National Pageant of Wales

Pageant type

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Performances

Place: Sophia Gardens (Cardiff/Caerdydd) (Cardiff/Caerdydd, Glamorganshire, Wales)

Year: 1909

Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors

Number of performances: 19

Notes

26 July–7 August, 1909

  • Monday 26 July, 2.30pm
  • Tuesday 27 July, 2.30pm
  • Wednesday 28 July, 2.30pm
  • Thursday 29 July, 2.30pm
  • Friday 30 July, 2.30pm
  • Saturday 31 July, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
  • Monday 2 August, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
  • Tuesday 3 August, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
  • Wednesday 4 August, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
  • Thursday 5 August, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
  • Friday 6 August, 2.30pm and 7.30pm
  • Saturday 7 August, 2.30pm and 7.30pm

Dress Rehearsals

  • Monday 19 July, 5pm—private
  • Tuesday 20 July, 5pm—children
  • Wednesday 21 July, 5pm—children
  • Thursday 22 July, 2.30pm—children
  • Friday 23 July 23, 5pm—press and public
  • Saturday 24 July, 5pm—press and public

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Pageant Master: Hawtrey, George P.
  • Deputy Master and Historian: Captain Owen Vaughan (Owen Rhoscomyl)
  • Hon. Treasurer: Mr Jon Allcock
  • Hon. Secretary: Mr A.W. Swash
  • Hon. Solicitors: Messrs L. Morgan and Box

Names of executive committee or equivalent

Executive Committee:

  • Chairman: Rt Hon. the Lord Mayor, Alderman Lewis Morgan
  • Vice-Chairman: Alderman Robert Hughes, JP
  • Mr J. Allcock
  • Mr Trevor S. Jones
  • Mr Robert Redford
  • Mr Samuel Allen
  • Mr F.H. Jotham, JP
  • Mr T. Hurry Riches, JP
  • Mr A.C. Burgess
  • Mr E. Kent
  • Mr H. Read
  • Mr James Carter
  • Mr Gethin Lewis, JP
  • Mr Edwin Seward
  • Mr E.W.M. Corbett, JP
  • Mr Herbert Lewis
  • Mr J.M. Staniforth
  • Mr W. Davies
  • Mr T. Lovell
  • Mr A. Taylor, HMSIS
  • Mr C.E. Dovey
  • Mr Thomas Morel
  • Mr D. Watkin Thomas
  • Mr D.W. Evans
  • Dr Mullin, JP
  • Mr Edward Thomas, JP
  • Mr I.V. Evans
  • Councillor Nicholl
  • Mr T.H. Thomas
  • Mr Parker Hagarty
  • Mr Evan Owen, JP
  • Dr Graham White, JP
  • Mr J. Austin Jenkins
  • Mr T. Owen
  • Mr Morgan S. Williams
  • Mr J.A. Jones
  • Mr H. Price
  • Mr Rhys Williams
  • Mr Martin Jones
  • Dr Pritchard
  • Mr E.C. Willmott

Chairmen of Sub-Committees:

  • Finance: Mr F.H. Jotham, JP
  • Press and Advertising: Mr Edward Thomas JP
  • Property and Costumes: Mr S.W. Allen, MICE
  • Music: Mr E.W.M. Corbett
  • Performers: Mr J. Allcock
  • Grand Stand: Mr Herbert Lewis
  • Entertainments: Mr D.W. Evans
  • Railway and Steamboats: Messrs J. Martin Jones and I. Vaughan Evans
  • Horses: Councillor Edward Nicholl

Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)

  • Vaughan, Arthur Owen
  • Shakespeare, William

Notes

  • Arthur Owen Vaughan (a.k.a. Owen Rhoscomyl).
  • Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, Act 3, Scene I (referenced in opening).
  • Shakespeare, Henry V (Episode V adapted from Henry V, Acts 4 and 5).

Names of composers

  • German, Edward
  • Gounod, Charles
  • Beethoven, Ludwig van
  • Miller, George
  • Pierné, Gabriel
  • Batiste, Édouard
  • Handel, George Frideric
  • Demersseman, Jules
  • Saint-Saëns, Camille
  • Mari, Gabriel
  • Volkmann, Robert
  • Nicholls, Heller

Numbers of performers

5000

Men, women children. 500 rugby players.

Financial information

Costs [not complete]

Dresses and Properties: £3348
Materials: £1761
Designing and cleaning costumes: £75
Costumes from the Winchester Pageant: £40
Costumes from the Cheltenham Pageant: £119
Costumes from the Denbigh Pageant: £830
Wages for Wardrobe Mistress, Seamstresses and Property Men: £830
Boots: £166
Wigs: £350
Music: £965 (Band of the Royal Marines: £734; Band of the Glamorgan Imperial Yeomanry: £30; Cardiff Harmonic Society: £10).
Scenery: £223 (£177 on erection the castle).
Stands: £4716 (£3483 to erect the grandstand and another £960 for the football stands, barricading, latrines, payboxes, etc.)
Electric Lighting: £967.
Telephones: £82.
Advertising: £1291 (including £93 for a Lord Mayor of London’s luncheon; £385 to publish the Book of the Words, and £94 to publish the Child’s Book of the Words.
Services of the Police: £105
Hawtrey was paid £500 to be pageant master, and his assistant £200.

Income [not complete]
Admission to the Pageant Performances: £10814.
Photographic Rights: £52
Bioscopic Rights: £21
Souvenir Publishing Rights: £10
Rights for Supply of Refreshments: £75.
Sales of the Book of the Words: £417
Child’s Book of Words: £116
Firework displays: £174
Concerts: £34
Dances: £52
Advertising in the Books and programmes: £338.
Sale of Costumes, Properties: 367.1


Total Income: £13904. 3s. 9d.
Total Expenditure: £16058. 11s. 9d.
Loss: £2154. 7s.

Object of any funds raised

Unnamed charities

Linked occasion

n/a

Audience information

  • Grandstand: Yes
  • Grandstand capacity: 30000
  • Total audience: 200000

Notes

Total audience: c200000’2

According to the Official Souvenir, over 60000 school children booked for seats at the dress rehearsals before the pageant even opened, and around 90000 of them attended the three dress rehearsals altogether.

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

10s. 6d.– 2s. 6d.

For the second week the prices of admission were halved and 14000 seats set aside for shilling ticket-holders.

Associated events

  • July 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th, Evening Entertainments (grounds illuminated, and a Band of the Royal Marines, under the direction of Lieut. George Miller, MVO).
  • July 28th, and July 29th, Displays of Fireworks. 
  • On the other nights there were various Concerts and a Military Tattoo.
  • Two Fancy Dress Balls on July 26th and July 30th.
  • August 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th, various Afternoon Entertainments.

Pageant outline

Note

The synopses are taken verbatim from the book of words.

Prologue

The opening scene of the Pageant affords, probably, the most beautiful spectacle of any kind arranged by experts in stage effects, for the delight of the public. In it a number of ladies of high social distinction, representing the various counties of Wales and Monmouthshire, come forward under the leadership of ‘Dame Wales’, and claim as their own, respectively, the various heroes of history who came from each place. Fairies of the different counties run forward from all corners of the field and dance in crescent form in front of the grand stand.

Episode I

This episode represents an imaginary incident after the arrival of the Romans in Britain, when Caradoc the over-King of Southern Britain, comes to appeal to Rhys, the King of the Silures, who then inhabited Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, for his assistance in repelling the invaders. Towards the end of the scene, women folk paint the faces of the warriors with woad before sending them off to battle.

Interlude I Scene I. Foundation of Cardiff by the Romans, AD 60

In this interlude we see the advent of the Roman troops at the present site of Cardiff, and laying out the ground for a camp on the spot where now stands Cardiff Castle.

Interlude I Scene II. Proclamation of Maximus, King of Britain, as Emperor of Rome, AD 380

Maximus the Great, when still but a general, was sent by the Emperor Gratian to administer Britain, and he achieved that object by enlisting on his side the ravaging hordes of Saxons, Picts and Scots, who were then harrying the country. With these as his allies, he soon made himself King of Britain as a prelude to declaring himself Emperor of Rome. This scene shows him addressing the representatives of the mixed peoples of Britain, and announcing his attention to take the imperial purple and go to Rome.

Interlude I Scene III. Vorigern and Cunedda, AD 449

This scene is purely a historic procession of the two potentates with their royal retinues in the costumes of the period.

Interlude I Scene IV. The First Wave of Cymry to Settle in Wales, c. 475 AD

This very interesting scene [features] the roles of the two Princesses, Tegaingl and Gwen (daughters of Cunedda and sisters of Einion Erth). Tegaingl was the grandmother of King Arthur the Great, from whom the Mostyns of Talacre are descended.

Episode II. King Arthur the Great, AD 510

King Arthur the Great—the hero of all chivalry—was really three persons. That is to say the romantic tales we read in the ‘Morte D’Arthur’ and the ‘High History of the Holy Grail’ are founded on events of three Kings of the same name. The very picturesque scene given in this Pageant episode brings us to a green field outside the High Hall of Camelot, whither wends its way the funeral of King Cynvor. King Arthur, bravely armed and carrying the spoils of a conquered enemy, also appears. Court ladies of high degree wail bitterly by the bier of the dead King. Merlin, the Archdruid, bewails the death of Cynvor, and exhorts Arthur to lift the sword of the departed warrior in token of his accepting the Kingship of the country of Tegaingl. Arthur demurs, and Merlin pleads that he take up the leadership, rather than that ‘Smooth Aeddan,’ or ‘Black Yrien’ should become King. At that moment, Black Yrien steps forward reaching for the blade, which, however, Arthur snatches up, and then slays Yrien with it.

Interlude II Scene I. Coming of the Second Wave of the Cymry, AD 550

This scene opens with an exciting chase, wherein the Cymry warriors hunt down and capture a human victim for their sacrifice. As the victim is being led off, squealing, to the sacrificial stone, a number of saintly Christians hang back. Ceredig, the leader, enquires what is the cause of their hesitation, and learns with astonishment that there is already a Cymric Christian Church. The pagan priests accordingly leave the Christians to their prayers, while they proceed to worship their own gods in their own bloodthirsty way.

Interlude II Scene II. The Coming of the Third Invasion of the Cymry, AD 575

Processional: represents Cadoc and Dyvrig, accompanied by their kinsmen, St David, ‘Dewi Saint’, meeting Beli the Great, Prince of the Scots (or Irish) and other princes, and converting them to Christianity.

Interlude II Scene III. The Beginning of the Cymric Church, AD 675–780.

A Church procession of the period with St Eleutherius, Roman Bishop of Wessex, in front, and St Elvod, Archbishop of Gwynedd, at the rear.

Interlude II Scene IV. Rhodri Mawr, Over-King of Wales, and his Seven Sons, AD 875

In this scene a trumpeter and a herald, riding in advance, announce the advent of the royal party, who then ride forward with their gay retinue—a splendid squadron—galloping, ventre à terre, to the call of the charge from the woods on the right.

Episode III. Hywel Dda and the Law-Breakers, c. AD 950

Hywel Da was a great law-maker and enforced his laws in the iron manner of his time. The scene is an exciting one. First appear merry maidens dancing. Ruffians then come on and carry them off. The chase after the more nimble-footed damsels is most exciting. Then the Chief Ruffian (Captain Lindsay, Chief Constable of Glamorgan) captures a maiden and rides away with her lying across his saddle-bow. At this juncture appears Hywel Dda and his troops. Terrific fighting between the mounted knights and ruffians on foot and horseback ensues.

Interlude III Scene I. Gruffydd ap Llewelyn, AD 1050

In this scene the great King Gruffydd ap Llewelyn, accompanied by his wife, Edith of the Swan Neck, and a number of great nobles, princes, court ladies, and princesses of the pre-Norman period, come on the scene in the gay attire of the time. The scene is supposed to be laid in Kibur, near Llanishen.

Interlude III Scene II. The Coming of the Normans to Glamorgan, c. AD 1092

Horses and horsemen and ladies on horseback, and the famous Greenmeadow hounds, figure in this romantic scene.

Interlude III Scene III. Nest, Daughter of Rhys ap Tudor

Processional scene depicting the famous Princess Nest—a Cleopatra of the eleventh century, whose beauty beguiled Henry I and many others.

Interlude III Scene IV

Processional scene depicting Robert Consul, the Great Earl of Gloucester, with the three great scholars (Geoffrey of Monmouth, Walter Map, and Gerald the Cymro).

Interlude III Scene V. Gwenllian and the Avengers

Gwenllian of Kidwely Castle, wife of Prince Gruffydd ap Rhys, was captured by the Normans and beheaded, as every Welsh child knows. She was also ruthlessly avenged in the great battle of Cardigan. The Pageant scene depicts, in the first instance, Gwenllian and her sons leading their small party to battle, and then the avengers, with her eldest son Lord Rhys.

Episode IV. The Storming of Cardiff Castle by the Welsh Clansmen under Ivor Bach, AD 1158

This is the famous episode in which some 500 of the most prominent football players in Wales appear as unkempt and unarmoured Welsh clansmen under the redoubtable chieftain, Ivor Bach, and capture Cardiff Castle from its mail-clad Norman Garrison.

Interlude IV Scene I. Llywelyn the Great, AD 1215

Llewelyn the Great, with the famous baron, Basset of Beaupre, meets the Lord Marcher of Wales before proceeding to that historic rendezvous at Runnymede which eventuated in the signing of Magna Charta.

Interlude IV Scene II. Llewelyn Olav and the Eighteen Heroes of Point Orewyn, 11 December 1282

Llewelyn Olav, the last of the Llewelyn’s, after gaining three great victories over the armies of Edward I, was slain by his cousins, the two Mortimers and John Giffard, who, with their hosts of men, caught him sleeping in a farm house near Pont Orewyn. Everybody in Wales knows the story of the eighteen men of Llewelyn’s little party, who were all slain in the defence of the bridge ere the Mortimers could pass it to capture Llewelyn. Each of the eighteen men in the procession has a splash of blood on his forehead symbolic of his heroic fate.

Interlude IV Scene III. Davydd ap Gwilym and the Fair Ones he Immortalised

[This scene features] Davydd ap Gwilym, who probably was the greatest of all the famous Welsh bards of the olden time. His love poems are especially celebrated, though the adulatory, not to say amorous, trend of some of his verses, are rather too rich to be considered quite delicate from a modern point of view. Nevertheless, those verses immortalised such ladies as Gwenonwy, ‘the star-hued nun of the foam-white brow,’ and nineteen other charming damsels of the period, who dance on the Pageant Field in pale heliotrope gowns, and execute, with the eminent bard himself, a pas de vingt-et-un which is most alluring to gaze upon.

Interlude IV Scene IV. Owen Glyndwr Proclaimed Prince of Wales, 20 September 1400

After defeating Lord Grey at Ruthin in 1400, Owen Glyndwr assembled the clans of the country at Caer Drewyn, and flung out his standard with the four lions rampart, as Prince of Wales, being there-upon duly acclaimed by the people as their chief.

Episode V. King Henry V at Agincourt [1415]

Henry V (Henry of Monmouth) was nobly served by the Welsh warriors. Three out of the five Welsh chiefs in his bodyguard were slain while saving the life of the King at Agincourt. The two survivors, Sir Gruffyd Vychan and Sir William of Raglan, the ‘Blue Knight of Gwent’, are introduced in this episode, wherein the brave Fluellen makes Pistol devour the historic leek. The pomp and splendour of the battlefield, the conquerors and the fugitives, the gay archers and merry peasant girls, the King in his golden armour, the Dukes of Gloucester and Exeter, and all the rest of it, makes [this scene] one of the most imposing in the Pageant.

Interlude V Scene I. Owen Tudor and Queen Catherine

Owen Tudor, the grandfather of Henry VII, fought under Henry V at Agincourt, and subsequently married that warrior’s handsome widow. The interlude represents the scene where Owen made his historic slip while dancing at the Court of the widowed Queen Catherine, at Baynard’s castle, where he was in residence as one of the bodyguard. Queen Catherine helped the gallant but unsteady Courtier to rise, and thus they fell awooing. The Pavane danced by the ladies and courtiers in this scene is a very attractive feature of the Pageant.

Interlude V Scene II. Harry Tudor (Henry VII) Crowned on the Field after the Battle of Bosworth, 22 August 1485

In this spectacular scene, Henry, still in full armour save that his helmet is removed, is crowned on the field by Lord Stanley, amid the cheers of the victors. As he is crowned, Henry turns to Richard ap Howel of Mostyn—the chief whose loyalty had won him the help of the clansmen who assured him his victory, and who had aforetime saved his life from King Richard’s emissaries, by enabling him to escape by a back window from Mostyn Hall—and bids him follow him to his Court at London, where he promises to advance him beyond his dreams. Mostyn’s historic reply was ‘I dwell amongst mine own people.’ Thereupon the new monarch unbuckles the sword that he has carried through the fray, and gives it to the Welshman as a token of what he owes him.

Interlude V Scene III. Henry VIII and the Act of Union between England and Wales, AD 1536

This is a magnificent spectacle, typical of the Tudor Times; representing King Henry VIII with Jane Seymour and the court ladies, the Lord President of Wales, and a whole host of other ladies and gentlemen, with the townsfolk and children of Ludlow, where the scene is supposed to be enacted.

Closing Scene

All the performers from the previous scenes come together. Dame Wales and her attendant Counties come forward and take up their places, while the hundreds of tiny fairies dance in front of the thousands of Kings and Queens, knights and cavaliers, Roman legionnaires and wild Silurians, and all the bishops, saints, druids, bards, and peasant folk that helped the personnel of all the other tableaux. At a signal the fairies join hands and form a map of the counties of Wales, with the lady representing each county in the centre of each group of fairies of that county’s colour. As they do so, all the characters kneel down and sing the National Anthem of Wales, in which the audience joins them. At the close of the anthem the characters stand up again and march off the field in groups of their original scenes. Last of all, the little fairies dance away while the band plays, ‘God Save the King.’

Key historical figures mentioned

  • Caratacus [Caractacus] (fl. AD 40–51) king in Britain
  • Magnus Maximus (d. 388) Roman emperor in Britain and the western empire
  • Vortigern [Gwrtheyrn] (fl. 5th cent.) ruler in Britain
  • Arthur (supp. fl. in or before 6th cent.) legendary warrior and supposed king of Britain
  • Merlin [Myrddin] (supp. fl. 6th cent.) poet and seer
  • Gildas [St Gildas] (fl. 5th–6th cent.) writer
  • Teilo [St Teilo, Eliau, Eliud] (supp. fl. c.550) holy man and supposed bishop
  • Kentigern [St Kentigern, Mungo] (d. 612x14) patron of the diocese (later archdiocese) of Glasgow
  • Beuno [St Beuno] (d. 653/9) holy man
  • David [St David, Dewi] (d. 589/601) patron saint of Wales and founder of St David's
  • Brude mac Bile [Bridei son of Beli] (d. 693) king of Picts
  • Cadog [St Cadog, Cadoc, Cadfael, Cathmáel] (fl. 6th cent.) founder and abbot of Llancarfan
  • Rhodri Mawr (b. before 844, d. 878) king of Gwynedd
  • Anarawd ap Rhodri (d. 916) king in Wales
  • Cadell ap Rhodri (d. 910) king in Wales
  • Hywel Dda [Hywel Dda ap Cadell] (d. 949/50) king in Wales
  • Owain ap Hywel (b. before 929, d. 988) king of Deheubarth
  • Nest (b. before 1092, d. c.1130) royal mistress
  • Windsor, Gerald of (d. 1116x36) soldier and dynast
  • Iestyn ap Gwrgant (fl. c.1081–c.1120) nobleman
  • Robert fitz Haimon [Robert FitzHaimon, Robert fitz Hamo] (d. 1107) magnate and soldier
  • Henry I (1068/9–1135) king of England and lord of Normandy
  • Robert, first earl of Gloucester (b. before 1100, d. 1147) magnate
  • Monmouth, Geoffrey of [Galfridus Arturus] (d. 1154/5) bishop of St Asaph and historian
  • Map, Walter (d. 1209/10) royal clerk, raconteur, and satirist
  • Gerald of Wales [Giraldus Cambrensis, Gerald de Barry] (c.1146–1220x23) author and ecclesiastic
  • Matilda [Edith, Mold, Matilda of Scotland] (1080–1118) queen of England, first consort of Henry I
  • Gruffudd ap Rhys (d. 1137) ruler in south Wales
  • Rhys ap Gruffudd (1131/2–1197) prince of Deheubarth
  • Llywelyn ab Iorwerth [called Llywelyn Fawr] (c.1173–1240) prince of Gwynedd
  • Glyn Dŵr [Glyndŵr], Owain [Owain ap Gruffudd Fychan, Owen Glendower] (c.1359–c.1416) rebel leader in Wales
  • Dafydd ap Gwilym (fl. 1330–1350) poet
  • Henry V (1386–1422) king of England and lord of Ireland, and duke of Aquitaine
  • Humphrey [Humfrey or Humphrey of Lancaster], duke of Gloucester [called Good Duke Humphrey] (1390–1447) prince, soldier, and literary patron
  • Beaufort, Thomas, duke of Exeter (1377?–1426) magnate and soldier
  • Beauchamp, Richard, thirteenth earl of Warwick (1382–1439) magnate
  • Vaughan, Sir Gruffudd, fychan (d. 1447) soldier
  • Tudor, Owen [Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur] (c.1400–1461) courtier
  • Catherine [Catherine of Valois] (1401–1437) queen of England, consort of Henry V
  • Henry VII (1457–1509) king of England and lord of Ireland
  • Tudor, Jasper [Jasper of Hatfield], duke of Bedford (c.1431–1495) magnate
  • Vere, John de, twelfth earl of Oxford (1408–1462) magnate
  • Stanley, Sir William (c.1435–1495) administrator and landowner
  • Brackenbury, Sir Robert (d. 1485) knight
  • Bray, Sir Reynold [Reginald] (c.1440–1503) administrator
  • Henry VIII (1491–1547) king of England and Ireland
  • Lee, Rowland (c.1487–1543) administrator and bishop of Coventry and Lichfield
  • Prise, Sir John [Syr Siôn ap Rhys] (1501/2–1555) administrator and scholar
  • Jane [née Jane Seymour] (1508/9–1537) queen of England, third consort of Henry VIII

Musical production

Mixed choir of 250 and the Band of the Royal Marines (Portsmouth Division). Performed pieces included:
  • Opening Scene. Rhyfelgyrch Gwyr Harlech (‘The March of the Men of Harlech’).
  • Opening Scene. ‘Welsh Rhapsody’, Edward German.
  • Episode I. Hunting Music, Gounod.
  • Interlude I Scene I. ‘Quick March’, Beethoven.
  • Interlude I Scene II. ‘Harmonized Flourish’, George Miller.
  • Interlude I Scene III. ‘Characteristic March’, Pierné.
  • Episode II. ‘Morva Rhuddlan’, words by Idris.
  • Episode II. ‘Solemn March’, George Miller.
  • Interlude II Scene I. ‘Pilgrim’s Song of Hope’, Batiste.
  • Interlude II Scene II. ‘Hallelujah Chorus’, Handel.
  • Interlude II Scene IV. ‘The Cavalry Brigade March’.
  • Episode III. ‘Codiad yr Haul’, words by Idris.
  • Interlude III Scene II. ‘Old French Hunting Music’, Demersmann.
  • Interlude III Scene III. ‘Softly Awakes my Heart’, Saint Saens.
  • Interlude III Scene IV. ‘Andante Maestoso’, Gounod.
  • Interlude III Scene V. ‘Dewch I’r Frwdyr’, words by George P Hawtrey.
  • Episode IV. ‘Rhyvelgyrch Cadpen Morgan’.
  • Interlude IV Scene II. ‘Dafydd y Gareg Wen’, Words by Idris.
  • Interlude IV Scene IV. ‘March in “Scipio”’, Handel.
  • Episode V. ‘Ymadawiad y Brenin’.
  • Episode V. Heller Nicholl’s Battle Music.
  • Interlude V Scene I. ‘La Cinquantaine’, Gabriel Mari.
  • Interlude V Scene II. ‘Tragic Overture to Richard III’, Volkmann.
  • Interlude V Scene III. ‘Breuddwyd y Frenhines’.
  • Closing. Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau.
  • Closing. God Save the King.

Newspaper coverage of pageant

Western Mail and the South Wales Daily News and Cardiff Times
Weekly Mail
Merthyr Express
Aberdare Leader
Glamorgan Gazette
Rhondda Leader
Barry Dock News
Welshman
Barry Herald
Tarian Y Gweithiwr
Cambrian
Tyst
Carmarthen Weekly Reporter
Carmarthen Journal
North Wales Express
Seren Cymru
Abergavenny Chronicle
Cymro A'r Celt Llundain
Pembrokeshire Herald
Pembroke County Guardian
Welsh Coast Pioneer
Carnarvon and Denbigh Herald
Llanelli Mercury
Aberystwyth Observer
Herald Cymraeg
Llandudno Advertiser
Montgomeryshire Express
Cambrian News
Denbighshire Free Press
North Wales Weekly News
Brython Cymreig
Prestatyn Weekly
Welsh Gazette
The Times
Daily Graphic
Daily Mail
Liverpool Daily Post
South Wales Daily Post
Bristol Times and Mirror
Western Daily Press
Bristol Daily Mercury
Cambrian Daily Leader5

Book of words

National Pageant of Wales: Book of the Words (Cardiff, 1909), National Library of Wales. 23/3.

Price: 6d.

Other primary published materials

  • TE Aylward (ed), National Pageant of Wales, Book of Welsh Airs (Cardiff, 1909). 6d.
  • EA Morphy (ed), Official Souvenir, Pictorial and Descriptive, with Full List of Performers in the National Pageant of Wales, Cardiff 26th July to 7th August, 1909 (Cardiff, 1909).
  • Order of Proceedings for the National Pageant of Wales (Cardiff, 1909).

References in secondary literature

  • Bohata, Kirsti. Postcolonialism Revisited. Cardiff, 2004. 73-76.
  • Edwards, Hywel Teifi. The National Pageant of Wales. Llandysul, 2009.
  • Ellis, John S. ‘Outlaw Historian: Owen Rhoscomyl and Popular History in Edwardian Wales’. In Writing a Small Nation’s Past: Wales in Comparative Perspective, 1850–1950, edited by Neil Evans and Huw Pryce. Farnham, 2013.
  • Hughes, R. Iestyn and O'Leary, Paul. Wales of One Hundred Years Ago. Stroud, 1999. 108-110.
  • Mason, Rhiannon. Museums, Nations, Identities: Wales and Its National Museums. Cardiff, 2007.
  • Pearson, Mike and Roms, Heike. ‘Performing Cardiff: Six Approaches to a City and its Performance Pasts’. In Performing Cities, edited by Nicolas Whybrow. Basingstoke, 2014. 120-140.
  • Redknap, Mark. Re-creations: Visualizing Our Past. Cardiff, 2002. 45.
  • Smith, Dai. Wales: A Question for History. Bridgend, 1999.

Archival holdings connected to pageant

  • All in National Library of Wales:
  • Official souvenir, pictorial and descriptive, with full list of performers in the National Pageant of Wales, Cardiff 26th July to 7th August, 1909. Written and compiled by E.A. Morphy. Dyb 2009 C 113.
  • Script performed at the National Pageant of Wales 1909. [Currently missing.]
  • Pageant Pictorial for the National Pageant of Wales (Cardiff,1909). Dyb 2009 C 113.
  • Order of Proceedings for the National Pageant of Wales (Cardiff, 1909). ARCH/MSS (GB0210) 6.
  • Descriptive souvenir of the National Pageant of Wales (Cardiff, 1909). ARCH/MSS (GB0210) 23/2.
  • T.E. Aylward, Book of Welsh Airs. [for the] National Pageant of Wales, Cardiff, July 26th to August 7th (Cardiff, 1909). LLYFPRINT/PRINTEDBOOKS XM 1742 A981.
  • Two letters from Thomas Bellis to Penelope E. Price, Llantrisant, co. Glam., daughter of Dr William Price (1800–93). ARCH/MSS (GB0210) NLW ex 1469.
  • Letter from A.W. Swash, Cardiff, 1909. ARCH/MSS (GB0210) General correspondence/ 7182-7183.
  • Letter from A.O. Vaughan ('Owen Rhoscomyl') to J. Glyn Davies, 3 February 1909. ARCH/MSS (GB0210) 'Owen Rhoscomyl' Correspondence/ 387a.
  • Letters from A.W. Swash, Cardiff, 5 March 1909. ARCH/MSS (GB0210) C 4760–4761.
  • Letter from A.O. Vaughan ('Owen Rhoscomyl'), Cardiff, to J. Glyn Davies, 12 March 1909. ARCH/MSS (GB0210) 'Owen Rhoscomyl' Correspondence/ 389.
  • Letter from A.O. Vaughan ('Owen Rhoscomyl'), Cardiff, to J. Glyn Davies, 4 September 1909. ARCH/MSS (GB0210) 'Owen Rhoscomyl' Correspondence/ 392.
  • Letter from Vaughan, Arthur Owen ('Owen Rhoscomyl'), 4 June 1909. ARCH/MSS (GB0210) 'Owen Rhoscomyl' Correspondence/ 42. L513
  • Book of Words. Cardiff, 1909. ARCH/MSS (GB0210) 23/3.
  • Letters from J. Ifano Jones, Central Library, Cardiff, and Y Weirlod, Penarth, 1902, May - 26-1942, Dec. 11. ARCH/MSS (GB0210) C 2399–2431.
  • Script performed at the National Pageant of Wales 1909. [This item is currently missing.]
  • D. R. Davies Collection of Drama Scrap Books: The National Pageant of Wales, 1909–1948. 23/1

Sources used in preparation of pageant

  • Annales Cambriae. [unknown edition]
  • Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain. [unknown edition]
  • Mabinogion, from the Red Book of Hergest. [unknown edition]
  • Malory. The Morte d’Arthur, [unknown edition]
  • Map, Walter. The High History of the Holy Grail. [unknown edition]
  • Pen. MSS 118. [unknown manuscript]
  • Saxon Chronicles. [unknown edition]
  • The Dream of Maxen Wledig. [unknown edition]

Summary

The National Pageant of Wales, which took place in Cardiff in 1909, was almost certainly the first major pageant to be staged in the principality, and remains to this day undoubtedly the largest. With a 7500-seater grandstand and two further stands from Cardiff Rugby Football Club that provided for another 17000, the pageant organisers were clearly ambitious. Arguably a visual and popular success, it kick-started the historical pageantry movement in Wales, which grew consistently until at least the 1950s. It was also, however, a dire financial failure, with crowds never reaching the levels predicted. The idea for a National Pageant in Wales arose when a notable resident of Cardiff, Dr James Mullin, having seen the Warwick Pageant, wrote a short descriptive article for the Western Mail in 1906. He urged that a similar event celebrating Welsh history should be held. Mullin met Isaac Vaughan Evans, the Chief Inspector of Cardiff’s schools and Secretary of the Cymrodorion Society, and was invited to give a lecture to the Society on pageantry. This led to the Society in turn pressing the Lord Mayor to convene a meeting to gauge the level of support, and a frenzy of enthusiasm from the Western Mail and South Wales Daily News. At a public meeting on 21 September 1906, in the Town Hall, a committee was appointed to draw up the plans.6

George P. Hawtrey, an English actor, director, producer and manager, was appointed as the pageant-master, and paid a whopping £500 for his services. He had been pageant master at the Pageant of Gloucestershire the previous year. During the Warwick Pageant of 1906 he had joined the first pageant-master, Louis Napoleon Parker, in the director’s box. Hawtrey bore the imprint of much of Parker’s thinking—though he disagreed with the insistence on the use of local labour and also on performers paying for their own costumes.7 Even though Hawtrey was not Welsh, he promised to make an effort to learn the language, and quickly got on board with the rhetoric of national identity, declaring in a special article for the Cardiff Times that

Our intention is that the Pageant shall give a living representation of the great men and the memorable facts of Welsh history. You shall see representatives of the men and women who lived in the land of your fathers in the olden days; you shall see them dressed in costumes such as those men and women wore; and you shall see them doing the very acts which those men and women did. And when you behold all this, you will know that the history of Wales is not a dull, dry record of events which you have to learn by heart; you will understand that it is a living, breathing, palpitating reality, a reality which is the birth right of every Cymro, a possession of which nobody can deprive him… It will show you the men and women who did their best for Wales in bygone days; it should also teach you that there are still great things to be done in the future. You yourselves must see to it that there is no lack of Welshmen of the old breed to do those things.8

If Hawtrey was proficient in the rhetoric of Welsh national identity, he never equalled the passion shown by the author of the pageant, Captain Arthur Owen Vaughan (who went by his self-given bardic name of Owen Rhoscomyl). Rhoscomyl was a renowned adventurer, soldier and historian—aggressive and decisive, and fiercely imperialist.9 John Ellis has argued that Rhoscomyl was moulded by his exploits in the hyper-masculine, optimistic and enthusiastic boom of the American frontier.10 He was seemingly suggested for the job by Sir Marchant Williams, a prominent Welsh nationalist, lawyer, and author. At the same time as promising to be a guarantor, Williams told the committee: ‘The one man possible for the suggestion of episodes is Captain Vaughan (Owen Rhoscomyl). He is saturated with knowledge of every phase of Welsh history, and is fully alive to the deep significance and the stirring romance of some of its episodes.’11 Rhoscomyl, later addressing one of the meetings, promised that the pageant ‘would be a great stimulus to Welsh Nationalism, and would come into line with the best and biggest things in the world.’ He convinced Austin Jenkins, a member of the executive committee, at least; following Rhoscomyl, he declared that ‘the pageant would be the beginning of a great movement in the history of Wales.’12

Despite this obvious concentration on Welsh history, the pageant was criticised from some quarters for being too Anglo-centric—especially from those in the North of the principality, who stereotyped the South as being ‘unWelsh’. The North Wales Express sardonically opened one article by saying: ‘a short time ago, many people had not realised that the Welsh National Pageant at Cardiff is to be an English affair—with great historical accuracy. Llewelyn the Great, Ilfor Bach and Owain Glyndwr will speak the kind of Wardour Street English common at these functions… it is a public insult to the Welsh language. If Welsh were dead, if it possessed no living literature, if no one alive could understand it, the use of English in the pageant would be more than justified. But Welsh is still the language of Wales, and of thousands of people outside Wales, even if Cardiff, the so-called capital, has forgotten it.’13

While ‘the Welsh had no wish to be seen as English surrogates’, it was common for the story of Wales and England to be seen as intertwined, or even as one—a shared history and thus shared future—and this was evident in the pageant.14 Rhoscomyl understood this, and wanted to elevate Welsh history by showing how his countrymen had, throughout history, been warriors—and how their martial spirit had enabled them to contribute to the creation and expansion of the British Empire. To regain a hold of their history the Welsh needed to be inspired by heroes and accounts of heroic deeds.15 This urge animated his historical writing, such as the famous Flame Bearers of Welsh History (1905); it was also to animate his historical pageant. Rhoscomyl was undoubtedly an enthusiastic and outspoken Welsh nationalist. Not long after being appointed as author, he gave a barnstorming address to the Manchester Welsh National Society, condemning the present methods of teaching Welsh history in Welsh schools as being too England-centric. ‘On the first page of that history they are taught that they belong to an inferior race, to a nation of conquered fugitives’ he railed. ‘Whenever I came to that passage in my school days I refused to read it: I refused to believe it; it is a lie. My father and yours were not the cowards the English history says they were.’16 Similarly, at a crowded meeting and lecture in Aberdare’s Memorial Hall, presided over by the High Constable Thomas, Rhoscomyl, relating his own experiences of meeting brave Welshmen during imperial tours of duty, argued that ‘the one thing which counted in this world was character; the basis of character was self-respect, national self-respect.’ Rhoscomyl was complimented by Thomas, who lauded the Pageant as ‘an excellent medium of teaching history’ and ‘a patriotic movement’.17 Rhoscomyl succeeded in whipping the crowd into a patriotic frenzy with his tales of Welsh pride and unconquerable spirit, receiving ‘loud and continued applause’.18 At a Bridgend lecture, he elaborated further. Declaring that ‘the teaching of English history in English in English Schools was an excellent thing for making citizens’, it followed that ‘the teaching of Welsh history in Welsh schools would have a similar effect.’19 In the run-up to the pageant, Rhoscomyl made similar speeches in other parts of Wales.20

The Rhondda Leader backed up Rhoscomyl in this respect, arguing that ‘the Pageant serves to teach us our high and noble antiquity and the factors and characters which were instrumental in building up the United Kingdom and our vast Empire… No one but a nincompoop would contend that the Cymric factor was a minor factor’.21 The pageant thus educated ‘with regard to the past’, while enlightening ‘citizens’ as to what their share was ‘of a noble Empire.’22 The Welshman also declared that it was ‘hard to imagine anything equal to a pageant for teaching history vividly and pleasantly.’23 In his opening speech for the pageant’s civic ceremony, the Lord Mayor ‘hoped that the episodes and other scenes would prove to them that there was some ground for feeling proud that Wales had something to do in helping to found, build, and maintain the great Empire of which they were all so justly proud.’ This statement was met with shouts of ‘hear hear’.24 Similarly at a concert held at the Cefn Cribbwr Council School intended to raise money for senior scholars to visit the pageant, Alderman T.J. Hughes ‘pointed out the neglect of the past in the teaching of Welsh history, and advised the children to make the most of their opportunity at Cardiff, when they would see the Flame-bearers of Welsh History impersonated’—clearly referencing Rhoscomyl’s famous book.25 Particularly and predictably enthusiastic, from the moment the pageant was announced and even when the loss was reported, was the Cardiff Times. Upon the public announcement of the pageant, the newspaper declared: ‘Since the modern introduction of the Pageant into England we have waited to see a movement started in the Principality for bringing about a National Pageant of Welsh history.’26 As Hywel Teifi Edwards has argued, a number of Welsh commentators convinced themselves that that the pageant could hasten the emergence of a national self-belief, and thus aid in nation-building, in the context of a crisis in Welsh national education.27

Reflecting this interest in education, there was also a ‘Child’s Book of the Pageant’ specially written for schoolchildren by Rhoscomyl, and published under the auspices of the Education Committee of the Pageant.28 Around 90000 children were brought to the three afternoon dress rehearsals. The Rhondda Leader gushed about how ‘the imaginations of thousands of the youth’ would be stirred by the pageant’s conception of history, and forecast ‘that the next twenty years will produce many Welsh historians’.29 The Cardiff Times saw its purpose as a feature of the times, arguing that ‘Modern educationists now realise that in order to understand and appreciate the course of history it is almost essential that the leading episodes should be presented in modern dramatic form.’30

As Edwards has argued, Rhoscomyl had to admit in the pageant that the Welsh had historically lost to superior forces. But at the same time, he sought to show that their spirit of resistance was indestructible. In the first episode, Caradoc and the Silures unhesitatingly confronted the might of Rome. In the fourth episode, Ivor Bach and his warriors defended Welsh rights and did not hesitate to attack the Norman oppressor in his castle, scaling the walls and rejecting tyranny. But they did not slaughter their prisoners; on the contrary they negotiated a settlement, and accepted their position in relation to their Norman overlords.31 The fifth and final episode cleverly presented Wales as having brought about the Tudor dynasty, in doing so thus creating the Anglo-Celtic empire that had become a formidable world power. Welsh resistance and liberation had failed, but the spirit lived on in ‘every true Cymro’.32 King Arthur also featured in the pageant, as a noble, honest, brave and successful Welsh leader. As John J. Parry, a scholar of Arthur, wrote in 1922, the predominance of Arthurian stories in Welsh culture was ‘one of the manifestations of that racial consciousness that is so strong in the Celt.’ 33 Such stories emphasised that Celts were distinct from ‘Saxon or Gaul’, and made ‘the return of Arthur… symbolic of the future in store for the Cymric race.’34

It was thus important that a modern hero, Lord Tredegar, took the role of the Welsh rebel Owain Glyndwr, who had fought against the English in the 15th century. A.W. Swash, an honorary secretary of the pageant, told public meetings that there was not ‘anyone more fitted than the gallant Lord Tredegar to impersonate Owen Glyndwr.’35 The newspaper Tarian Y Gweithiwr explained: ‘The romantic vicissitudes of Owen Glyndwr will associate themselves with the splendour of the Pageant, and the high renown of the living actor who will play Glyndwr's part. Fifty years from now, the grey bearded, sitting in the future equivalent of the old time inglenook; will repeat to his grandchildren the story of the great fifteenth century [warrior] who flaunted the might of England and levied tribute on its fairest counties in the West.’36 Tredegar’s own fame rested on his heroics during the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854. As Edwards has pointed out, featuring men and women of high rank (as established members of the stability of English-Welsh relations) and quality in the management and performance ‘must have tempered any urge to magnify the valour of “rebel” Welsh princes in their struggles for freedom against ‘the English’. Instead, the story was one much more of a cooperative national strength, dedicated to the service of the Empire, and the promotion of Wales within both.37

Probably the most impressive part of the pageant was the finale. Dame Wales, attended by the counties of Wales, came forward and was surrounded by hundreds of dancing fairies. Kings and Queens, knights and cavaliers, Roman legionnaires and Silurians, bishops, saints, druids, bards, and peasant folk also entered. At a signal the fairies joined hands and formed a map of the counties of Wales. All the characters then kneeled down and sang the National Anthem of Wales, joined by the audience. After the anthem the characters stood up and marched off the field in the groups of their scenes. As fairies danced away the band played, ‘God Save the King.’ The Glamorgan Gazette described it as a ’brilliant and exhilarating spectacle, [that] sent the youngsters into ecstasies.’ When the National Anthem of Wales was played, ‘the grand stand roof threatened to come off’.38 The Rhondda Leader agreed, waxing lyrical about the ‘colossal dimensions’ of the Pageant.39

Before the pageant, the press remained confident as to its success but anxiously kept reminding the public that it needed more support.40Initially it seemed that the huge advertising effort had done its job. On 22 May the Aberdare Leader asked: ‘Breathes there a Welshman who has not heard of the National Pageant…?’41 But during the pageant it was clear that the event was lacking support. As the Weekly Mail noted in its report on the pageant’s opening, ‘The shilling stands, curiously enough, were almost vacant, but the expensive seats were thronged with fashionable spectators’.42 The Cardiff Times worried that ‘unless there is a great and sudden accession of support and enthusiasm from the people of the Principality it must be written down that Wales has not given national support to a truly national and courageous effort to aid and advance the Principality.’43 When it became clear that the pageant was going to fail financially, the Cardiff Times praised the ambitiousness and artistry of the scheme, but admitted: ‘The country is far too scattered, the interests of the people are wide apart, and to attempt in one spot a National undertaking with financial responsibilities is like courting failure.’44 By this, the Times was alluding to the fact that support from the pageant had overwhelmingly come from the local, rather than further afield across Wales.

Despite mostly positive press coverage, the £6000 to £10000 in profit that had been predicted was nowhere near achieved: the pageant actually lost around £2000. It failed to attract a Wales-wide audience, or even a large audience among the populous districts of South Wales. Attendance never approached capacity, even though the crowds grew in the second week when prices of admission were halved and the weather improved.45 Rhoscomyl, for his part, blamed Hawtrey. In a letter to a close friend he declared:

it would have been a record forever if only Hawtrey had been even a fairly average man, instead of the impossible beggar he was. Privately [underlined], he was ‘on the make’, and he had no more sense of truth, honour, or common honesty than an old fox in the gorse… all the Committees turned round and backed me through thick and thin against Hawtrey, when at least they found him out, and saw that the Pageant was gone up unless I could survive the rush’.46

He lamented that it was ‘never the Pageant I had planned, or even the Pageant as I wrote it in the book’. Yet, he nonetheless maintained that ‘it’ll never be beaten’—at least until, as he promised, he staged his own pageant in Swansea the next year.47

In his analysis of the Pageant, Edwards has looked more to the general lack of support the pageant engendered, especially in the Welsh-language press where it seemed ‘to have been allowed to float away on an ebb-tide of general unconcern’. He has also drawn attention to the lack of publicising in England by the key pageant organisers also.48 On the other side of the coin, the pageant was also very expensive—Hawtrey, for example, was paid a large £500, and the grandstand cost a huge £4000. Nonetheless, it should be remembered that an impressive 200000 tickets were sold.

Edwards has argued that, though a remarkable exercise in the public use of history in Wales, it did not promote a general interest in Welsh history or a lively involvement with the past. Certainly, he is correct in saying that it was still too soon to think of extending the teaching of Welsh history in schools or colleges, and also in his conclusion that ‘nothing on the scale of ‘the great venture’ of 1909 was attempted again in Wales.’49 Yet, while Edwards’s assessment is broadly right, in terms of scale the National Pageant did awaken an enthusiasm for historical pageantry, and thus a popular form of history. As the Cardiff Times predicted, ‘The financial deficiency will prove a damper to the public, but we have not seen the end of Pageantry in the city or in South Wales.’50 Rhoscomyl, in concluding a speech at Bridgend, hoped ‘that in all towns… there would be pageants showing local history’.51 Similarly, the Pembrokeshire Herald and General Advertiser suggested that the example of Cardiff ‘may act as an inducement to others to follow upon somewhat similar lines.’52 The Builth Wells Pageant began a week later (though that pageants organisers claimed they had been planning for years before the National Pageant) and a couple more followed before the First World War in Gwent and White Castle (1911). The Aberdare Leader offered a particularly balanced conclusion after the pageant about the purpose of the medium in the context of the principality. Rather than being ‘revolutionary’, historical pageantry was ‘evolutionary’—‘the second step in the progress of the Welsh soul towards the final adoption of the drama as a national possession’, the first step being the already-developed Welsh enthusiasm for the theatrical stage. Rather than being to ‘teach history’, a pageant stimulated ‘the study of history as set forth in Welsh literature’ and quickened ‘interest in the past of our nation’; ‘inspiring’ rather than ‘reliable’.53 This ethos became clear in the inter-war period, when the historical pageant arguably became as popular in Wales as it was in England—and even bolder in its valorisation of Welsh identity and distinctiveness.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Hywel Teifi Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales (Llandysul, 2009), 166–67 and 172.
  2. ^ ‘Pageant Guarantors’, Cardiff Times, 13 November 1909, 4.
  3. ^ ‘Our stage is so vast, and our stands are so large, that only a portion of the audience can hear all the spoken words. On this account, the dialogue has been reduced to the smallest possible proportions, and we have endeavoured to tell our story by appealing to the eye rather than the ear. So the book must not be judged altogether from the literary standpoint.’ George P Hawtrey, ‘Foreword’, in National Pageant of Wales: Book of the Words (Cardiff, 1909), National Library of Wales. 23/3.
  4. ^ National Pageant of Wales: Book of the Words (Cardiff, 1909), National Library of Wales. 23/3.
  5. ^ To name a few – the pageant was covered in most newspapers.
  6. ^ Hywel Teifi Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales (Llandysul, 2009), 1–3.
  7. ^ Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales, 23.
  8. ^ George P Hawtrey, ‘The Coming Pageant’, Cardiff Times, 13 March 1909, 5.
  9. ^ Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales (Llandysul, 2009), 37–42.
  10. ^ John S Ellis, ‘Outlaw Historian: Owen Rhoscomyl and Popular History in Edwardian Wales’, in Writing a Small Nation’s Past: Wales in Comparative Perspective, 1850–1950, ed. Neil Evans and Huw Pryce (Farnham, 2013).
  11. ^ ‘Progress in Arrangements’, Cardiff Times, 6 February 1909, 6.
  12. ^ ‘Welsh National Pageant’, Cardiff Times, 13 February 1909, 6.
  13. ^ North Wales Express, 11 June 1909, 5.
  14. ^ Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales (Llandysul, 2009), 59–60.
  15. ^ Ibid., 76–77.
  16. ^ ‘Owen Rhoscomyl’s Outburst’, Weekly Mail, 27 February 1909, 2.
  17. ^ ‘Pageant of Wales’, Aberdare Leader, 12 June 1909, 7.
  18. ^ ‘Owen Rhoscomyl at Aberdare’, Merthyr Express, 12 June 1909, 8.
  19. ^ ‘The National Pageant’, Glamorgan Gazette, 9 July 1909, 8.
  20. ^ ‘Pageant Mission in the Vale’, Cardiff Times, 26 June 1909, 10; ‘Cefn Cribby’, Glamorgan Gazette, 9 July 1909, 8.
  21. ^ ‘The National Pageant’, Rhondda Leader, Maesteg, Garw and Ogmore Telegraph [supplement], 31 July 1909, 2.
  22. ^ Ibid., 2.
  23. ^ The Welshman, 14 May 1909, 5.
  24. ^ ‘Opening Ceremony’, Weekly Mail, 31 July 1909, 2.
  25. ^ ‘Cefn Cribby’, Glamorgan Gazette, 9 July 1909, 8.
  26. ^ ‘A National Pageant’, Cardiff Times, 23 January 1909, 6.
  27. ^ Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales, 12 and 58.
  28. ^ Weekly Mail, 5 June 1909, 2.
  29. ^ ‘Editorial Notes’, Rhondda Leader, 24 July 1909, 4.
  30. ^ ‘The Welsh Pageant’, Cardiff Times, 24 July 1909, 6.
  31. ^ Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales, 135.
  32. ^ Ibid., 145.
  33. ^ John J Parry, ‘Modern Welsh Versions of the Arthurian Stories’, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 21, no. 4 (1922), 572.
  34. ^ Ibid., 597.
  35. ^ ‘The National Pageant’, Glamorgan Gazette, 9 July 1909, 8.
  36. ^ ‘National Pageant of Wales’, Tarian Y Gweithiwr, 15 July 1909, 6.
  37. ^ Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales, 180.
  38. ^ ‘Welsh Pageant Rehearsal’, Glamorgan Gazette, 23 July 1909, 8.
  39. ^ ‘Editorial Notes’, Rhondda Leader, 24 July 1909, 4.
  40. ^ ‘The Welsh Pageant’, Cardiff Times, 24 July 1909, 6.
  41. ^ ‘The Pageant’, Aberdare Leader, 22 May 1909, 7.
  42. ^ ‘Welsh National Pageant Opens at Cardiff’, Weekly Mail, 31 July 1909, 2.
  43. ^ ‘Wales and the Pageant’, Cardiff Times, 31 July 1909, 6.
  44. ^ ‘Pageantry’, Cardiff Times, 14 August 1909, 6.
  45. ^ Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales, Llandysul, 2009, 163–65.
  46. ^ Letter from A.O. Vaughan ('Owen Rhoscomyl'), Cardiff, to J. Glyn Davies, 4 Sept. 1909, 'Owen Rhoscomyl' Correspondence. / 392.
  47. ^ Ibid.
  48. ^ Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales, Llandysul, 2009, 183–186.
  49. ^ Edwards, The National Pageant of Wales, Llandysul, 2009, 189.
  50. ^ ‘Pageantry’, Cardiff Times, 14 August 1909, 6.
  51. ^ ‘The National Pageant’, Glamorgan Gazette, 9 July 1909, 8.
  52. ^ ‘En Passant’, Pembrokeshire Herald and General Advertiser, 27 August 1909, 2.
  53. ^ ‘Pageantry and its Purpose’, Aberdare Leader, 7 August 1909, 4.

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘National Pageant of Wales’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1133/