Page:Ashorthistoryofwales.djvu/103

Rh and their patriotism as a possible source of trouble; but they obtained the privileges of an equal race, and they were pleased to regard themselves as a dominant one.

They obtained equal political privileges. The laws which denied them residence in the garrison towns in Wales, or the holding of land in England, came to an end. The whole of the country, shire ground and march ground, was divided into one system of shires and given representation in Parliament, by the Act of Union of 1535. It is called an Act of Union because, by it, Wales and England were united on equal terms.

Anglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, Flint, Cardigan, and Carmarthen had been shires since 1284; and small portions of Glamorgan and Pembroke had been governed like shires, so that some Tudor writers call them counties. The chief difference between a shire and a lordship is that the king's writ runs to the shire, but not to the lordship. The king administers the law in the shire, through the sheriff; the lord administers the law in the lordship through his own officials.

In 1535 the marches of Wales were turned into shire ground. The bulk of them went