When Wales saved Britain from Revolution

Last Bank Holiday weekend in the Tardis like “Royal Oak Inn” Fishgard, South Wales I spied a poster claiming that Wales (and Welsh women in particular!) had saved Britain from “revolution”.

This very same “pub” was indeed the site of surrender negotiations between French officers and those from the much smaller local Welsh militia and yeomanry following the last invasion of Britain in February 1797. When 1400 well armed Revolutionary troops under direct orders from the Paris Directory were sent to spark a Welsh uprising and to try and size Liverpool then London.

“The working classes were to be encouraged to rebel; Britain’s trade was to be dislocated and French prisoners of war liberated, causing such chaos as to make the invasion of Britain possible”

The French were initially planning to invade Ireland with 15,000 troops (which didn’t take place) and while they intended this attack at Wales (or Bristol) to be part of a diversionary attack they also hoped that there would start a revolution amongst the local population.

On 22 February 1797 4 French warships landed “17 boatloads of troops, 47 barrels of powder, 50 tons of cartridges and grenades and 2,000 stands of arms”. You can walk the 3 miles from Fishguard to the invasion point at Carreg Wastad which is all simply stunningly beautiful. There is a memorial to the invasion on the headland (see picture of moi). Last week it was entirely peaceful with the only excitement being a family of grey seals basking on the rocks in the sunshine.

There was no opposition to the landing and the French quickly seized strong defensive points from which it would have been very difficult to dislodge them. However, the expected “Revolution” never happened? Instead of supporting or even joining the revolutionary troops there was a series of bitter and bloody skirmishes between them and local Welsh inhabitants.

This was a dangerous time for the British government of the time. Later that year the Royal Navy mutinied twice and the news of the invasion caused a run on the Bank of England which forced them to suspend the payment of gold and instead they issued £1 bank notes for the first time!

Despite income disparity being far worse in this part of Wales than anywhere else in Britain and Ireland and the relatively recent Pembrokeshire bread riots there appeared to be no support locally for  “revolution”. The French hardly helped matters with many of their troops getting drunk, ransacking and burning local farms and churches (see the picture of Llandwna Church which had its papers and bibles burnt) while trying to “live off the land”.

In other parts of Europe the invading French revolutionary armies had been welcomed as liberators. Not so in Wales? There is probably a mass of reasons for this apart from a xenophobic fear of French Johnny foreigner. The rise of religious non conformity in Wales may have given the revolutionaries hope but most dissenters were probably at the time more keen than most to prove their loyalty to the Crown for fairly obvious reasons. Of course the patriotic conservatism (with a small c) of the British working class is one of its most enduring and defining features. At the end there are accounts of hundreds of locals turning up to fight the invader (as with their descendants in 1940) armed with primitive farm weapons.

There are two further stories that I love about this moment in our history. Firstly it seems that one of the reasons for the French surrender was “There is strong evidence that the French were deceived by the appearance in the neighbourhood of large numbers of local womenfolk wearing the traditional dress of red shawls and black hats, which at a distance resembled infantry uniforms”. It is clear that the French for whatever reason actually surrendered to vastly inferior number of troops. Secondly “The heroine of the hour” Jemima Nicholas, (see picture) who with her pitchfork, went out single-handedly into the fields around Fishguard and rounded up 12 French soldiers and 'persuaded' them to return with her to town where she locked them inside St Mary's Church.

Apart from the history lesson Pembrokeshire is just breath taking countryside, with superb coastal and hill walks - well worth a visit.