Welsh Journals

THE PRINCE AND THE DRAGON: WELSH NATIONAL IDENTITY AND THE 1911 INVESTITURE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES Although shrouded in pseudo-medieval trappings, the Investiture of the prince of Wales was a product of the Edwardian period. The ceremony was an 'invented tradition' created in 1910 and 1911 by a Welsh 'National Assembly' of Liberal politicians, aristocrats, religious leaders and members of the Office of Works. Other investitures had been performed in the past, but these were private affairs of the court, usually held in London or Westminster with little connection with the Welsh people or the idea of a Welsh nation.2 This investiture was to be different. For the first time since the days of Llywelyn the Last in the thirteenth century, a prince of Wales was to be invested on Welsh soil. Invented during a time of political controversy, the Investiture of 1911 sought to define the character of Welsh national identity. Scholarly discussion of Victorian and Edwardian Welsh national The author wishes to acknowledge the generous support of the Fulbright Scholarship programme, the National Welsh-American Foundation and the Welsh National Gymanfa Ganu Association. 1 See Eric Hobsbawm, 'Introduction: inventing traditions', in Eric Hobsbawm and Terrance Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 1-14. The original members of the National Committee included David Lloyd George, A. G. Edwards (bishop of St Asaph), Lord Plymouth, Lord Tredegar, Lord Cawdor, the Wesleyan minister, the Revd Cadfan Davies, and the chairman of the Welsh Party, Sir Alfred Thomas. Although the activities of the committee continued to be led by its original core, it was later expanded to include the mayors of Caernarfon, Aberystwyth and Bangor; the Welsh MPs, W G. Ormsby-Gore, Sir Herbert Roberts and W. F. Roch; Lord Kenyon, Sir Vincent Evans and R. M. Thomas; the lords lieutenant of the Welsh counties, the four bishops of Wales, the heads of the four main nonconformist denominations of Wales, and the chairmen and clerks of the county councils of Wales and Monmouthshire. Western Mail, 30 July 1910; North Wales Chronicle, 24 March 1911. 2 Francis Jones, The Prince and Principality of Wales (Cardiff, 1969), p. 117.