Writing on Borderlines : Anglo-Welsh Relations in Thomas Churchyard's The Worthines of Wales

Oakley-Brown, Liz (2012) Writing on Borderlines : Anglo-Welsh Relations in Thomas Churchyard's The Worthines of Wales. In: Writing Wales, from the Renaissance to Romanticism :. Routledge, pp. 39-58. ISBN 9781409445098

Abstract

This chapter explores representations of community and identity in George Peele's Edward I, focusing in particular on Peele's characterization of the Welsh rebel Lluellen, his caricature of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, last of the Welsh princes of Wales. Edward I enacts the eponymous king's conquest of Wales, but Peele's treatment of the Welsh rebels is less patriotically English than we might otherwise expect in a play written for the London stage. Edward I, Highley writes, uses past Anglo-Welsh conflict as a screen onto which misgivings, anxieties, and fantasies about the English presence in Ireland are projected and interrogated'. Edward I also benefits from the stereotypes of alterity provided by the wild west' of Wales where Lluellen is based. Both Robin and Lluellen are outlaws, located far from Peele's stage, and far enough in the past to be comfortable to a London audience.