英国民族21

The symbol not of imperial grandeur, but of crushing national annihilation, a permanent, daily, wounding reminder of conquest and humiliation. The most colossal exercise, in fact, in colonial domination anywhere in medieval Europe. Beneath the lion standard of Edward Plantagenet, the Welsh inhabitants had now become second-class citizens in their own country. Well, those natives were treated for the most part like naughty children, not allowed to bear arms, of course, but even forced to ask permission if they wanted strangers to stay at their house overnight. Worst of all, I think, the Welsh were doomed by English superiority to become objects of terminal quaintness. The quaint language, the quaint songs, those amusing choirs and chants.

这些堡垒并非为了昭示帝国的辉煌，而是要泯灭威尔士的民族意识，象征着征服和凌辱，将威尔士骑在身下。根据中世纪欧洲的殖民统治惯例，在金雀花王朝的爱德华统治下，威尔士人民在自己的国土上成为了二等公民。统治者对待那些原住民就像对待不听话的孩子，他们当然是不准携带武器的，但竟然连留宿外乡人，也需要得到批准。但我认为最糟糕的是在英格兰的特权统治下，威尔士的古老文化注定将走向消亡，古老的语言，古雅的民谣，还有那些动人的赞美诗。