Wales, 1587-1689

This chapter considers the nature and growth of Protestant nonconformity in Wales from its first glimmerings in the Elizabethan period down to the Toleration Act. The introduction explores the particular attraction of religious dissent in the historiography of early modern Wales, which has imparted a particular cast to our understanding of this period. The chapter then discusses the relative weakness of Puritanism in the country before the mid-seventeenth century, although the important case of John Penry in the 1580s and 1590s is examined. Attention then turns to the crucial developments of the Civil War period and the work of the Commission for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales (1650–3) which was key to establishing a robust Dissenting presence in the principality. The relationship between religious nonconformity, translation, and the Welsh language is a theme that runs throughout the chapter