A conversation between Emeritus Professor J. Gwynn Williams and Richard Glyn Roberts

Significant features:

● The methodology of historians;

● The history of seventeenth century witches and Quakers;

● The philosophy of historians.

After completing the work on the history of the university was the lure back to the seventeenth century as strong as ever?

After finishing the three volumes it wasn’t easy to return to the seventeenth century. I thought maybe that I would try but I found it exceedingly difficult – one tends to tire in the order of things. And then I though maybe the best thing for me to do – I had thought of bringing them through to you – was to write my memories of my early years, including the history of the College, and the institutions with which I’d been involved – the University Press and the National Library – and various aspects of religion and politics as I saw them. And indeed that’s what I did but the library won’t be releasing these memoirs for many years. One aspect that should be considered when discussing historiography is that I feel that I know more than most about this period that I have David Griffiths David been writing about, like George Owen of Henllys.1 © In this sense: on reading George Owen’s history, you will find that he does a lot of his writing whilst taking a backward glance at what was happening * * * at the end of the Middle Ages. He was very critical of Owain Glyndwˆr and his involvement, as he saw Moving away from the history of the University, it, in the Penance Laws that lasted for so long. But which is a central subject – obviously – in the recent the thing to look for in George Owen’s work is what history of . These other articles that you he writes about his own period, and what he knew wrote on witches and on the Quakers, those on the about contemporary circumstances. That is much margins of society and topics that are, as a result, more valuable. And so I felt that I had something to marginal to the main flow of Welsh history, even say about these times through which I have lived, though they do shed some light on the wider society something that might otherwise be lost.

1 George Owen (1552–1613), antiquarian and historian. Refernce is made to Description of . See Dillwyn Miles (ed.) The Description of Pembrokeshire (Llandysul, 1994). 2 J. Gwynn Williams, ‘Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Flintshire (Part I)’, Journal of the Flintshire Historical Society 26 (1973–4), 16–37; idem, ‘Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Flintshire (Part II)’, Journal of the Flintshire Historical Society 27 (1975–6), 5–35; idem, ‘The Quakers in Meirioneth during the Seventeenth Century (Part I)’, Journal of the Meirioneth

1 The History Magazine during this period.2 What attracted you to witches after the Tudor period but they did in Scotland. I think and Quakers and such like? And why write about that Calvin’s influence ... the witches of Flintshire? Hardened men’s hearts? Well, there were some interesting cases in Flintshire and with me being the editor of the County Hardened men’s hearts, that’s for sure. But I haven’t Transactions… read any detailed studies on that aspect of the subject. You have to tie in these cases with the nature of And the Quakers… society.

I was of the opinion that they had been ignored Would it be true to say that general theories – although not totally. T. Mardy Rees had written on history have not influenced your career as a about them but he hadn’t exhausted the sources by historian to a great extent? It seems to me that any means.3 Also, you tend to write about things there is an element of confession of faith in this that are important in your own life and by following next sentence, as well as an element of criticism: the Quakers I discovered that they had a certain ‘When a quest was held in the hundred distinction. And why the foothold in Wales, especially in 1654 not a single one of the twenty witnesses in Meirionethshire, that rocky county, for so long could sign his name, and when one also remembers before fleeing – well, fleeing isn’t quite the right word, that over half the families of the hundred were they weren’t people to flee – to America after being registered as poor in 1670 one doesn’t need to be a persecuted? I thought that they were very special Marxist to understand the connection.’ 6 people. On the other hand, there were special people but not for the appropriate reasons, the witches. And Well, the reason why people act the way they do is I think that studying the Quakers and the witches part of the narrative and comes out in the narrative. I influenced me and brought me to a middle ground. haven’t taken as much interest in the anthropological But my intention was to write more extensively on background that developed during the past fifty years, the seventeenth century and that is what I would have that’s true. Analyse society as far as you can, but don’t done had I not turned to the College’s history. bring some kind of philosophy into history in order to interpret what you imagine has happened. I remember * * * Dodd7 asking me, “What sort of history would you like to do, constitutional history or ideas?” And at the time There is an easy link between your article on I replied, “Ideas”. “Oh, would you?” he said. the history of the witches and Keith Thomas’ celebrated study4 and it is also to some extent * * * part of the movement to follow the history of the excommunicated on the edges of society, as in the Are there any obvious specific aspects of the case of Foucault on the history of madness.5 century’s history that call for the attention of the historian? And the attitudes of those who treated them, of course. Why were so few witches besmirched and I don’t think it’s easy to explain and trace the hanged in Wales compered with many English development of the awareness that turned to political counties, and Scotland in particular? I would have awareness later in the twentieth century. How did liked to have made comparisons there. such a small country developed its awareness in the face of such adversity? It’s a totally pivotal subject. I What accounted for these differences? think Saunders understood that completely, but there is still work to do. You cannot understand the present Well, they were prepared to use dismal methods in without understanding the past and those men that Scotland to attempt to extract the truth from people. have gone before. They did not use torture to the same extent in England

History and Record Society 8 (1977–80), 122–56; idem, ‘The Quakers in Meirioneth during the Seventeenth Century (Part II)’, Journal of the Meirioneth History and Record Society 8 (1977–80), 312–339; idem, ‘Crynwyr cynnar Cymru’ in E. Stanley Roberts (ed.) Y Gair a’r Genedl: cyfrol deyrnged i R. Tudur Jones (Swansea, 1986), pp. 127–42. 3 T. Mardy Rees, A History of the Quakers in Wales and their emigration to North America (1925). 4 Keith Thomas, author Religion and the decline of magic: studies in popular beleifs in sixteenth and seventeenth century England (London, 1971) and Man and the natural world[:] Changing attitudes in England 1500–1800 (London, 1983). 5 Michel Foucault, Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (Paris, 1972). 6 J. Gwynn Williams, ‘Y Gŵr Cyffredin yng Nghymru’r Ail Ganrif ar Bymtheg’, in Geraint H. Jenkins (ed.),Cof Cenedl II (Llandysul, 1987), 61-87 [82]. 7 A. H. Dodd (1891–1975), seventeenth century Wales and the industrial revolution in north Wales historian; an outline of his career is given in J. Gwynn Williams’ introduction to A. H. Dodd, Stuart Wales and the Social Order (Clwyd County Council, 1991).

2 The History Magazine