were all dissolved among the lesser monasteries--those with
an income under 200 pounds a year. But though none of them were very
rich, they nearly all had almost 200 pounds a year. Their loss
affected the whole country, as each part of Wales had one or two of
them--Tintern, Margam, Neath, and Whitland in the south; Strata
Florida, Cwm Hir, Ystrad Marchell, and the Vanner in central Wales;
and Basingwerk and Maenan in the north.

The Reformation brought the poorer classes in Wales, not only insults
to their national and religious feelings, but material loss. It
appealed only to the English bishops who had adopted the new
Protestant tenets, and to the Welsh and English landowners who had
lost their reverence for relics, and had learnt to hunger for land.