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To tell you why the title ‘Prince of Wales’ is an historical insult to the Welsh and shouldn’t exist anymore

943 replies

Upthebracket22 · 10/09/2022 07:19

I am Welsh. I was enraged yesterday when the new king decided to ‘bestow’ the title on Prince William, an English Prince without asking the Welsh if they wanted another English Prince of Wales.

here is some historical context from a petition going around at the moment:

The "Prince of Wales" title (Welsh: Tywysog Cymru) is a title historically used by native, Welsh princes since the 14th century. The last native Prince of Wales was Llywelyn the Last, killed by English soldiers in 1282 and his head was then paraded through the streets of London and placed on a Tower of London spike. Llywelyn's brother Dafydd was the first person of note to be hung, drawn and quartered and his head was placed next to Llywelyn's. Both their daughters were taken as infants and children and imprisoned.

But this happened centuries ago you might say. The truth is, that since the days of Llywelyn the Last and the "rebel" Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndwr, the title has been held exclusively by Englishmen as a symbol of dominance over Wales. To this day, the English "Princes of Wales" have no genuine connection to our country.

The title remains an insult to Wales and is a symbol of historical oppression. The title also implies that Wales is still a principality, undermining Wales' status as a nation and a country. In addition, the title has absolutely no constitutional role for Wales, which is now a devolved country with a national Parliament.

As Welsh actor, Michael Sheen put it;

"Make a break there. Put some things that have been the wrongs of the past right. There's an opportunity to do that at that point. Don't necessarily just because of habit and without thinking just carry on that tradition that was started as a humiliation to our country. Why not change that as we come to this moment where things will inevitably change."

I don’t think many people have any concept of Welsh history. I find it offensive and think now would have been a good moment to right a historical wrong.

OP posts:
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Softplayhooray · 10/09/2022 10:41

OP I totally agree and you don't need any info to justify it. It is ridiculous, outdated and offensive.

FancyFelix · 10/09/2022 10:42

everywoman682 · 10/09/2022 07:42

I loathe nationalism as much as I loathe the concept of a hereditary monarchy

Snap

UnagiForLife · 10/09/2022 10:43

Seeing how nasty people are to each other on this thread is depressing.

CardiffMam · 10/09/2022 10:44

@Porcupineintherough Being Welsh has NOTHING to do with your colour or race.

Bottomofthepileasusual · 10/09/2022 10:46

I'm very Welsh living in South Wales and I'm not offended at all

Ritasueandbobtoo9 · 10/09/2022 10:46

I think this thread is a brilliant discussion. I agree that that there has been a rewriting of much of what has happened in the past to polarise people and obviate past oppression. Genetic testing showed me to be Welsh, Anglo Saxon and African despite all my family always living in Wales since records began. Interesting perspective from America. During the Rebecca Riots in Wales miners fought to be paid in money rather than food and lodgings. Today we would call this modern Slavery. I think it just shows we shouldn’t be divisive and nationalistic.

DownNative · 10/09/2022 10:47

KnotKnot · 10/09/2022 10:40

There is a long complicated history, but the bottom line is that Wales as conquered and assimilated by England. Like Scotland, it is essentially ruled from and by English people. As a result, we can name a person "Prince of Wales" if we want. Most English people don't know or care enough that it might upset a small number of Welsh people.

On the contrary, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are NOT ruled by or from England. There is a devolved administration for each with specific local responsibilities.

Given this devolution, there is no democratic right to independence in accordance with international law.

lightisnotwhite · 10/09/2022 10:50

UnagiForLife · 10/09/2022 10:43

Seeing how nasty people are to each other on this thread is depressing.

Isn’t it.
And we wonder why we haven’t achieved world peace yet. We can’t even debate a question without insulting other people.

absolutelyanythingwilldo · 10/09/2022 10:52

justasking111 · 10/09/2022 10:40

Last year the Welsh flag was voted the best in the world

www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/coolest-flag-world-0011575

But the Welsh flag is cheating. Flags are supposed to be shapes and symbols and stuff. If other countries knew that dragons we're allowed then Japan would have put a samurai on theirs, instead of just a red circle.

JustAnotherPoster00 · 10/09/2022 10:54

YellowTreeHouse · 10/09/2022 07:49

Good luck funding yourself 😂

Didn't help that the English stole all our coal, slate, gold and natural resources to profit themselves, go and drown another Welsh village why don't you fml

LittleBearPad · 10/09/2022 10:56

@herecomesthsun you are avoiding the racist connotations of your surname based claims.

gatehouseoffleet · 10/09/2022 10:57

Fivemoreminutesinbed · 10/09/2022 07:29

Also don't forget at the time of the 13th century the Royal family was more French than English (we were all serfs) so maybe don't blame us English for it? 🤷‍♀️

Shush, don't muddy the waters with facts!

William has actually done a lot for Wales having worked as a helicopter rescue in Anglesey, so I don't think it's offensive. Well, no more offensive than having a hereditary monarchy full stop...

JustAnotherPoster00 · 10/09/2022 11:00

DownNative · 10/09/2022 10:47

On the contrary, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are NOT ruled by or from England. There is a devolved administration for each with specific local responsibilities.

Given this devolution, there is no democratic right to independence in accordance with international law.

Devolved by sufferance, the Barnett formula is used as nothing more than a punishment, like Scotland who keep returning an SNP majority Wales has returned a Labour government for 22 years yet we get governed by a populist quasi fascistic repressive Tory government, what England wants the devolved nations have to suffer and to top it off we have to have another English man as our Prince with no significant links to our nation except being the first fruit from the now Kings loins

KnotKnot · 10/09/2022 11:02

@DownNative you really really don't get it 🙄 Local administration or not, it is essentially ruled from and by English people. I wonder if they are even capable? Look the the DUP and SF in NI? It's comical to watch, basket cases!

Yddraig25 · 10/09/2022 11:04

@JustAnotherPoster00 Spot on!

Lunabun · 10/09/2022 11:04

RealMcKoy · 10/09/2022 10:02

I always laugh when either Welsh, Scottish or even Irish people carry on about English suppression.
I, as a Black woman with an extended and close family with no members with white partners in all the generations going back to the 19th century do wonder why we are a family mainly from Jamaica, with people from the Anglo/Patois speaking side of Panama ( descendants of Jamaicans who helped to build the Panama Canal who stayed in Panama) and members of the American Descendants Of Slaves ADOS ethnicity who have married into the family , have so many Welsh, Irish and Scottish surnames, when we have many members of my family who, despite having slave ancestry have not one DROP of European in them as is the stereotype of all Black people, even if as dark as chocolate for generations, if they are descendants of the Industrialised Atlantic Slave Trade.

Williams, Griffiths, Lloyd, Farquharson, Brown, Mckoy, Macanuff, Weir, O'Donnell, Morrison, Sutherland, Evans, Mcdonald.....I know these names don't come from any tribe in West Africa, so I wonder where we got these names as they seem to come from people who complain about English suppression, but amongst whom went ten toes deep into suppressing people who did not look like them and without whom, their "suppressed" countries would be far worse of then they complain about due to the English?

Keep it cute, now and try and imagine that many people laugh and put you in with the English when you complain about "English Suppresion" when really, one family of scallies beat up three families of scallies, but scallies they ALL remain.

I am quite sure that ADOS people can have a LOT to say about the Irish/Scots/Welsh tribe in The Southern U.S states and their "lovely" behaviour once they got from under the yoke of the English and went to the New World and had Black people to look down upon and enslave and terrorise. How come so many Black U.S people have the surname "Kelly"? Is that English?

And the racist "hibernianisation" of police forces up and down the East Coast, with Irish and Irish descendants , going ten toes deep to be seen as white by WASPS used Black and POC ( including the Italians who also had to work to get into the white tribe that they were always racially a part of) people as their beating sticks and the Welsh coal miner bosses being cruel against people who looked like them in the state of Pennsylvania where one cannot go about without seeing places named in Welsh and wondering why.

England, Scotland, Wales AND Ireland. None of ya slates are clean. When you decide to turn scally, just remember to go as scally as the English is the lesson I have learned here. You gotts take emotion right out of it and have hypocrisy as your compass. Nobody does Hypocrisy as well as the generationally Middle class English person. Learn that.

However, Scally you ALL are. Join hands....you have far more in common than not! Lol! Just be aware that cries of oppression and suppression are very subjective when it comes to Welsh, Scottish and Irish. Your ancestral compatriots knew a good thing by joining onto English Oppression Syndrome when it came to Black people.

This is a great post.

I sympathise with the Welsh and Scottish, and I suspect that if I were Scottish I'd be voting for independence. I hope Wales gets to do whatever they want, too.

But I have noticed a distinct effort amongst some to try and distance themselves from their recent colonial pasts...

TheLassWiADelicateAir · 10/09/2022 11:04

carefullycourageous · 10/09/2022 07:45

Oh wow!

What a dreadful post. It is attitudes like yours that are pushing more people to want to break up the union. Your ignorance and rudeness are astounding.

I'm English and would be embarrassed to be associated with this attitude.

I'm Scottish and I agree with her 100%

DownNative · 10/09/2022 11:07

JustAnotherPoster00 · 10/09/2022 11:00

Devolved by sufferance, the Barnett formula is used as nothing more than a punishment, like Scotland who keep returning an SNP majority Wales has returned a Labour government for 22 years yet we get governed by a populist quasi fascistic repressive Tory government, what England wants the devolved nations have to suffer and to top it off we have to have another English man as our Prince with no significant links to our nation except being the first fruit from the now Kings loins

Utter nonsense with a clear Nationalist bent to it!

Some power was devolved to the three regions of the UK plus London due to democratic desire for it.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are responsible for their own actions within their devolved powers.

But aye, you just want to blame Westminster for literally everything even a devolved administration's own disastrous actions. Illogical, but a necessary part of the Nationalist grievance machine. 🤔

Your argument that Scotland returns SNP and Wales Labour doesn't stand. You're basically saying the large parts of Scotland that didn't vote SNP can break away from Scotland. Ditto Wales.

Yeah, illogical attempted point. 🙄

DownNative · 10/09/2022 11:11

@JustAnotherPoster00 areas of any country not getting the party in government they voted for is literally a FEATURE of democracy.

70 million voters in the USA didn't vote for Biden - you're suggesting secession based on that?!

Same for Spain in regards to Catalonia.

It's just nonsense what you're suggesting.

TheLassWiADelicateAir · 10/09/2022 11:11

Fivemoreminutesinbed · 10/09/2022 10:28

@RealMcKoy Yeah I have noticed a rewriting of history of the British Empire as if non of the devolved nations took any part of it or profited.

Oh that's 100% true. I loathe nationalism. This thread amply demonstrates what's wrong with it.

BashfulClam · 10/09/2022 11:13

MRex · 10/09/2022 07:43

The plantagenets were succeeded by the Tudors in 1285, so they lasted very little time beyond the Welsh princes, and of course the Normans who handed down the crown had never been English at all. The Tudors were half French with a range of other nationalities thrown in across the years, The Stuarts were Scottish, the Hanoverians - can you guess? And then again there's the mix of Saxe-Coburg and Windsors, largely German in origin with some Russian. The royal family are only English in that recent generations have been born here with George, Charles and William all marrying English women.

If you prefer a Republican state, then that's reasonable and you should sign petitions accordingly. Getting fussy about "Prince of Wales" based on nationality of recent births simply makes no sense, because it has nothing at all to do with the titles.

if your issue is Princess Catherine having a suspected illegitimate Plantagenet ancestor, then that would be a more interesting route to bring annoyed, but the wildly incorrect "the title has been held exclusively by Englishmen" would suggest otherwise. Read up a bit more and clarify what exactly you want to be angry about.

George married a Scottish woman, the queen mother was Scottish not English.

funtycucker · 10/09/2022 11:15

Upthebracket22 · 10/09/2022 07:36

@W0tnow exactly! Hereditary monarchy is seriously questionable

Welsh racism towards the English disguised as nationalism is also seriously questionable

CardiffMam · 10/09/2022 11:17

I'm pro-Welsh not anti English. Independence is normal.

DownNative · 10/09/2022 11:17

KnotKnot · 10/09/2022 11:02

@DownNative you really really don't get it 🙄 Local administration or not, it is essentially ruled from and by English people. I wonder if they are even capable? Look the the DUP and SF in NI? It's comical to watch, basket cases!

On the contrary, I understand tour argument, but it's rather weak.

Demonstrate with evidence how Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are ruled from and by England.

The various devolved acts stipulate that Westminster has a convention where they all decide what to do on DEVOLVED issues only. Nothing else.

Sure, DUP and PSF are a shambles, but it doesn't aid your argument. Rather it undermines it since it is the people of Northern Ireland who are voting them into power.

Not Westminster.

It was the DUP and PSF who changed the terms of devolved power for Northern Ireland in 2007 known as St Andrews Agreement in a carve up between them. The GFA would give Unionists the FM post despite the election, for example.

Again, Westminster isn't responsible for that.

Toomuch2do · 10/09/2022 11:17

@RealMcKoy Your ancestral compatriots knew a good thing by joining onto English Oppression Syndrome when it came to Black people.

For over 200 years Benin and other West African nations thrived on the capture and sale of slaves to the Portuguese, French and British. Did they know a good thing too?

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