ABSTRACT
Anglicization can be traced back to at least the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1543 drew Wales into one centralized kingdom with England. English was enforced as the language of justice and administration, and acquisition of an English education became increasingly desirable for any Welshman of means. Inevitably, many returned home to Wales from the Inns of Court or the universities with pronounced Anglophile tastes, and there are numerous references in the later domestic documentation to the procuring of instruments and books from England. By the 1620s, there is evidence that several affluent households in south Wales maintained their own secular musicians, and the accounts of Sir William Aubrey of Llantrithyd in the Vale of Glamorgan are an important witness to the fashion for engaging a family harper.
