elected by itself, its own bailiff, and its own courts, with important powers and liberties. The Statute, however, was doubtless intended to pave the way for shire-government on the English system. Each vicecomital district, or aggregate of commotes, soon acquired a unity in itself, and, by analogy, the name of county or shire. Caermarthen was called comitatus as early as 18 Ed. I., Cardigan in 20 Ed. I., and Anglesey in 14 Ed. II.[1] The commotes fell into a position corresponding to wapentakes or hundreds in England. Subsequently, these shires were more regularly divided into hundreds. It does not appear at what period or by what authority the three shires of North Wales (so called)—Anglesey, Caernarvon, and Merioneth—were so divided. The junction of the lordship of Mouthway (Mowddwy) to the latter shire as a commote by the Act of Union[2] implies that, there at least, the ancient Welch districts had not yet been superseded. A later Act, uniting certain lordships and parishes to Flintshire, constitutes some into a new hundred, and annexes the remainder to one already existing:[3] whence it may be concluded that the close connection of this shire with Chester had led to its early adoption of this English mode of division. The four ancient shires of South Wales remained undivided down to the passing of the Act of Union.[4]
The distinction between Wales and the Marches did not cease with the final conquest of the native principality, but was continued in an altered sense, founded, however, as before, on constitutional and legal differences. "Wales," from the time of the Statute of Rhyddlan, had a twofold meaning. It was employed to denote not only the whole country of Wales as before, but, more especially, the royal domain or principality, including the territories from time to time added to or granted with it. Subsequently, the counties of Pembroke and Glamorgan[5] fell under the royal power, and were included under the same collective term. In other words, "Wales" came to signify the shire-ground as distinguished from the Marches; and thus the name which in an earlier age denoted the native principality—the last refuge of the national institutions—in later times marked the districts of which the government and laws were more closely assimilated to those of the kingdom of England.
Process of time, rebellions and civil wars, and consequent escheats and forfeitures, gradually brought most of the Lordships Marchers into the possession of the Crown; which, concurrently, acquired a great increase of power at home.
