#but rather to appoint welshment to position of high offices. granted that his summary was published 2019...

[fideidefenswhore]

After 1536 the only bard to comment on affairs of state with any regularity was Lewys Morgannwg, who as unofficial poet laureate continued to praise Henry for his imperial qualities as the heir of Brutus and a second Charlemagne, and (in an allusion to the laws of 1534) for disciplining the unruly Welsh for their own good. The opportunistic poet who before the break with Rome had honoured the monastic vocation in an ode to the abbot of Neath now commended the king for suppressing the corrupt monasteries, and yet he did not entirely abandon his attachment to the traditional faith. After the fall of Anne Boleyn, who is held responsible for promoting the 'new religion', Lewys denounced her as a second Alice Rowena, whose corruption had betrayed the kingdom of the Britons in 'the treachery of the long knives.' In the same poem the king is urged to prefer local men before Englishmen of low breeding to high offices, for the sake of security and contentment of the realm.

British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533-1707, edited by Brendan Bradshaw, Peter Roberts