Wales - Birth of a Republic by Zephania Jones
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| Thanks to The Guardian |
Author: Zephania Jones
Publisher: Not known
Source book: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next #1)
“Ironically, without the efficient and violent crushing of the simultaneous Pontypool, Cardiff and Newport risings in 1839, Wales might never have become a republic at all. Under pressure from landowners and a public outcry at the killing of 236 unarmed Welsh men and women, the Chartists managed to push the government to early reform of the parliamentary system. Buoyed by success and well represented in the house, they succeeded in securing Welsh home rule following the eight-month “Great Strike “ of 1847. In 1854, under the leadership of John Frost, Wales declared its independence. England, weighed down with problems in the Crimea and Ireland, saw no good reason to argue with a belligerent and committed Welsh assembly. Trade links were good and devolution, coupled with an Anglo-Welsh non-aggression treaty, was passed the following year.”
We learn nothing about Zephania Jones but she has plenty to say about Wales in her magnum opus.
The Socialist Republic of Wales isn’t very welcoming to visitors from England: the Welsh border was closed in 1965. When Thursday Next believes her kidnapped Uncle Mycroft is being held by the evil Acheron Hades in the lounge of a disused hotel in Merthyr Tydfil (it had once been a luxurious hotel with a pearl-inlaid grand piano and a mirror-backed bar) she tries to get a secondhand book dealer in Abertawe, Jones the manuscript, to help her out. She has been authorised to trade an early manuscript copy of Dylan Thomas’s ‘I See the Boys of Summer’ for his assistance. The Welsh government had been demanding its return for some time. Jones won’t help Thursday but his assistant, Haelwyn the book, agrees to smuggle her into Merthyr.
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| Thanks to Nations Online Project |
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