writing, in a slightly different form, what I have already written in
this book about early Welsh history. The fall of Llywelyn, the Black
Death, Owen Glendower's ideals and the Tudor legislation, all
prepared the way.

The long-bow and gunpowder, we have seen, made the peasant as
important as the noble in war. The long-bow made the coat of mail
useless, gunpowder made the castle useless--the defence of the
privileges of the Middle Ages departed.

Ideas of equality were advanced. They were looked upon at first as
truths applicable only to a perfect and impossible condition, and
their discoverers were ignored, if not hanged or burnt. But they
always became a reality, and were victorious in the end. Take the
truths discovered or championed by Welshmen. Walter Brute
rediscovered the theory of justification by faith--that all men are
equal in the sight of God, and that no lord could be responsible for
them. Bishop Pecock advocated the doctrine of toleration--that
reason, not persecution, should rule. John Penry claimed that the
people had a right to discuss publicly the questions that vitally
affected them. The history of the past shows that the apostles were
condemned, the life of the present shows that their ideas lived.

Industry and commerce became more free. In Tudor times piracy was
repressed, the march lordships were abolished, the privileges of the
towns ceased to fetter manufacture, trade with England became free.
In Stuart times roads were made, the industries depending on wool
revived, and the industries of Britain began to move westwards
towards the iron and the coal. In the Hanoverian period waste lands
were enclosed, the slate mines of the north and the coal pits of the