But it was not upon a policy of stern repression alone that Henry depended for the pacification of Wales. He was too great a statesman for any such thing. He knew full well that leniency on the part of a feeble and ineffective government might be misrepresented and be followed by disastrous consequences, but that going hand in hand with a rigorous punishment of disorderly persons it would prove successful. It is the policy which liberal statesmen have always advocated, and which tyrants have disregarded to their own undoing. The policy of conciliation upon which the king now embarked is sometimes referred to as the Act of Union with Wales. This, however, is misleading, for there is no Act upon the Statute Book which bears such a name. It is, nevertheless, generally descriptive of a series of statutes, the first passed in 1535 and the last in 1542, which gave to Wales a new constitution. {134} The first step was taken in 1535, when an Act was passed empowering the Lord Chancellor to appoint Justices of the Peace for the counties of Anglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, Flint, Cardigan, Carmarthen, Pembroke, and Glamorgan. At first sight there does not seem to be anything very revolutionary in this; but those who held authority in Wales at the time thought otherwise, and duly registered their protest against the Act. To them it was apparent that this was but the thin end of the wedge, and that the outcome of it would be the entrusting to the Welsh people full power to govern themselves. Henry's next Act was an attack upon the privileges of the Lords Marchers, a policy which was to be followed until the Marches had been completely abolished. The third, and most comprehensive, Act of the same year had for its object the complete breaking down of all barriers between England and Wales. Henry's aim is perfectly clear: he was no believer in Welsh self-determination; all that he desired was that Wales should be swallowed up by England. Welshmen were undoubtedly to acquire all the privileges of Englishmen, but on one condition--they were to become Englishmen. The Preamble of the Act of {135} 1535 states that the king desires to "extirp all and singular the sinister Usages and Customs" which prevailed in Wales; and in order that that might be accomplished, Wales was henceforth to be "incorporated, united, and annexed" to England. All laws were thenceforward to be the laws of England. This involved, among other things, the adoption of the principle of primogeniture in place of the old Welsh custom of equal division among all the sons. The Lordships Marcher were practically abolished, parts of them being united to England, and the remainder distributed between the newly created shires of Monmouth, Brecknock, Radnor, Montgomery, and Denbigh. Henry realised, as all statesmen of conquering nations have realised, that the most powerful obstacle in the way of the assimilation of a small nation by a larger one is the continued