Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Acte for Laws & Justice to be ministred in Wales in like fourme as it is in this Realme. |
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Citation | 27 Hen. 8. c. 26 |
Territorial extent | Wales, Marcher Lordships |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 14 April 1536 |
Repealed | 21 December 1993 |
Other legislation | |
Amended by | |
Repealed by | Welsh Language Act 1993 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Acte for certaine Ordinaunces in the Kinges Majesties Domynion and Principalitie of Wales. |
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Citation | 34 & 35 Hen. 8. c. 26 |
Territorial extent | Wales, Marcher Lordships |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 12 May 1543 |
Repealed | 3 January 1995 |
Other legislation | |
Amended by | |
Repealed by | Sale of Goods (Amendment) Act 1994 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
The Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 (Welsh : Y Deddfau Cyfreithiau yng Nghymru 1535 a 1542) or the Acts of Union (Welsh : Y Deddfau Uno), were Acts of the Parliament of England under King Henry VIII of England, causing Wales to be incorporated into the realm of the Kingdom of England.
The legal system of England and the norms of English administration including the use of the English language only were applied to a mainly Welsh-speaking Wales. This created a single state and legal jurisdiction, which is now called England and Wales.
Before these Acts, Wales had already been annexed by England in 1284 and was excluded from parliamentary representation. Wales was divided between the Principality of Wales and many feudal statelets called the marcher Lordships which were effectively unified under the laws. The English county system was also extended across all of Wales.
After Henry VIII made himself the head of the Church of England in 1534, Wales was seen as a potential problem which included some ambitious men unhappy with ethnic disadvantage in Wales and frustrated with legal complexities. Wales had also been the landing ground for Henry VII and was close to Catholic Ireland. [1]
Chief administrator to the English crown Thomas Cromwell, brought forward Acts to unify Wales with England. The first of the Acts came in 1536 and was later strengthened by the Act of 1542/43. [1] The Acts aimed to integrate the legal, political and administrative systems of Wales with England and make English the language of the courts in Wales, which was a mainly Welsh speaking country at the time. The preamble of the Acts suggests that legal differences in Wales led to discontent, which the English establishment wished to end. [2]
The Acts were the result of a long process of assimilation. [2] Wales had been annexed by England, following the conquest by Edward I, under the Statute of Rhuddlan of 1284. [1]
The two acts have the long titles An Act for Laws and Justice to be ministered in Wales in like Form as it is in this Realm and An Act for Certain Ordinances in the King's Majesty's Dominion and Principality of Wales. Together they are known as the Acts of Union. The aim of the acts were to incorporate Wales into what Henry VIII of England saw as part of his Tudor Empire, with himself as sovereign ruler. [3]
The acts were not popularly referred to as the "Acts of Union" until 1901, when historian Owen M. Edwards assigned them that name. [4] This name is misleading and the legal short title of each Act has since 1948 been "The Laws in Wales Act". They are also often seen cited by the years they received royal assent, 1536 and 1543 respectively, although the official citation uses the preceding years, as each of these Acts was passed between 1 January and 25 March, at a time when New Year's Day fell on 25 March. [5] [6] [7]
History of Wales |
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The Laws in Wales Act 1535 was passed in 1536 in the 8th session of Henry VIII's 5th parliament, which began on 4 February 1535/36, [5] and repealed with effect from 21 December 1993. Meanwhile the act of 1542 was passed in 1543 in the second session of Henry VIII's 8th parliament, which began on 22 January 1542/43. [5]
The act declared King Henry's intentions, that because of differences in law and language: [a]
- (4) some rude and ignorant People have made Distinction and Diversity between the King's Subjects of this Realm, and his Subjects of the said Dominion and Principality of Wales, whereby great Discord, Variance, Debate, Division, Murmur and Sedition hath grown between his said Subjects;
- (5) His Highness therefore of a singular Zeal, Love and Favour that he beareth towards his Subjects of his said Dominion of Wales, minding and intending to reduce them to the perfect Order, Notice and Knowledge of his Laws of this Realm, and utterly to extirp all and singular the sinister Usages and Customs differing from the same, and to bring the said Subjects of this his Realm, and of his said Dominion of Wales, to an amicable Concord and Unity...
– and therefore:
That his said Country or Dominion of Wales shall be, stand and continue for ever from henceforth incorporated, united and annexed to and with this his Realm of England; [a]
The Laws in Wales Act 1535 imposed English law and the English language upon the Welsh people and allowed Welsh representation in the English parliament. [8] These Acts also had many effects on the administration of Wales. The marcher lordships were abolished as political units, and five new counties were established on Welsh lands (Monmouthshire, Brecknockshire, Radnorshire, Montgomeryshire and Denbighshire), thus creating a Wales of 13 counties; [9] Other areas of the lordships were annexed to Shropshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Glamorgan, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire and Merionethshire; [10] The borders of Wales for administrative/government purposes were established and have remained the same since; this was unintentional as Wales was to be incorporated fully into England, but the status of Monmouthshire was still ambiguous in the view of some people until confirmed by the Local Government Act 1972. [11] Each county or shire consisted of fewer than a dozen hundreds corresponding with varying degrees of accuracy to the former commotes. [9]
Wales elected members to the English (Westminster) Parliament, [12] and the Council of Wales and the Marches was established on a legal basis. [13] The Court of Great Sessions was established, a system peculiar to Wales, [13] [14] with a Sheriff appointed in every county, and other county officers as in England. [15] The courts of the marcher lordships lost the power to try serious criminal cases, [9] [13] all courts in Wales were to be conducted in the English language, not Welsh, [16] and the office of justice of the peace was introduced, nine to every county. [9]
In the Welsh Principality, assimilation had already been greatly implemented and so the 1536 and 1542/43 acts in reality brought some legal consistency across Wales, effectively extending the Principality to the Welsh Marches and ending use of Welsh law. [1]
The legal simplicity made it easier for the English crown to collect tax in Wales. After the conquest of Wales by Edward I, the counties of Anglesey, Caernarfonshire, Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, Flintshire and Merionethshire were added to by the formerly Marcher counties of Brecknockshire, Denbighshire, Glamorgan, Montgomeryshire, Pembrokeshire and Radnorshire. This also formed a legal border with England. [1]
Although the poor people of Wales may not have been aware of the laws, the measures were popular with the Welsh gentry who saw the acts as bringing legal equality with English citizens. [1] [17] : 67 The Acts were also seen by the gentry as reducing the influence of the marcher lords. [2]
English was made the legal language in Wales, which was symbolically unjust for the majority Welsh monoglot population. Although the centre of political power was England, the Welsh language remained the language of the people and the land. [1]
Act of Union may refer to:
The Welsh Marches is an imprecisely defined area along the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods.
A marcher lord was a noble appointed by the king of England to guard the border between England and Wales.
England and Wales is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is English law.
The historic counties of Wales were the thirteen sub-divisions used in Wales from either 1282 and 1535, up to their abolition in 1974, being replaced by eight counties. They were used for various functions for several hundred years, but for administrative purposes have been superseded by contemporary sub-national divisions, some of which bear some limited similarity to the historic entities in name and extent. They are alternatively known as ancient counties.
Brecknockshire, also known as the County of Brecknock, Breconshire, or the County of Brecon, was one of the thirteen historic counties of Wales. It was created in 1536 under the Laws in Wales Act 1535. From 1889 it was an administrative county with a county council; the administrative county was abolished in 1974. The county was named after the medieval Welsh territory of Brycheiniog, which was anglicised to "Brecknock" and also gave its name to the county town of Brecon. The county was mountainous and primarily rural.
Radnorshire was one of the thirteen historic counties of Wales and later from 1974 to 1996 a district. It covered a sparsely populated area, and was bounded to the north by Montgomeryshire and Shropshire, to the east by Herefordshire, to the south by Brecknockshire and to the west by Cardiganshire.
Monmouthshire, also formerly known as the County of Monmouth, was one of the thirteen historic counties of Wales in the south-east of Wales, on the border with England. Its area now corresponds approximately to the present principal areas of Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent, Newport and Torfaen, and those parts of Caerphilly and Cardiff east of the Rhymney River.
The Statute of Rhuddlan, also known as the Statutes of Wales or as the Statute of Wales, was a royal ordinance by Edward I of England, which gave the constitutional basis for the government of the Principality of Wales from 1284 until 1536.
The Ecclesiastical Appeals Act 1532, also called the Statute in Restraint of Appeals, the Act of Appeals and the Act of Restraints in Appeals, was an Act of the Parliament of England.
The precise style of the British sovereign is chosen and proclaimed by the sovereign, in accordance with the Royal Titles Act 1953. The current sovereign, King Charles III, was proclaimed by the Privy Council in 2022 to have acceded to the throne with the style:
Charles the Third, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His other Realms and Territories, King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith
The Principality of Wales was originally the territory of the native Welsh princes of the House of Aberffraw from 1216 to 1283, encompassing two-thirds of modern Wales during its height of 1267–1277. Following the conquest of Wales by Edward I of England of 1277 to 1283, those parts of Wales retained under the direct control of the English crown, principally in the north and west of the country, were re-constituted as a new Principality of Wales and ruled either by the monarch or the monarch's heir though not formally incorporated into the Kingdom of England. This was ultimately accomplished with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 when the Principality ceased to exist as a separate entity.
The Court of the Council in the Dominion and Principality of Wales, and the Marches of the same, commonly called the Council of Wales and the Marches or the Council of the Marches, was a regional administrative body founded in Shrewsbury.
This is an index of Welsh peers and baronets whose primary peerage, life peerage, and baronetcy titles include a Welsh place-name origin or its territorial qualification is within the historic counties of Wales.
The formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has involved personal and political union across Great Britain and the wider British Isles. The United Kingdom is the most recent of a number of sovereign states that have been established in Great Britain at different periods in history, in different combinations and under a variety of polities. Historian Norman Davies has counted sixteen different states over the past 2,000 years.
The penal laws against the Welsh were a set of laws passed by the Parliament of England in 1401 and 1402 that discriminated against the Welsh people as a response to the Glyndŵr rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr, which began in 1400.
The England–Wales border, sometimes referred to as the Wales–England border or the Anglo-Welsh border, runs for 160 miles (260 km) from the Dee estuary, in the north, to the Severn estuary in the south, separating England and Wales.
The Jurisdiction in Liberties Act 1535 was an Act of the Parliament of England curtailing the independent jurisdiction of liberties and counties palatine, bringing them more in line with the royal government of the shires. It was promoted by Thomas Cromwell. The geographical area of many of the liberties corresponded to monasteries which were to be dissolved. Opposition to the Act was a factor in the Pilgrimage of Grace revolt in Yorkshire in 1536.
Unionism in Wales is the political view that supports a political union between Wales and the other countries of the United Kingdom. As well as the current state of the UK, unionism may also include support for Federalism in the United Kingdom and a United Kingdom Confederation.