Part 2 examines religion in North-East Wales from 1640 to 1688. Religious fidelity was, as discussed in Part 1 of this book, a central pillar of Welsh identity and of English representations of Welsh royalists. Here it is argued that the loyalty to the Church of England in North-East Wales and the tendency to provide limited protection for local Catholic worshippers, were both linked to Welsh historical culture and identity. The Church of England was portrayed by sixteenth-century Welsh humanists and translators as the Celtic Church, the original and pure institution polluted after St Augustine of Canterbury’s landing in 597 AD. Chapter 1 described how this portrayal of the Church fitted within the wider British History tradition but also within Welsh historical culture. It was self-confidently proclaimed by Welsh writers, both lay and clerical, throughout the seventeenth century. Most of the seventeenth-century clergy spoke Welsh or learnt the language. They were often from families within the wider North Welsh region, or from families with North Welsh connections. Highly conservative traditional practices continued in North-East Wales and, as a result, those ritualistic or beautifying tendencies promoted in the years immediately before the Civil War were not unfamiliar or unwelcome to many Welsh worshippers. Welsh lay men and women protected the rituals and personnel of the Church during the Interregnum, and swiftly restored them after 1660.

These patterns indicate a regional approach to religion that has generally only been remarked on in relation to Catholic populations in areas such as Lancashire, or in radical Protestant areas of the east and south-east of England. The consistent nature of its survival and allegiance to the Church is remarkable even in comparison to areas of England known for their religious conservatism. The comparative weakness of radical Protestantism, even during the Interregnum, was partly due to its perceived foreignness, as well as the manner in which certain strands of radical Protestant worship actively opposed fondly held traditions within Welsh religious life. After 1660, there was an added political and historical dimension to the mistrust of nonconformists which only increased the unpopularity of dissenting worship throughout the remainder of the seventeenth century.