ABSTRACT
The word cyfodiad differs significantly in meaning from gwrthryfel , ‘rebellion’, or terfysg , ‘insurrection, riot’; it carries more the sense of ‘a beginning, a start’. Subtle and not so subtle pressure was brought to bear on recalcitrant workers. Elizabeth Jones of the Blaina women’s lodge was advised ‘not to sleep with her husband till she had made him a Chartist’. An armed citizenry was central to the concept of the workers’ commonwealth, of the ‘Silurian’ republic. Only a populace totally mobilised for the defence of its autonomy might hope to withstand the forces that would be unleashed against it. The commonwealth was conceived in arms and born in arms. The colliers of the Blackwood district were mustering on a schedule that, in accordance with plan, would bring them to Risca, or the nearby Welsh Oak, at about midnight. In the upper reaches of Ebbw Fawr there were two lodges, the Rassa, and the Ebbw Vale and Beaufort.
