ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that 'contemporary history' became a powerful polemical tool in the armoury of local protagonists and that the struggle to define and authorise particular versions of the recent past became a site of bitter conflict between groups which emerged as the Presbyterian and Independent interests in the county. Local power struggles were often framed historically, by rehearsing recent deeds and actions which demonstrated loyalty, untrustworthiness, partiality or corruption. However, the historical narratives discussed in this chapter offer important insights into the ways that contemporaries fought not only over power and influence in this corner of the kingdom, but also over the public memory of their civil conflicts. Although Pembrokeshire was the only effective outpost for parliament in Wales for significant periods during the war, commitment to either side here was precarious and conditional. As even this skeletal narrative reveals, the county’s experience of the Civil War was one of regular political and military reverses.
