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'Williams alias Cromwell' – God's Welshman?:
Writing recently on the 375th anniversary of the founding of the New Model Army, I was reminded of the fact that its cavalry commander, Oliver Cromwell, given the epithet 'God's Englishman' as the title of his biography, by Christopher Hill (right), was of 'good Welsh stock'. Indeed, his ancestors' story is very much synonymous with the union of England and Wales under the Tudors. Oliver himself was born in 1599, one of ten children, in Huntingdon, towards the end of the reign of the last Welsh-speaking monarch of Britain, Elizabeth I.
Oliver Cromwell's father, Robert Cromwell (alias Williams), was the younger son of Sir Henry Cromwell (alias Williams), the 'Golden Knight of Hinchingbrooke'. Henry's father was born Richard Williams, grandson of a Welshman said to have accompanied Henry Tudor when he seized the throne of England from the Plantagenets at the Battle of Bosworth and became Henry VII in 1485. So the family's estate derived from Oliver's great-great-grandfather Morgan ap William, the son of William ap Ieuan of Wales. William was a great archer and a kinsman of Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke. Morgan was a brewer from Glamorgan who settled at Putney near London and married Katherine Cromwell (born 1482), the daughter of the local blacksmith, Walter Cromwell. She was also the sister of Thomas Cromwell, the famous chief minister to Henry VIII. The Cromwell family acquired great wealth as occasional beneficiaries of Thomas's administration of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Of course, he was known as the 'hammer of the monks' and was the architect of the English Reformation. The story of his fall and execution in 1540 has just been re-chronicled by historical novelist Hilary Mantel in the final part of her hugely popular 'Wolf Hall' trilogy, something else that prompted me to write about Oliver Cromwell's Welsh connections.
Henry VIII believed that the Welsh should adopt surnames in the English style rather than taking their fathers' names (patronyms) as Morgan ap William and his male ancestors had done. Henry suggested to Sir Richard Williams, one of the king's most favoured knights, who was the first to use a surname in his family, that he might adopt the surname of his uncle Thomas Cromwell. For several generations, the Williamses added the surname of Cromwell to their own, styling themselves "Williams alias Cromwell" in legal documents (Noble 1784, pp. 11–13). Richard Williams took the name of his famous uncle and acted as his agent in the suppression of the monasteries. He had his reward: three abbeys, two priories and the nunnery of Hinchinbrooke, worth perhaps two-and-a-half thousand pounds a year, came into his possession; and he married the daughter of a Lord Mayor of London. His son, Sir Henry, built the magnificent mansion out of the ruins of Hinchinbrooke, fit to entertain royalty, on the site of Ramsey Abbey. In the year of the Armada, 1588, he ordered all his copyhold tenants in the manor of Ramsey to be ready to attend him at an hour's notice. He too married the daughter of a Lord Mayor of London, represented his county in the House of Commons and was for times sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. He was one of the two wealthiest landowners in Huntingdonshire.
An integrated Britain becomes visible first in the major migration of the Welsh to the centre of power in the sixteenth century. Dafydd Seisyllt from the Welsh-speaking 'enclave' of Ergyng in Herefordshire went up to London as a sergeant of Henry VII's guard. He bought land and installed his son as a court page. His grandson was William Cecil, Elizabeth's potent statesman and spy-master. William's son, Robert Cecil, became chief minister of James I, and in 1605 'uncovered' the Gunpowder Plot. As we have seen above, the family of Morgan ap-William, the brewer who married Thomas Cromwell's sister, changed its name and its base from Glamorganshire to Huntingdonshire during this time, producing Oliver Cromwell three generations later. A horde of less well-known Welsh people colonised some of the London professional classes, the armed forces and some branches of commerce which in a few sectors became historically significant. The law and education are major examples of this. They also helped to establish Bristol as Britain's major Atlantic port as trade routes switched from the eastern English coasts to the west. The Welsh moved resolutely into every conceivable avenue of advancement, from the Court, the Great Sessions, the Council of Wales, JP patronage and the academic world, through minerals, commerce and politics, to smuggling and piracy.
Under Elizabeth I, Welsh intellectuals concentrated in force behind the first thrust for naval growth, American colonisation and empire. For the first time in centuries, the Welsh Church ceased to serve as the provider of sinecures for English clerics; thirteen of the sixteen bishops appointed to Wales were crusading Protestant Welshmen. Elizabeth's coronation oath referred back through Geoffrey of Monmouth's Histories of the Kings of Britain to claim her right to call herself Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church independently of the 'Bishop of Rome', tracing the origins of the churches in Britain to the Celtic missionaries. When these claims came under attack from the 'Italian School', most Tudor Renaissance humanists came to the defence of what had become official 'doctrine'.
Among the new scholars were Sir John Price of Brecon and Humphrey Llwyd of Denbigh. In 1571, Jesus College, Oxford was created specifically as a Welsh college. Central to this burst of British imperial energy was the seminal figure of the European Renaissance, Dr John Dee, the London-Welshman, originally from Radnorshire, who is credited with the coinage of the term 'British Empire'. He was a brilliant mathematician and foundation fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In the 1580s, from the twin Calvinist bases of Bohemia and the Palatinate, he launched a scientific and mystical movement which cultivated a new world view. In 1614, Elizabeth Stuart, James I's daughter, married Frederick, Elector Palatine, and in 1618 they became the 'Winter' King and Queen of Bohemia, an event which led to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in Europe.
Court & Country in Stuart Times:
Henry's son, Sir Oliver, also a knight of the shire and high sheriff, was the uncle of Oliver Cromwell. Despite prudent marriages, Sir Oliver, living to almost a hundred, managed to dissipate the family fortunes. He entertained James I at Hinchinbrooke (above) in the most lavish way when the King was on progress from Scotland in 1603 and on many later occasions. Like other country gentlemen who entertained the impecunious monarch, Sir Oliver got little in return. Like Sir John Harington of Coombe Abbey in Warwickshire, tutor and guardian of James' daughter Elizabeth, Sir Oliver is a classical example of a man ruined by 'courtesy'. He had to sell his great house to the Montague family, who were to play a major part in the civil wars.
This may have been the root cause of the family feud which was the background to Oliver's own quarrel with Sir Edward Montague, the Earl of Manchester, pictured right, which led to the 'Self-Denying Ordinance' removing Manchester and his fellow peers from command of the Parliamentary Army, and the establishment of the 'New Model' Army under Sir Thomas Fairfax and Cromwell. The immediate result of the sale was that Robert, as the younger son, inherited little of the patrimony; but he did retain some of his own former church property. Cromwell's father Robert was of modest means but still, a member of the landed gentry.
As a younger son with many siblings, Robert inherited only a house at Huntingdon and a small amount of land. This land would have generated an income of up to £300 a year, near the bottom of the range of gentry incomes. Oliver's mother was Elizabeth Steward, the anglicised surname of 'Stewart' or 'Stuart'. On both sides, the fortunes of the family had been founded by the 'spoliation' of the Roman Catholic Church. At the Reformation Elizabeth Steward's great-uncle, Robert had been the last Prior of Ely and its first protestant Dean. Her father William and after him her only brother Sir Thomas farmed the lands of Ely Cathedral. The connection between the two families went back two generations: for the man who persuaded Prior Robert Steward to throw in his lot with Thomas Cromwell was Sir Richard Cromwell, previously known as Richard Williams.
Above. Ely Cathedral from Cromwell's House.
Oliver was born in a house which had been part of the hospital of St John in Huntingdon since his father had acquired property which had formerly belonged to the Austin friars: from his maternal uncle Sir Thomas Steward, Oliver was later to inherit extensive leases from the Dean and Chapter of Ely. But he must have grown up conscious of the fact that he was a poor relation. He visited the splendours of Hinchinbrooke from time to time, but his father's three hundred pounds a year was less than Sir Oliver would have spent on a fleeting visit from King James. Young Oliver had many rich and important relations, but his own upbringing was modest. Cromwell himself in 1654 said,
"I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in considerable height, nor yet in obscurity".
Above: Cromwell's House and parish church, Ely
Along with his brother Henry, Oliver had kept a smallholding of chickens and sheep, selling eggs and wool to support himself, his lifestyle resembling that of a yeoman farmer. In 1636 Cromwell inherited control of various properties in Ely from his uncle on his mother's side, and his uncle's job as tithe collector for Ely Cathedral. As a result, his income is likely to have risen to around £300–400 per year.
Cromwell's House in Ely is a museum today, as shown above, and below.
By the end of the 1630s, Cromwell had returned to the ranks of acknowledged gentry. He had become a committed Puritan and had established important family links to leading families in London and Essex. In his seminal book The World Turned Upside Down (below), Christopher Hill argued that the familiar civil war division between the 'Royalist' North and West and the 'Parliamentarian' South and East, was also a division between the 'relatively backward' North and West, and the 'economically advanced South and East'. Yet, with hindsight, these contemporary stereotypes were already changing as the first civil war got underway and by the second the growth in Atlantic trade was already beginning to transform the fortunes of war in the West. Yet, the North and West were regarded by Parliamentarians as the 'dark corners of the land', in which preaching was totally inadequate, despite the early attempts made by many Puritans to propagate the Gospel. In 1641, Lord Brooke (Earl of Warwick) observed that there was…
… scarce any minister in some whole shires, as in Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland and especially in Wales.
Eighteen years later, the evangelical minister and Parliamentary chaplain, Richard Baxter, argued that…
… multitudes in England, and more in Wales, Cornwall, Ireland, the Highlands, are scarce able to talk reason about common things. Are these … fit to have the sovereign power, to rule the Commonwealth?
But the radicals puritans' vision already included a reformed educational system, which would realise something of Comenius' ideal: universal education in the vernacular for boys and girls up to the age of eighteen, followed by six years at university for the best pupils. On a visit to England in 1641, he wrote that…
… they are eagerly debating on the reformation in the whole kingdom … that all young people should be instructed, none neglected.
Wales in the Civil Wars – Royalists to Roundheads:
In the first civil war, Wales was seen as solidly in support of the King, but by 1645 the royalist coalition in Wales, bludgeoned by repeated levies of men and money, murky deals with the Irish and an inflow of royalist refugees, began to break up. In Glamorgan, 'peaceable armies' demonstrated for compromise and throughout Wales, there was wholesale defection. By 1646 the 'Pembroke party' was also working for a compromise peace with the Presbyterians in the face of a radical army. From that army came Independent chaplains such as Vavasour Powell, who became itinerant preachers among the Welsh. In response, moderate royalists, Presbyterians and disgruntled parliamentarians shuffled into an alliance in support of the imprisoned king. This led to a rising focused on south Pembrokeshire in the summer of 1648 when there were also revolts in south-east England, followed by an invasion of Northern England by the Scots. The rising in South Wales was led by former Parliamentarian officers, renegades against whom Cromwell was particularly bitter. After their defeat, one of their leaders was shot. In this second civil war, the New Model Army won a victory against the rebels at St Fagans near Cardiff and Cromwell himself brought about the final reduction of Pembroke Castle, the boyhood home of Henry Tudor. Early in 1649, Charles was executed and Wales was exposed to the full force of 'the British Republic'.
But the 'transformation' of Wales from a Royalist 'fiefdom' into a Roundhead republic by no means simply an orgy of expulsions and confiscations. Many of the men who gained control in Wales were 'crusaders' for the puritan cause. John Jones, a freeholder from of Maes-y-Garnedd in Merioneth and a convert of Morgan Llwyd's preaching, married Cromwell's sister, served the Protector in Ireland and died heroically on the scaffold as an unrepentant regicide. Colonel Philip Jones of Llangyfelach, a distinguished soldier, was close to the visionary Hugh Peter, and it was this circle that the notion evolved of evangelising Wales around a 'commission' to propagate the gospel. To them, Wales was a dark corner, ripe for a radical experiment in godly government. It was this abused régime with its army men and preaching cobblers which proved to be the only English administration to date to treat Wales as a separate nation. The Rump Parliament at Westminster had disappointed even moderate reformers by its failure to ensure that the word was preached in every parish, for there were still too many lazy, ignorant and absentee parsons who left their flocks hungry in what was a sermon-hungry age. It did set up two local Commissions for the Propagation of the Gospel early in 1650, one for Wales and the other for the northern counties, but it made no progress at all with a bill intended to do the same for England as a whole.
The Act for the Better Propagation of the Gospel in Wales of 1650 gave the country a peculiar form of autonomy under Colonel Thomas Harrison and seventy commissioners. There were a few members of the gentry of Independent temper like Sir Erasmus Philipps of Picton in Pembrokeshire, though most, of necessity, were English military missionaries. Philip Jones and John Jones were prominent, but the core around Harrison were men like Powell, Cradock, Llwyd, John Miles (who had created the first Calvinistic Baptist church in Gower), men whom later generations would see as founding fathers of modern Wales. They threw out nearly three hundred clergymen, but the propagating venture got a bad name when the Welsh commission was powerfully infiltrated by Fifth Monarchist firebrands, most notably Vavasour Powell and Morgan Llwyd, who had strong links with Colonel Harrison and his faction in the Army. They were not only seen as perverting the organisation in order to preach socially subversive ideas about the irrelevance of worldly rank and the imminent rule of the saints, but they were unjustly accused of misappropriating the tithes and other revenues of the church in Wales to their own sectarian ends. This was only one symptom of growing polarization between moderate and extreme puritans. The year 1652 saw a spate of radical pamphlets and petitions, tending to the removal of religion from the state's authority, as well as the rapid expansion of Quakers and other heterodox sects. But it also saw the emergence of a group of moderate Independents led by John Owen who put a set of proposals before the Rump prefiguring the ecclesiastical régime of the Protectorate. They sought to preserve a broad established church, with generous freedom of worship and association outside it.
As a political and religious 'Independent', Lord General Cromwell favoured the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in both England and Wales, though he maintained the need for a national Church, supported through tithes, possibly because he himself was a tithe-collector for Ely. Yet Parliament did nothing to achieve this. It was not until February 1653 that the Rump took up the relatively conservative but nonetheless reforming scheme of Owen and his group. But Parliament and the Army remained suspicious of each other, and the Rump showed particular animosity towards Harrison, whom the hostile MPs blamed for the radical actions taken under the auspices of the Commission for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales. He had lost his place on the Council of State in November 1651, and there was even a move to expel him from parliament. This was not only unjust but also foolish, for though Cromwell did not share Harrison's fifth monarchist beliefs, there were still strong ties of friendship and mutual trust between the two seasoned soldiers. According to contemporary sources, Cromwell played up to Army radicalism by saying that the Rump intended to support 'the corrupt interests of the clergy and the lawyers'. So far from reforming the Anglican Church, Parliament aroused resentment by refusing to renew the Commission for Wales, the Army's favourite instrument for evangelising what had proved to be a politically unreliable country.
Cromwell and the generals also advocated the disappearance of Parliament and the handing of power to a provisional government, in which they themselves would naturally predominate, to supervise and control elections. How otherwise, he asked, could one know …
… whether the next Parliament were not like to consist of all Presbyterians. … Thus, as we apprehended, would have been thrown away the liberties of the nation into the hands of those who had never fought for it.
When a meeting between officers and MPs on 19 April 1653 ended in deadlock, the 'gentlemen's agreement' between them to engage in further discussions was breached the next day by backbench MPs who started to rush through a bill for dissolution without meeting the officers' demand for an interim authority under their control, revealing that parliament intended to control the election of its successors itself. Cromwell felt that his hand had been forced, and intervened with the army just in time to stop the new bill from becoming law. He flew into a rage, by all accounts, declaring to the Commons:
You are no Parliament, I say you are no Parliament …
So ended the Long Parliament, which had sat for twelve and a half years. Despite the repeated attempts by many to 'paint' this as an act of tyranny in the form orchestrated 'coup d'état', it is quite clear that what Cromwell was seeking to do was to end the dictatorship of an undemocratic 'élite' which was clinging to power and trying to ensure the continued predominance of presbyterian rule both in Westminster and the country at large. His 'righteous indignation' stemmed from the manner in which they sought to dissolve themselves in order to ensure that they could rig the subsequent election to this effect. Their betrayal of the compromise reached with the Army took him by surprise.
The 'Coral Growth' of the Welsh Independents:
Above: The British Republic, 1649-60.
During the civil wars, new universities were proposed for Bristol, Shrewsbury, Ludlow and Aberystwyth. There were also proposals for an increase in the number of schools and in Wales a great number of new schools were actually started. Despite the negative stereotypes quoted above, according to Laurence Stone, there was a substantial increase in lower-class literacy throughout the revolutionary decades. One of the paradoxes of the period was that of the most radical sectarian groups, the Quakers started almost exclusively in the North of England and the Baptists were at their strongest in Wales. William Erbery claimed that the new English Independency had already been overthrown by the Welsh and that…
… baptised churches have the greatest fall (harvest) from the northern saints in both in England and Wales … John's spirit is in the North of England and the spirit of Jesus rising in North Wales is for the fall of all the churches in the South. The whirlwind comes from the North.
From the early 1650s, there was a rapid expansion of Particular Baptists in Wales and of Quakers all over the North of England. In 1654, one of their enemies, Ephraim Pagitt, said of them in 1654 that they were made up out of the dregs of common people … thickest set in the North Parts. Earlier, in 1649, Hugh Peter and others had noticed that the Welsh border counties, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, were 'ripe for the gospel' and emissaries were sent from Glamorgan to London asking for preachers. When the Quakers turned south in 1654 they made great progress among 'that dark people' of Cornwall, as well as in Wales, and among weavers generally, notably in Gloucestershire. The paradox was further intensified by the fact that such Puritan ministers as there were in the North had mostly been cleared out in the Laudian persecutions of the 1630s, under Richard Neile, Archbishop of York. Those remaining were further reduced in the North and Wales when they fled from their parishes the civil war to escape the Royalist occupation in those territories. As early as 1646 Thomas Edwards had noted that…
… emissaries out of the sectaries' churches are sent to infect and poison … Yorkshire and those northern parts, … Bristol and Wales. … Sects begin to grow fast … for want of a settlement in discipline.
Traditional southern middle-class Puritanism of the Presbyterian variety had a hold only in isolated areas of the North, and hardly at all in Wales, except for the area of Harley influence along the borders with Worcestershire and Herefordshire. There, Sir Thomas' planting of godly ministers … backing them with his authority made religion famous in his little corner of the world. Clarendon testifies to the existence of support for the Parliamentary cause among the common people and popular religious movements in North Wales and in the Forest of Dean at the end of the first civil war. This helps to explain why the New Model Army, …
… having marched up and down the kingdom, to do the work of God and the state … met with many Christians who have much gospel-light … in such places where there hath been no gospel-ministry.
Presbyterian Puritanism took little hold of any depth in Wales. The defeat of the Royalist armies and the bankruptcy of the traditional clergy created an even greater spiritual void than in the more traditional Puritan areas of the South and East. Yet the period was one of much greater prosperity in the pasture farming areas of Wales and the borders. This combined with a growth in 'cottage' industries as confirmed by a shift in population to the west midland counties of England and the re-building of peasant houses in stone. Contemporaries explained the 'whoredoms of the Welsh' by the mountain air: the modern historian more wisely sees them as the natural product of a society which refused to accept English protestant marriage laws.
In these areas, it was the Particular Baptists who initially filled the spiritual gap, though in some parts they were superseded by Quakers, as in the North of England. The more politically radical Fifth Monarchists had only a superficial influence in Wales, being a mainly urban movement, and they had little connection with the Forest of Dean before the 1670s. It seems to have been mainly in response to this radical challenge that the outlying clergy joined in the movement led by Kidderminster's Richard Baxter to build up voluntary county associations of ministers, a sort of 'Presbyterianism from below'. The radical Independents of the Cromwellian period in Wales and along the Welsh border included Vavasour Powell, Morgan Lloyd, Walter Cradock and William Erbery, to which might be added Thomas Harrison and Henry Danvers, the Fifth Monarchists from Staffordshire, and the Leveller William Walwyn of Worcestershire.
There was also a broader cultural impact of Wales and the borders upon the 'more advanced' south and east. John Donne, the greatest of the metaphysical poets, is separated by just one generation from the Welsh forbear who sent his younger son to London to be apprenticed, and George Herbert and Henry Vaughan were both Welsh. Thomas Traherne came from the Welsh 'marches' and in the second rank of border 'bards', we might include Lord Herbert of Cherbury and John Davies of Hereford. Inigo Jones, the great architect who re-built St Paul's before the Great Fire destroyed it completely, was of Welsh descent. Turning to the field of mathematics and science, Robert Recorde, John Dee, Robert Fludd, Matthew Gwynne, Edmund Gunter, Thomas Vaughan and Edward Somerset, Marquis of Worcester, were all Welsh or, like Cromwell himself, of Welsh descent. The cultural consequences of the union of Great Britain, begun by the Tudors, and extended by James I, were further developed through the creation of the New Model Army and its role in the political and religious matters of the mid-seventeenth century.
The Cromwell Coat of Arms (on Oliver's ascent to Lord Protector in 1653)
The Bible & Radical Puritanism in the Protectorate:
Late twentieth-century historians re-examined the nature of Cromwell's faith and of his authoritarian regime. In his extensive 2002 book (see below), Austin Woolrych explored the issue of "dictatorship" in depth, arguing that Cromwell was subject to two conflicting forces: his obligation to the army and his desire to achieve a lasting settlement by winning back the confidence of the nation as a whole. He argued that the dictatorial elements of Cromwell's rule stemmed less from its military origin or the participation of army officers in civil government than from his constant commitment to the interest of the people of God and his conviction that suppressing vice and encouraging virtue constituted the chief end of government. Historians such as John Morrill, Blair Worden, and J. C. Davis have developed this theme, revealing the extent to which Cromwell's writing and speeches are suffused with biblical references, and arguing that his radical actions were driven by his zeal for godly reformation.
It is difficult to overemphasise the role of the Bible in the radical Puritanism of the first half of the seventeenth century. By mid-century, eschatological prophecy had become a major part of protestant controversial literature, aided especially by the invention of printing. Scholars, including Newton, approached the Bible authorised by King James in 1612 in a scientific spirit and reached a consensus which indicated the advent of remarkable events in the mid-1650s: the fall of Antichrist, the second coming and the millennium. This underlay the confident energy and utopian enthusiasm of the Puritan preachers of the 1640s and '50s. In this spirit of optimism, they called upon their fellow commoners to fight the Lord's battles against the Antichrist. Cromwell was chief among these men to take up that calling.
Ordinary Bible-readers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wanted to democratise the mysteries that lay behind the sacred texts of the Scriptures, previously known only to scholars, for themselves. They believed, on good protestant authority, that anyone could understand God's word if he studied it carefully enough and if the grace of God was in him. Then the Bible could be made to reveal the significance of the events of his own time. Bibles were no longer expensive as book prices then went, 3s 2d in 1649 and later just two shillings. Soldiers in the New Model Army were issued with The Soldier's Bible, containing key passages which justified their war with the 'Antichrist'. The Geneva Bible, on which the Authorised Version was based, was published in pocket-size editions so that men could take it to church or the ale-house, as Henry VIII had observed with alarm, to knock down an argument with a text. Those coming to the Bible with no broad historical sense but with high expectations found in it a message of direct contemporary relevance. A young Welshman delighting in the name of 'Arise' Evans (a forename probably derived from 'Rhys', 'ap-Rhys' or, in its anglicised form, 'Rice') who arrived in London in 1629, witnessed as to how his attitude to the Bible changed in the decade before the Revolution:
Afore I looked upon the Scripture as a history of things that passed in other countrie, pertaining to other persons; but now I looked upon it as a mystery to be opened at this time, belonging also to us.
This attitude was, no doubt, shared by many of the victims of economic and political crisis who turned to the Bible for guidance in that perplexing period. The 1640s and '50s were indeed the great age of 'mechanic preachers', laymen like the Quakers George Fox and James Nayler, who led a procession into Bristol in 1656 symbolically riding on an ass, and the ex-soldier and Baptist John Bunyan, interpreting the Bible according to their own untutored 'inner lights' with all the excitement and assurance of a new discovery. Many Quaker leaders were also ex-soldiers, like James Nayler, and some had been dismissed from the Army in the 1650s for disciplinary reasons, but others seem not to have found military service compatible with their values. Quakers also continued to serve in the Navy. George Fox was offered a commission in 1651. In his Journal he recorded that he refused it on pacifist grounds, but in 1657 he urged 'the inferior offices and soldiers' of the Army on to conquer Rome. After 1658 he was more cautious, but as late as 1660 a leading south Welsh Quaker asked Fox whether Quakers were free to serve in the Army. The first official declaration of absolute pacifism was made by the Society of Friends in January 1661, after a number of Quakers had been arrested in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Fifth Monarchist Revolt. It was intended to protect them against charges of sedition, but also marks the beginning of refusal among them to accept civil or military offices. However, it is more likely that, in the previous decade, the early refusals of Fox and others sprang from political objections to the government of the Commonwealth rather than from pacifist principles. In fact, in 1659, when the political situation was more to their liking, many Quakers re-enlisted in the Army. As late as 1685, Quakers are said to have turned out with their 'pitchforks' in the west country to join Monmouth's rebellion.
The Growth of Quakerism in Wales & the West of England – The Strange Case of Dorcas Erbery:
The coral growth of Quakerism, especially in Wales and the Western Counties of England, from Cumberland to Cornwall, was largely the product of the nurturing of lay-preaching in the radical regiments of the New Model Army. These soldier-preachers, like Nayler, took it for granted that fellow Quakers had supported and, in most cases, fought for Parliament in the civil wars. George Fox made similar assumptions, though by the mid-1650s he was resisting James Nayler's 'simple teaching' and writing to Nayler that his style of mechanic preaching had made him a shelter for the unclean spirits, the beasts of the field; they made thee their refuge. The controversy led to disunity, as elsewhere, while Nayler himself remained silent. Nayler was born in the Yorkshire village of West Ardsley, near Wakefield in 1618, where he followed his father's occupation of a 'husbandman' before moving into the nearby town. In 1643 he had joined the Parliamentary Army and served seven years in a foot regiment before becoming quartermaster in Lambert's Regiment of Horse, taking part in the third civil war, including the battles of Dunbar and Worcester.
In the summer of 1656, along with a number of other Quakers, Nayler was imprisoned in Exeter Jail. Amongst these were a number of women, including Dorcas Erbery, the daughter of an "honest minister" in Wales, probably William Erbery. One of the women died, and when Dorcas, some days later, fell into a prolonged faint, the excited women about her declared that she was also dead. Nayler was called to see the lifeless body and laid his hands upon it, and at his touch, the girl revived and stood up. That was sufficient to prove to his followers that he was Christ, though he himself never claimed this, contrary to the charges made against him later that year. When the Bristol magistrates quoted from the letters found in his pockets, one of which referred to him, from John's Gospel, as the Lamb of God, in whom the hope of Israel stands, and asked him whether he was himself that Lamb, he responded:
If I were not his Lamb, I should not be thus sought for to be devoured. The hope of Israel stands in the righteousness of the Father in whomsoever it is.
Such a reply scarcely seemed to merit imprisonment, and it may be that if Nayler's followers had not shown such an uncompromising spirit in their hero-worship he would have been allowed to go free. Martha Simmonds and Dorcas Erbery both stoutly maintained that he was indeed Jesus. No cross-examination could shake Dorcas from her belief that Nayler had raised her to life after she had been dead two days. Under these circumstances, a seventeenth-century Bench had no alternative but to send them back to jail. The two male Quakers who had played a modest part in the demonstration in the courthouse, which had included continual shouting of 'hosanna', were sent home without charge and attended the Friends' meeting later that day. Nayler and his companions were not completely disowned by the Bristol Quakers, and a local Quaker apothecary brought them supplies and "comforts" before Nayler was sent to Westminster to answer the charge of 'blasphemy' before Parliament. But a note from Thomas Simmonds, the printer, to his wife Martha, one of the women involved, concludes with an affectionate but somewhat bantering strain:
Dear heart, my love is to thee and to J.N. and to J.S. and H.S. But this I could not but write to warn you that you stand single to the Lord and not believe every sprit. Your work is soon to come to an end: part of the army that fell at Burford was your figure.
The reference to Burford is to Cromwell's suppression of the Leveller mutiny in the Army of 1649 when the mutineers were locked in Burford Church and a number of them were shot. This 'turning point' in the Revolution was clearly still fresh in many minds, and the reference to it may also point to the quarrel between Nayler and Fox, whose 'authority' over the movement he continued to dispute. When one of Fox's letters to him was used in evidence against Nayler in court, the latter had called his erstwhile leader a liar and firebrand of hell, which must have alarmed the local Quakers who were present and given them a measure of his alienation from Fox's leadership. Nayler's 'excitable women followers' were also bitterly critical of Fox, but Nayler had refused to restrain them at Fox's request, made in a letter of September 1656, possibly the letter produced in court. Nayler later justified his refusal by saying that he did not wish to quench whatever was 'of God' in what they said and did. The modern-day Quaker writer, John Lampen, has stated (1981) that:
It has been generally assumed that at the time he did not have the emotional strength to withstand their influence, and this is borne out by contemporary descriptions of his passive, exhausted demeanor. However he was still justifying his behaviour by appealing to divine guidance, and so implicitly challenging Fox's spiritual insight.
Other friends expected Fox to settle the issue by his personal authority. In the unity so often felt at the start of a great venture, they had not yet needed to discover ways of reconciling different perceptions of the Truth, and Nayler was considered by many contemporaries to be their most notable preacher, even if Fox was the chief pastor of their flock. The over-enthusiastic atmosphere which developed around Nayler was created by men as well as women. When one man wrote to him, Thy name shall be no more James Nayler, but Jesus, he put it straight in his pocket, overcome by fear, intending no-one to see it, as he could not own its contents, but he did not, as far as we know, reprove the sender. Fox was not without fault in their quarrel. When the two men eventually met, Nayler went to kiss Fox on the head, but Fox recoiled, instead offering him his foot to kiss. However, Fox refused to publish a statement condemning Nayler, but he did repudiate some of his 'followers' including Martha Simmonds, for their lies and slanders. Beneath the inter-personal conflict lay a fundamental issue as to whether the 'Guidance within' which was claimed by individual Quakers could be viewed as an infallible spirit. Fox could see in Nayler the possibility of unchecked individualism diverging from the divine illumination in which he believed. Following Nayler's release from prison, the two were finally reconciled in 1659 shortly before his death. Early Friends believed that one of the 'offices' of Christ was judgment and Fox could assert that he did not judge Nayler himself but 'set the Power of God over him', while Nayler could claim that he felt this 'inward judgment' while in prison and it saved him.
In this context, it is quite clear that whatever interpretation Nayler's followers might have placed upon their actions, he regarded himself simply as a symbol of the Christ whom they all worshipped, and that the 'triumphal' entry into the city on 24 October 1656 was simply a sign of his second coming. Viewed in this light, the episode falls into line with the frequent going naked for a sign and the other revivals of symbolism from the Bible practised by primitive Quakers, Baptists and other sects. The rift between the supporters of George Fox and those of James Nayler that had extended throughout the movement, and far into Wales, was eventually healed, and it showed that it was not as vulnerable as its enemies had hoped. But treachery lurked in the 'inner light'. In a time of defeat, when the wave of revolution was ebbing, the inner voice became quietest and pacifist. This voice only was recognised by others as God's. God was no longer served by the extravagant gesture, whether Nayler's entry into Bristol or the blasphemy of the Ranters. Once the group decided this way, all the pressures were in the direction of accepting modes of expression not too shocking to the society in which men had to live and earn their living. In 1656, John Lewis urged the religious radicals in Wales not to go too fast or too far in inveighing against old customs and against the superstitious Welsh regard for church buildings.
When Nayler was pilloried for his 'blasphemy' in London at Christmas (pictured above), the three women prisoners, including Dorcas Erbery, were also present, and in what was (no doubt) intended as another 'acted parable', took their seat at the foot of the pillory in imitation of the women at the crucifixion of Christ. Dorcas and the others who had been imprisoned with Nayler in Exeter and Bristol remained in prison until the following May. In February, they attended a service at Westminster Abbey, which was presumably part of their punishment. The following is from a contemporary account in Mercurius Politicus:
This day being the Lord's day, the persons called Quakers who were brought from Bristol with James Nayler, remaining yet undischarged under the custody of the Sergeant at Arms, but now somewhat altered in their carriage, went to the Abbey morning and afternoon, where they gave ear civilly and attentively to the sermons of Mr. John Rowe, an eminent preacher; whose spritual doctrine so far wrought upon them that they intend to hear him again – which gives hopes that they may be rectified in their judgment.
However, it does not appear that Dorcas Erbery's judgment was so completely rectified as was supposed, for in two years from this date she was again in prison in Bristol, …
… with many others … for preaching and declaring the truth to the people in the public places of resort and Concourse, a Duty which they esteemed themselves under an indispensable necessity of performing.
The Welsh Prophet, 'Arise' Evans:
'Arise' (Rhys) Evans spoke of his own humble origins with reference to the apostles:
I am as the Paul of this time. … he was a mechanic, a tent maker. Acts 18:3. I am a tailor.
Evans was born about 1607 in Llangelynnin parish (near Barmouth) and was apprenticed to a tailor at Wrexham. While living in Wales he had seen visions and prophetic dreams which were accentuated when he went to London in 1629. In London, he made vain efforts to warn Charles I of perceived dangers but succeeded in telling the Earl of Essex to his face of his future promotions. Evans also seems to have suffered from mental illness. He hung around Charles I's court for days on end, in order to deliver his message from God to the King announcing that he and his kingdom were to be destroyed. Meanwhile, bishops ran away at the sight of him, and the royal Secretary of State asked for the prayers of 'God's secretary'. In the 1640s, Evans got a brief spell in the Bridewell for telling the City's Deputy Recorder that he, Arise Evans, was the Lord his God. Later, he called upon Oliver Cromwell and stayed to midnight: he pestered the Council of State to restore the son of the King whom they had executed, and republican officers defended him in long arguments at Whitehall.
But the Commonwealth did not even imprison him as Charles and the Deputy Recorder had done. As long as the 'imbecile' had no disciples, he or she was allowed a great deal of latitude. Prophets were often tolerated because they could be used to further the political purposes of powerful men, as Arise Evans may have been. In 1653, indeed, he gave a forecast of the course of events in England following Cromwell's death that came remarkably near the truth. His Narrations, Voices from Heaven, and Echoes of those Voices contain weird and impossible extravagances, but there are passing references of great interest, notably to John Jones (1597 – 1660) the regicide's acquaintance with the lake of Tal-y-Llyn, to Christopher Love speaking to him in Welsh, to the Welsh connections of Oliver Cromwell. In the freer circumstances of the 1640s and '50s, most so-called 'mad' people appear to have been political radicals. A mental breakdown could be seen as a form of social protest or at least a reaction to intolerable social conditions: those who break down, like Arise Evans, may, in reality, be truly sane. This is certainly an explanation to bear in mind when considering those radicals often dismissed as 'the lunatic fringe'.
As William Dell of 'the Apostles' claimed, Poor, illiterate, mechanic men, turned the world upside down. The effort to grasp new truths, truths which would turn the world upside down, may have been too much for men like Arise Evans. The Bible was the accepted source of all true knowledge. Men as different as the philosopher Thomas Hobbes and Gerard Winstanley, the 'Digger' from Wigan, both illustrated from the Bible conclusions at which they had arrived by rational means. Simpler men like Arise Evans believed the Bible to be divinely inspired and applied its texts directly to problems of their own world and time, with no idea of the difficulties of translation, nor of the historical understanding required to do so. So Evans thought that Revelation 8 and 11 gave an account of the civil war, that chapters 8 and 9 of Amos set down all that came to pass since the beginning of the Long Parliament, and that in Amos 9:1, the lintel of the door, which is to be smitten that the posts may shake, must refer to Speaker Lenthall. As Christopher Hill pointed out, unlike the Puritan divines who had cited the Bible against bishops and tithes, …
The Evanses studied it very carefully, if less skilfully, in order to understand and so be able to control what was going to happen.
Evans became interested in the multifarious sects that flourished under the relatively liberty of the late 1640s, opposing most of them, especially the tenets of the Fifth Monarchists. In 1649, he had a vision in which he went through France to Rome, where a voice came to me saying, "So far as thou art come, so far shall Cromwell come". But Evans made a distinction between the 'history' and the 'mystery' of the Bible, as did William Erbery, who in his Testimony recalled that a chief one of the Army would … usually say that the flesh of Christ and the letter of scripture were the two great idols of Antichrist.
Propagating the Gospel & Protecting the State – Vavasour Powell & Oliver Cromwell:
According to Welsh historian, A. H. Dodd (1957), the Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel became 'the real government of Wales'. Those who administered Wales could not afford to alienate Baptist or Quaker missionaries, many of whom were ex-New Model Army soldiers and chaplains, who still, in the years 1651-53, continued to support the Parliamentary cause. J.P.s protected the preachers as a lesser evil than papists or pagans. The Committee's 'Approvers', dominated by republican intransigents, created the first state schools, fifty-nine of them, open to both sexes and offering Latin and Greek, but trying to preach regeneration to the Welsh in English, although most sermons had been delivered in Welsh since the publication of Bishop Morgan's Welsh Bible in 1588, which may help to explain why many Independent English preachers failed to 'connect' with their Welsh congregations. They had even more trouble finding replacements for the ministers. In came the itinerants and in came men from the hitherto invisible classes, to battle forward, often in the gales of hostility. Vavasour Powell, travelled a hundred miles a week, preaching in two or three places a day. He was probably the outstanding Welshman of his time, a brilliant and fearless man not afraid to address A Word for God … against Wickedness in High Places to Cromwell himself. Converts sprouted wherever he spoke, especially in the uplands of the south and the border. In north Wales, Morgan Llwyd, a writer of powerful Welsh classics and a man of mystical temper, sent John ap John of Ruabon to contact George Fox to gain his help in starting an often anarchic movement of Welsh Quakers, which may be from where Dorcas Erbery, Nayler's 'prophetess' sprang. George Fox, on his own mission, found God raising up a people around Cader Idris in mid-Wales in 1657. Cromwell himself said that 'God had kindled a seed' in Wales. As Presbyterians penetrated Flintshire, Baptists, Congregationalists and Quakers multiplied along the eastern border and also began to plant in the west.
As Protector, Cromwell sought to act as the guarantor of an accepted constitution while elected assemblies came and went, to check the evident tendency of an all-powerful single-chamber parliament to veer towards elective dictatorship and to secure for the executive a degree of independence and separation from the legislature. As Protector, he became a strong believer in the separation of powers. But he didn't find it easy to pursue a moderating course. It brought him into conflict with the influential millenarian preachers in London, including Christopher Feake, Walter Cradock, Vavasour Powell and John Goodwin, who all had a considerable following in the Army. The open hostility of many Rumpers towards army officers did not help the situation. Skippon, clearly a moderate, was dropped from the Council of State at the same time as Harrison, leaving the army almost insultingly under-represented.
The Power & the Glory:
In the Interregnum, the Councils of in the North and in Wales, created by the Tudors, were abolished, the local power of the feudal aristocracy curtailed, and the authority of Whitehall and 'London' extended over the whole of the two countries. It seemed obvious to historians like Christopher Hill that the Revolution established a much greater unity among the regions of England, and indeed of the three kingdoms and the principality. But contemporaries worried about centrifugal tendencies. They were no doubt influenced by the examples of the Netherlands, where the republic's unity derived mainly from the dominance of Holland, while the other provinces clung onto their independence, often with paralysing effects on policy. They were also disturbed by the case of Switzerland, where protestant and Catholic cantons were at war, which Cromwell himself insisted was brought on by external papist intervention. In the early 1650s, England had nearly intervened in the French wars of religion, an intervention which might have created a breakaway republic in the south-west. There were also revolts from Spanish sovereignty of Portugal, Catalonia and Naples, and Cossack risings in Russia and Poland.
John Lilburne (pictured above) became a Quaker after retiring from the Army in the 1650s. The radical 'Levellers' proposed a great deal of decentralisation for England, including local courts at York, and greater county autonomy. William Walwyn, one of their leaders, said that the Swiss cantons were nearest to his ideal. In 1647, Cromwell had argued against such constitutional projects:
Would it not make England like Switzerland, one canton of the Swiss against another, and one county against another? And what would that produce but an absolute desolation in the nation?
By the time the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales Act lapsed in 1653, the enterprise had spilt out to produce a myriad of sects and creeds, many like the ranters or Anabaptists, often called 'Quakers'. Such men, rivalling even the most radical Baptists, offered a serious threat to tithes and all established order. They were appearing in many places, from Dolgellau to the Vale of Glamorgan. As Cromwell made himself Lord Protector, the Welsh Republicans moved into opposition. Vavasour Powell tried to organise insurrection in Wales and Ireland. The Blackfriars' fulminators were also blasting the parliament, the council, the army, and everyone in power in scurrilous terms, and by late November 1653, they too were concentrating their shafts upon Cromwell himself, calling him the man of sin, the old dragon, and many other scripture ill names. Harrison was reportedly railing against him every day and the Anglo-Dutch peace negotiations, and there were allegations that he and his party were planning to take over the command of the army. He was certainly capable of seriously dividing it, and his favourite preachers were, according to Woolrych, …
… aspersing the loyal majority of its officers as janissaries and pensioners of Babylon, corrupted by wealth and power.
Vavasour Powell, in particular, told the generals that:
… that the Spirit of God had departed from them; that heretofore they had been precious and excellent men, but that their parks, and new houses, and gallant wives had choked them up.
At Sunday service on 18 December, he denounced the 'Lord Protector' from the pulpit, calling him a perjured villain, leading to his imprisonment, but the Fifth Monarchist's excesses were losing them such public sympathy as they still commanded, and they ceased to be a serious danger when they lost their seats of power, both at Westminster and in the Army. Harrison was quietly cashiered when he refused to give any assurance that he would support the Protectorate, but only two or three other officers followed him in resigning their commissions. Not so long ago it was customary to account for this by portraying the Protectorate over-simply as a conservative reaction, but this was at best a half-truth. At least in its earlier years, it showed a stronger impulse to reform than the Rump had done. Although Cromwell was at heart a constitutionalist, with a strong respect for parliament as an institution, he still believed that he had a higher duty to promote what he called the interest of the people of God than to bow to the wishes of an unregenerate majority. And while he was conservative to the extent of preserving a national church and respecting the rights of tithe-holders, he upheld broader religious liberty than any elected parliament did in his lifetime. During the early weeks of the Protectorate, the first concern was to secure it against those, mainly the Fifth Monarchists, who were publicly denying its legality, prophesying its early fall and inciting their flocks to disobey it. Feake and Powell were against it again immediately after their early release and were consequently rearrested, though Powell escaped to Wales.
Restoration, Revolution & Toleration:
As the system started to come apart, there was a revival of the old alliance of royalist moderates and Presbyterians to engineer the restoration of Charles II. Independents and Baptists, far more numerous in Wales than the Presbyterians, caught the first full blast of repression. Nearly a hundred and twenty ministers were thrown out of their livings and subjected to harsh controls. In December 1656, the Fifth Monarchists in south Wales seemed to have followed Morgan Llwyd and Vavasour Powell in renouncing militancy and from current plans for a rising. The Quakers were pursued like mad dogs and Vavasour Powell died in jail. Whole communities braved the horrible Atlantic crossings to create pioneer settlements in 'the New World'. In the 1670s, as Charles 'flirted' with the Dissenters in order to secure toleration for Catholics, moderates in Wales tended to drift back towards the old Parliamentarians and away from the radical puritans. The Welsh Trust, an educational enterprise of Puritan temper which allied moderate Dissenters and Anglicans in 1672 when Charles issued his Indulgence, came to serve as an opposition to the court. When the indulgence ended within a year, to be replaced by the Test Act excluding non-Anglicans from office. At the time of the 'Popish Plot' of 1678-79, there was a violent incident in southern Wales when the Catholic seminary Cwm was raided and sacked, priests were thrown into jail and there was heavy confiscation. Four Welsh priests, two of whom were Jesuits, were hanged in savage persecution.
In 1679, eleven of the twenty-seven Welsh MPs voted for the Exclusion of James II. In these circumstances, many of the old Roundheads came bubbling back to the surface and there was a return of the Quakers and Vavasour Powell's radicals. In consequence, there was a sharp reaction in the 1680s, a massive renewal of persecution of Dissenters, and major further emigrations to Holland and America. In 'matters of religion', therefore, the monopoly of the national church had been broken, and while the House of Commons remained hostile to the idea of religious toleration, nonconformity shook off its revolutionary political associations and, despite continuing persecution, proved that it had come to stay. Those who remained survived through the indulgences offered by Charles II and James II until at the Glorious Revolution of 1688, they won a limited but essential measure of toleration in the Toleration Act of 1689 recognised these facts. Presbyterianism and Congregationalism were not included in the Anglican church, but that church was subjected to Parliament and government. The Puritan Revolution within the state church may have been defeated by 1660, but the Great Britain of the succeeding two centuries was unique among the great powers of Europe for the strength of its evangelical tradition and its toleration of diverse traditions.
Not until 1685 was some degree of calm restored to Welsh politics with a restoration of Toryism among the gentry classes. It was only after 1688 that governments came to assume that 'trade must be the principal interest of England', and that warfare should be confined to supporting this objective through its Navy. Even Charles II in 1680 could not be persuaded of this. By then, Parliament controlled foreign policy, and used the newly mobilised financial resources of the country, through aggressive use of sea power, to protect and expand the trade of a unified empire. The anti-Dutch policy which had continued to be pursued by the pro-Hapsburg Stuart Kings was replaced by the policy of colonial expansion into the western hemisphere, first against Spain and then against the French. It enjoyed more support among the gentry and gradually won over a majority in the House of Commons as Dutch power declined and French power increased.
England itself had by then had been united under the dominance of the London market; separate courts no longer governed Wales and the North. Therefore, 'cantonisation' was no longer a danger. William III's political and economic subjugation of Ireland was thoroughly Cromwellian and complete: the Union with Scotland in 1707 was on the same lines as that of 1652-60. A union of crowns became a union of peoples, a significant punctuation point in the process which made the new and far more real Great Britain into the greatest merchant empire in the world. England, Wales and Scotland emerged from the seventeenth-century crisis geared to the new world of mercantilism and colonialism. Bristol, pictured above in the early eighteenth century, quickly grew as Britain's most important port, with its 'Welsh Backs' for traders from across the Severn estuary. The Atlantic trade was becoming more important than the trade of the East Anglian ports with the continent and Wales, though still controlled by squires, was becoming an important sector of an Atlantic empire and a British nation.
Austin Woolrich (2002), Britain in Revolution, 1625-1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gwyn A. Williams (1985), When Was Wales? A History of the Welsh. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Christopher Hill (1970), God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution. Harmondsworth: Pelican Books.
Christopher Hill (1984), The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Harmondsworth: Peregrine Books.
John Lampen (1981), Wait in the Light: The Spirituality of George Fox. London: Quaker Home Service.


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Four dates in the life of the Broadway baby called American Idiot stand out for me since seeing the show in Berkeley back in September: The invited Press and Fan Final Soundcheck on 3/23/10, the first preview on 3/24/10, opening night on 4/20/10 and the MTV Special Viewing that occurred on 4/22/10. Since I live in NYC, I had the great fortune of attending all of these special events. This post is a roundup of some of the goings on with the show this past month here in NYC.
Press and Fan Final Soundcheck 3/23/10
An unprecedented invited Press and Fan Final Soundcheck was announced through the Idiot Club and the American Idiot on Broadway Facebook page a few days before the show was to begin its first Broadway preview. The soundcheck press conference occurred in the middle of the day and I made arrangements with work to take a long lunch to go. I attempted to get a blogger press pass and wrote a professional letter to the show's press agent, and included the name of one of my friends, a top NYC theater critic, who recommended that I write to them. Unfortunately, I wasn't afforded the courtesy of a reply. At least when I asked at Berkeley, they very kindly sent me an email saying no. I don't want to sound bitter, but I know that both the production company and press agent for AI have come to this blog. Some sort of reply would have been nice, but I'm not legitimate enough for the courtesy of a reply in New York City. I even mentioned to them how I appeared in the Daily News regarding the show. In fact, several Facebook friends asked me "what I did for the show" and one of them, a television producer who I've known since acting school also asked me. And yet… well… whatever. No reply at all. At least a no is a response.
Putting aside all of that, the final soundcheck was a magnificent day. We waited outside for the Idiot interns to check us in, and they recognized me from the American Idiot On Broadway Facebook page and said hello. After about an hour, I went across the street from the theater to wait for the band to show up to take pictures, and shortly thereafter, Green Day was driven up to the theater and deposited at the front doors. I managed to snap two shots of Billie Joe, Mike, and Tre coming into the theater. It was nice to see Mike for the first time with his blond hair, and Tre was carrying what seemed to be a drumstick case.
After they moved into the theater, I went back across the street to wait with everyone, and eventually, the first fifty fans in line, who had been told that they were going to sit in the Orchestra seats, were let in first. About 10 minutes later, the remainder of the line was shepherded into the theater up to the Mezzanine. The folks who had been told that they were going to sit in the Orchestra were actually sitting in the Mezzanine with the rest of us. Official word was that there were too many people in the press corps in the Orchestra, and needless to say, the first fifty fans in line were disappointed. I have a feeling that they were afraid that people would try to rush the stage and attempt to get autographs from the band or cast, a very legitimate possibility.
We bitched and moaned with them for a few minutes, and then the lights started to go down and the sounds of the opening strains of the musical — news and television clips from the Iraq War era — began to play. The huge red velvet curtain slowly went up and the cast stood onstage with their backs toward the audience (a definite and effective change from the Berkeley show), all looking toward the 20 or so television screens embedded in Christine Jones's excellent set design for the show. The guitar riff to "American Idiot" began, and the cast was off, singing the title song to the show.
After the song, director Michael Mayer, Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool, and Mike Dirnt walked onto the stage to loud claps from the crowd in the peanut gallery. Mayer spoke for a bit about the show and his inspiration and collaboration with Billie Joe on the book. Billie Joe spoke, then Mike, and Tre said something for a second. While Tre was talking, Mike and Billie climbed into the onstage bed prop, the cast piled on top of them, photo ops were had by all, and the event was over. I went back to work while the rest of the Green Day Community gang hung out and went to lunch. Green Day and the cast headed over to Sardi's, a famous restaurant down the street from the St. James known for its Broadway clientele for more interviews with the "legitimate" press.
All in all (and despite my bitching), the press conference was a great way to start off the feverish run of American Idiot in New York City. The celebration lasted for a solid month and ended with a spectacular bang with good reviews, solid changes to the show, a special MTV showing with the band, hanging with old and new friends, and one of the best After Parties Ever — two appearances by the fabled Foxboro Hot Tubs (more on the latter in a later post).
APRED Clip of American Idiot Cast Singing "American Idiot" and Press Conference, 3/23/10
More of my pictures from the Press and Fan Soundcheck may be found here.
First Preview, 3/24/10
I didn't intend to go to the first preview and hadn't bought a ticket for that night. My first "official night" of seeing American Idiot was actually scheduled for 4/7/10, but a bunch of Idiots had traveled from around the country to come into New York to see the show, and one of them, sadly, couldn't bring her friend as planned because of her friend's cancer treatment. She had an extra ticket so I offered to give her some cash for it (which I still have to do), with the proceeds going toward her friend's cancer fund. The show at this point was in the working stages from the move from Berkeley to Broadway, and they were working kinks out and adjusting to the larger set and staging of the show. I was quite impressed with the changes in the choreography, the storyline, and the passion that I felt from the cast. Over the course of time from the first Preview to Opening Night, I saw the show three times (3/24; 3/27 and 4/7) and noticed that there were several changes and reworkings during that time until Opening Night and the MTV Special Viewing. (All together, between Berkeley and Broadway, I've seen the show seven times.)
Green Day, of course, was there that night, and it was a three-ring circus! Their wives and kids were in the audience and just before the curtain went up, Billie Joe's bodyguard (a nice guy who I've spoken with a few times who does an excellent job of crowd control and protecting Billie Joe) brought him down to sit next to Adrienne. They were so damned cute together, too. I didn't stare too much, being the nonchalant New Yorker that I am, ahem, but of course, a stare or two couldn't be helped during the show. There was a palpable excitement and nervousness in the air as the audience, clearly in the show's corner for an exciting time, was bouncing up and down in their seats in anticipation.
After the show, the circus continued outside. I'm not a fan of getting autographs or photos with famous people, so I just hung around outside until I could find the contingent of folks I had come to the show with. The sidewalk outside of the St. James was packed with people, and many folks had to stand in the street just to let people pass through. Of course, those of us standing in the street kept getting yelled at by cops and security to get out of the street. I would move along, put a foot on the sidewalk, and then head back into the street while people crowded the sidewalk.
Here's a video link to the scene outside of the theater on the first preview.
Eventually, the cast started to roll out of the theater on their way back to Sardi's for the preview after party. They were asked for autographs (you can see Stark Sands, "Tunny" being mobbed in the photograph below), and after it calmed down a bit more, probably 30 minutes or so after the show when some of the crowd had dispersed (but not by much), Tre kind of quietly walked out a side door to the restaurant first, followed later by Billie Joe, Adrienne, Rebecca Naomi Jones (Whatsername), Mike and Mike's wife, Brittany. My friends and I went down to Sardis and stood outside for a bit, watching Tre stand in the window of Sardi's looking down at the crowd. Girls were screaming up a storm, and I've got a bad reputation for telling them to shut up (sorry, I just hate screaming girls or boys, my bad), so after awhile, I got tired of the spectacle and headed back down to the theater. Tony Vincent came out and we said hello to each other (we met at Berkeley and spoke online during the Berkeley run), and eventually, John Gallagher, Jr. came out of the theater, after most of the crowd had dispersed or were at Sardi's. John knows me by name (probably because I drunkenly told him at Rockwood that he needed to bring more of the angst and also from talking with him at the Character Approved Awards a few months ago), so it kind of shocked me that he remembered my name.
When I first saw the show at Berkeley, I wasn't impressed with his performance, but then again, I had major issues at the time with the entire show. My biggest concern was that during the Berkeley run when I saw it, I didn't see the seriousness of the material coming from him nor did I feel the depth of the character. I also say that off-Broadway runs and previews are the time for steeped criticism, particularly in regards to something one feels passionately about, and I'm a jaded theater person from back in the day. If everything is perfect at the beginning, there is no room for improvement. And shows and performances can always be improved. John steadily won me over, as I was pulling for him, particularly after I saw him perform his own material at his residency at Rockwood on the Lower East Side this past January. He's a heartfelt kid, super-sweet, and a talented dude who obviously is in love with this show and the band. Watching him grow into the role of Johnny has been a pleasure and I give him all the kudos in the world for a brilliant and successful run. And I hope he gets a Tony nomination as well. American Idiot is one of the most bone-breaking shows I've seen on Broadway. These kids, led by Gallagher, throw themselves around that stage, and every night Gallagher leads the way. I'm sure it's not easy.
Once John went inside the restaurant, things got pretty tame outside of the St. James, but people were still bat-shit screaming in front of Sardi's. The kids outside couldn't get into the bar at Sardi's, but since my friends and I are of age, we hung out in the bar at Sardi's and talked with the bartender who has worked at Sardi's for years, a real old skool New York character. Outside some of the kids were yelling up to the 2nd floor window asking that Billie make an appearance and show them his tattoos. He did, and then one girl screamed for him to sign her arm for a tattoo when he left the bar and he mimed that he would.
At some point during the night, I went upstairs to the bathroom, where the after party was taking place, and walked right into Brittany Dirnt. I didn't say anything to her. Heck, what are you going to say to someone in the bathroom? When I walked out, Mike was on the phone near the bathroom and Gallagher was hanging out talking with people. I went back downstairs and chatted for a bit longer. I left at 12:30, but the others stayed until 1:00. I guess I should have stayed for another 1/2 hour, but I had to work the next day. From what I understand, the cast and eventually Billie Joe came out of the party and Billie Joe asked for a "fucking" cigarette. (Yes, he does smoke on occasion, get over it.) My friend who had taken me to the Preview was just about to put a cigarette in her mouth and instead, she gave it to him. Bonus! LOL. Oh, and he did sign the girl's arm, too.
Here's a video of Billie at the Sardi's window and coming out of the restaurant, with cigarette and signing.
Opening Night, 4/20/10
What can I say about Opening Night? By this time, I had seen the show three times in New York, and I was ready to just sit back and enjoy what was about to happen. The opening was a star-studded event, with the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie O'Donnell, Michael J. Fox and Donald Fucking Trump… oh and a bunch of Idiots who are stars in my book. I didn't see the Donald, and that was probably a good thing, but I did see the other three, and that was a good thing, too.
We Idiots met for dinner and a powwow at the Irish Rogue, having snacks and drinks. Carolyn had brought new Green Day Friendship bracelets to the theater, and she had an extra one and gave it to me. I already had one, but I took it anyway, in anticipation of seeing the show with Becky Walter (of the Facebook page Green Day LIVE on Tour) on 4/22/10. Becky was flying in from Minnesota to New York for the first time ever for the MTV Viewing on 4/22.
We walked down to the site as a group and got more excited as showtime came closer. Our seats were in the balcony and with the crowd, it took a bit of time to get up there. I wasn't sitting with the Idiots from the restaurant, unfortunately, but I was anticipating meeting up with two special friends, Rachel and Michelle, who were sitting next to me. We three had shared some incredible moments out in Berkeley over the last few months, and Rachel was there to help manage the Mystic Knights of the Cobra tour that was starting the next day and Michelle is the spectacular photographer who took photographs of the Pinhead Gunpowder show back in February. She's also the girlfriend of the bassist (Jim Graz) of Honah Lee, the accompanying band with the Cobras on their Party! Party! Party! Tour of the East Coast. The tour had been something I was hella looking forward to for months now, and I knew that when I saw them, that the REAL party was about to begin. More on that in a coming post.
The audience, if possible, was even MORE excited to see the show than on the first preview. Everyone was dressed to the nines and there were a few times when the audience shouted out lyrics to the songs with the cast, which was very exciting. I loved it.
After the show, we made our way downstairs and waited around for a little bit to say hello and goodbye to people. We were standing in the St. Jimmy Bar and as I was trying to walk into the area, my bag poked Ed Norton really hard in the ass. (Lucky bag.) He turned around and I apologized, and he smiled, and since I was looking hella good, he looked for a bit longer than usual. And I let him. Haha. And then I turned away and decided that the only thing I wanted to do was leave and hang out with Cobras and start the next phase of this wondrous opening week. So we hopped in a cab and went downtown.
I did not go to the Opening Night Party, but the Green Day Community's Katie McPansy Grogan won the American Idiot on Broadway Facebook contest. She had a fabulous time in NY, got to meet the band, interviewed Rebecca Naomi Jones, had excellent seats, and went to the After Party. I highly recommend visiting Katie's Video Blogs of American Idiot on Broadway Opening.
Lastly, a word of thanks to Nicole Gary. Nicole and I met on the Green Day Community and have been theater buddies in NYC since then. We were also in the Daily News photo shoot together back in March. She told me on opening night that she had attempted to get me a press pass for the After Opening Party festivities and had almost succeeded, but things didn't work out. Thank you, Nicole, for believing in me and my blog, and for being a good buddy. I appreciate your friendship.
MTV Special Viewing, 4/22/10
J'net (an awesome moderator at the Green Day Community, thank you!) had bought us tickets to the 4/22/10 showing when tickets first went on sale. At the time, tickets weren't on sale for Opening Night, so 4/22 was the next best thing going at the time (and it proved to be pretty amazing). I was hoping for something weird and special, as I had heard that weird and special things might happen on this night, so I was in weird and special mode. When tickets went on sale on 4/1/10 for Opening Night, I regretted my decision a bit to attend this performance. The Cobras and Honah Lee had played the night before at Arlene's Grocery, and they were off to Asbury Park for a show at Asbury Lanes. Truthfully, I wanted to be with them as I don't get to see them very often. But, we make our choices and I had to work on Friday anyway, and ok, shoot me, since all in all, I've been way lucky and it's all good.
Things always work out best for those who love the Lushie Gods. Becky Walter, a friend of Niki Lee's (Seize the Green Day), had won tickets to the MTV Special Viewing but was a bit panicked about making her first major trek from a small town in Minnesota to New York City. I had seats in the Mezzanine that night, but I told her that I would help her navigate through Manhattan and she gave me her second ticket. Niki, Dorie and I talked her through it and encouraged her to take the bull by the horns and conquer her fear of coming to NYC by herself. After all, we don't bite… hard… here. We told her it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and she really wanted to come see the show, and having free tickets was half the battle since the ticket prices can be high. She flew in the day of the show, walked to my work to pick me up so that we could navigate down to the difficult to find Pop2Life offices for the tickets, and then whizzed uptown to meet folks at the Westway Diner for dinner. We proceeded to the venue a bit later and I gave her the Green Day Friendship bracelet that Carolyn had given me the day before. Our tickets were in the left Orchestra, not far from were I sat on the night of the first preview. Also, by Becky giving me the ticket, Andres from the Green Day Community was then able to share this special night with everyone by taking my original Mezzanine seat with J'net, Dawn, and Sherri. The Lushie Gods are good!
As the show was about to begin, Armstrong, Dirnt, and Cool family members walked in and filled the seats in the Center Orchestra. Billie Joe's mom is the cutest thing ever, and she was beaming from ear to ear. Adrienne walked in with her and sat about two rows from us. As the curtain bells were ringing, The Edge from U2 entered and sat in the Center Orchestra not far from us, followed by Tre, Mike and Brittany, and finally, Billie Joe, who sat in the aisle seat next to Adrienne. Needless to say he caused a stir when he came in, but then the lights went down and the curtain went up.
It was kinda funny looking at him as an audience member. He was mesmerized by the show and his mouth was kinda hanging open in amazement the entire time, but something kept distracting him and he ran out of the theater twice during the performance, but came back in. Just as the show was ending, Green Day left the theater and a stage tech brought two mikes onstage. Afterward, the band took their rightful places onstage with their kids, the cast of American Idiot. Billie Joe had some issues with his guitar set-up for a minute, but they worked it out and he noted that it was "his first time on Broadway." The crowd stood up as they came on and were treated to the "real" version of "American Idiot" and a great rendition of "Basket Case." The month-long ride from Preview to Opening was complete, and this new baby called American Idiot was on Broadway.
Y'know what… I missed seeing them onstage
All in all, it has been a great ride with American Idiot, and I'm glad that the show is up and running and is good. It's gotten exceptional reviews for the most part, and ticket sales are good. It's fucking up Broadway, and in my book, that is always a good thing. I'll write up something one day with my thoughts on the actual production, but really, just go and see it and make up your own mind is all that I can ultimately say.
I will say, though, that seeing Green Day back onstage made me realize how much I just wanted to see them perform again. The cast is great and the score is wonderful and kudos to everyone involved in the show, but Green Day is… well… Green Day. I silently offered supplications after the MTV Special Viewing, "please let the Foxboro Hot Tubs play a show this weekend, please let me get to see it." Cause you know what? There is nothing like Billie Joe, Mike and Tre onstage together. And luckily, the Lushie Saints granted my wish. Twice. More on that in a later post.
And with that, faire thee well, American Idiot on Broadway. May you have a long life and prosper, may your actors stay healthy with no broken bones, and may you always Fuck Up Broadway.
After the break, stay tuned for ToniAnn and Fallyn on MTV being interviewed about the show and some additional links.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Square Flower Air Brick
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Rejoice, brothers! File sharing is now an official religion in Sweden. For real. It took two years, but it's done: it's called the Missionary Church of Kopimism and has Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V as its sacred symbols.
Founded in 2010 by philosophy student Isak Gerson, the 3,000-member Missionary Church of Kopimism was created to avoid legal persecution. Talking to Torrentfreak, Gerson believes the official seal of approval by the Swedish government will change things:
I think that more people will have the courage to step out as Kopimists. Maybe not in the public, but at least to their close ones. There's still a legal stigma around copying for many. A lot of people still worry about going to jail when copying and remixing. I hope in the name of Kopimi that this will change.
It took him two tries to get it legalized and, after complying with a request to specify its rituals, it's now official. I imagine the rituals go like this:
And the Swedes raised the holy torrent upon high, saying, O Lord, bless this thy holy torrent, that with it thou mayst copy thine movies and music in tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the Kopism Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats.
And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou find the tracker. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy .torrent file towards thy Torrent program, who, being naughty in my sight, shall copy it.
Sounds about right. [Kotpimistsamfundet.se via TorrentFreak via Digg]


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Materials innovation for a better tomorrow.
The Materials Innovation Service, located within the Department of Industrial Technology, is a joint program managed by the Recycling and Reuse Technology Transfer Center and the UNI Metal Casting Center (UNI MCC). UNI MCC is a national leader in foundry research, applied technology, and technical business assistance.
Through MIS, Iowa companies have access to affordable materials testing and consultation as they work to replace mainstream materials with recycled material. MIS also provides technical assistance to manufacturers wishing to re-engineer or re-tool their operations to include recycled content, and in the development of innovative recycling/reuse process technologies that help turn waste into resources.
Testing services include chemical, mechanical, and physical property tests for a wide range of materials. MIS also acts as a consulting resource, tailoring its testing services to each client's particular needs and assisting clients in product development and process improvement. In addition, MIS has the ability to custom build testing equipment for specialized applications.
It is the mission of MIS is to provide low-cost, reliable consulting services for small to medium sized Iowa manufacturing companies with regards to product development and materials innovation. MIS is an organization with the goal to connect the resources of the University of Northern Iowa with Iowa manufacturing companies, to increase the use of recycled materials and reduce the amount of waste generated within these companies' manufacturing processes.
It is the vision of MIS to become the preferred resource for Iowa manufacturing companies with regards to product development and materials innovation. MIS works to ensure that all manufacturing companies in Iowa are utilizing recycled materials in their products, thus helping to reduce wasteful manufacturing practices and protect the environment.


text: > > What I would miss with make (and is easy with 'afterok' job > > dependency) is the possibility of gradual creation of program to run - > > usually I am just a few steps ahead with program debugging - previous > > steps run while I prepare things which should follow (and once > > prepared, I would like them to run as soon as the previous step is > > finished). > > If your runs take an input file and generate an output file from the input, > make should be able to see that it should not re-run already completed > jobs. > > Thus, typing "make" again as your next task is ready should only result in > the non-completed tasks being run. > > Or am I missing something ? Typically, previous invocation of 'make' would still run when I have the next steps ready. Typing "make" again at this moment would cause both copies to work on unfinished step (second make would not wait as it should). (Typically, I might finish the next step on friday and would like it to be invoked during the weekend, as soon as possible.) However there might be a simple solution (like one 'make' in loop, until there is nothing to do). I wonder why my needs seem to be uncommon - is it because you guys on the beowulf list 1) are not as lazy as I am and you have the whole program ready in time? 2) you change data/parameters rather then programs? 3) you have plenty of time and do not need to work in parallel with your cluster? I do not beleive any of these, please tell me why you all are not calling for job dependencies in any job spooling system :) Regards Vaclav


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Jets snap three-game losing streak with 4-2 win over Detroit Red Wings
WINNIPEG, Manitoba – Matt Halishuck scored the winner with his first goal with Winnipeg and the Jets snapped a three-game losing streak with a 4-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Monday.
Bryan Little, Michael Frolik and Andrew Ladd also scored for the Jets (6-8-2).
Henrik Zetterberg scored his eighth of the season for Detroit (9-5-2), and Danny DeKeyser scored his first NHL career goal.
The Jets took it to the Detroit net in the first period, outshooting the Red Wings 14-9 and scoring with just a minute left on a breakaway. They ended the game ahead 47-28.
Little opened the scoring when he got the jump on defenseman Kyle Quincy, who fell and left Winnipeg's leading scorer to go in alone against Jimmy Howard. It was Little's team-leading eighth goal of the season. Howard finished with 43 saves.
Winnipeg goalie Al Montoya stopped a similar breakaway early in the second period when Jets' defenseman Dustin Byfuglien fell and surrendered the puck.
But Zetterberg put Detroit on the board at 7:09 of the second when a shot in front of the Winnipeg net glanced in off Jets defenseman Grant Clitsome's skate.
DeKeyser then put the Red Wings in the lead a few minutes later with a slap shot from the blue line that beat Montoya's glove when Detroit was short-handed.
A third Detroit goal in the second was cancelled by a net that came off its moorings.
But with just under three minutes to go Mark Scheifele slid the puck through Quincey's skates in front of the Detroit net to Frolik and he popped it in to make it 2-2.
A perfectly positioned Halischuk put the Jets ahead at 4:27 of the third when he one-timed a pass from Frolik, who fed it from behind the Detroit net.
Ladd backhanded a loose puck past Howard at 10:57 of the third to give the Jets some breathing room.
Notes: The Jets kept the Red Wings from a four-game Western Conference sweep after wins in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. ... Defenseman Mark Stuart joined the injury list on the weekend and the Jets called up Zach Redmond from the IceCaps. They also claimed defenseman Keaton Ellerby off waivers from the Los Angeles Kings. ... The team has been without defenseman Jacob Trouba and center Jim Slater since Oct. 20. Paul Postma has been off since Oct. 27. Evander Kane didn't dress Monday night for the Jets.


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Michael B. Jordan has landed a role in the upcoming film Are We Officially Dating?
The actor joins Imogen Poots and Zac Efron in the film which is based on three New York City friends who pledge to stay single even if they find the right one.
Jordan has been busy working as of lately. The young actor will star in upcoming Fruitvale alongside Octavia Spencer. The film which is produced by Forest Whitaker and his Significant Productions partner Nina Yang, is a movie about Oscar Grant, the young man who was wrongfully gunned downed in the train station by a police officer back in 2009. Jordan also appeared in Anthony Hemingway's Red Tails, Chronicle and on TV had recurring roles on Parenthood and Friday Night Lights.
Tom Gormican is directing Are We Officially Dating? from a script he wrote himself. Treehouse Pictures' Kevin Turen and Justin Nappiare producing along with Andrew O'Connor and Scott Aversano. Bill Block, John Friedberg, Michael Simkin, Jason Barrett and Manu Gargi are executive producing.
Are We Officially Dating? is slated to open in theaters sometime next year. More details coming soon…


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i snagged a couple naptime hours this weekend to clean up my utter disaster of a sewing room…and in the process, i got inspired to do some stashbusting and a project i'd delayed for far too long – a cozy quilt for O!
the little guy doesn't realize it, but i've felt bad for a long time because i've never made him a blankie of his own. i made his sister a quilt, and multiple cozy flannel/minky blankies for snuggling/school, but none for him.
it's not like he's blanket-deprived – he was gifted a number of handmade and store bought blankets at baby showers and has actually adopted my baby quilt as his own…just none made by ME. and i believe that there's nothing more special a mother can make than a cozy blanket for her kids. you're literally wrapping your little one up in love!
it was when his unborn baby brother was gifted a beautiful CINO quilt that the guilt really started to set in. O needed a home sewn quilt! NOW!
i had gotten this Ed Emberley for Cloud 9 alligator print at Bolt last year with the intention of using it for a blanket for him…
…and same plan with the super soft light blue minky on the back.
it's hard to see in photos, but i did irregular sawtooth quilting on the alligator print and straight horizontal lines across the solid color blocked top and bottom rows. it looks like alligator teeth in person! there is no batting, but due to the minky it still has a nice weight to it.
the top and bottom rows (scraps cut 8" high to extend this directional print a bit for more coverage) are a mix of Kona and Moda Bella solids from my stash in colors that pull from the print. the quilt measures 35" x 50" which covers him very nicely.
the binding is Amy Butler's full moon polka dots in tangerine (still available here)! think i may have gotten that at Bolt too. 😉 it's finished by zigzag stitch, both for speed and to mimic the sawtooth quilting / alligator teeth motif.
love how the colors look when they all drape together, it feels bright and happy but still boyish.
i showed the in-progress quilt to O when he woke up from his nap, only partly quilted, and he was very excited about it, rubbing the minky side on his cheek, etc. i promised him i'd finish it when he was asleep that night, and i did. i laid it on him while he slept and when he came to our room in morning, he had wrapped himself up in it! he proceeded to "Linus around" with it for a good part of the day. GREAT SUCCESS.
does fall make you want to quilt too? i feel like the knitting and quilting bugs hit me hard when the weather gets cold (still haven't picked up the needles yet this year, though)!
** i have emailed Lara, the winner of a Gingercake pattern. thank you to all who entered the giveaway! **


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WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The most extensive study yet by the U.S. government on suicide among military veterans shows more veterans are killing themselves than previously thought, with 22 deaths a day - or one every 65 minutes, on average.
The study released on Friday by the Department of Veterans Affairs covered suicides from 1999 to 2010 and compared with a previous, less precise VA estimate that there were roughly 18 veteran deaths a day in the United States.
More than 69 percent of veteran suicides were among individuals aged 50 years or older, the VA reported.
"This data provides a fuller, more accurate, and sadly, an even more alarming picture of veteran suicide rates," said Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington state, who has championed legislation to strengthen mental health care for veterans.
The news came two weeks after the U.S. military acknowledged that suicides hit a record in 2012, outpacing combat deaths, with 349 active-duty suicides - almost one a day.
That was despite sharper focus at the leadership level at the Pentagon and VA on the suicide problem, and came during an overall rise in suicides in the United States. The number of suicides in the United States rose 11 percent from 2007 to 2010, the VA said.
The VA did not provide raw data and acknowledged its national figures were still estimates. The new study was based on data collected from 21 states in which military status is reported on the death certificate. It said more data from more states were being processed.
Reuters last year obtained less-detailed data for the 2005-to-2010 period from 32 states, also showing a significant rise in the number of suicides among the country's 23 million veterans.
The VA said that while the number of veteran suicides had risen, the percentage of all suicides in America identified as "veteran" declined from 1999 to 2003 and had remained relatively constant in recent years.
The VA said the data would help it better identify where at-risk veterans may be located and improve targeting of specific suicide intervention and outreach activities.
"We have more work to do and we will use this data to continue to strengthen our suicide prevention efforts," Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said in a statement. (Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Peter Cooney)


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At last the women come with baskets,
The older one in flowered apron,
A daisied cloth covering the bread
And dappled china, sweet tea
In a vast can. The women stoop
Spreading their cups in the clover.
The engines stop. A buzzard watches
From the fence. We bury our wounds
In the deep grass: sunburnt shoulders,
Bodies scratched with straw, wrists bruised
From the weight of the bales, blood beating.
For hours the baler has been moulding
Golden bricks from the spread straw,
Spewing them at random in the stubble.
I followed the slow load, heaved each
Hot burden, feeling the sun contained.
And unseen over me a man leaned,
Taking the weight to make the toppling
Load. Then the women came, friendly
And cool as patches of flowers at the far
Field edge, mothy and blurred in the heat.
We are soon recovered and roll over
In the grass to take our tea. We talk
Of other harvests. They remember
How a boy, flying his plane so low
Over the cut fields that his father
Straightened from his work to wave his hat
At the boasting sky, died minutes later
On an English cliff, in such a year
As this, the barns brimming gold.
We are quiet again, holding our cups
In turn for the tilting milk, sad, hearing
The sun roar like a rush of grain
Engulfing all winged things that live
One moment in the eclipsing light.
by Gillian Clarke
from The Sundial (Gwasg Gomer, 1978)
Information: 'Mynachlog' means 'monastery' in Welsh. The subject of the poem is most likely a Grade II Listed farm house building in Northop, Flintshire.
For a line by line analysis of the poem there is a teacher's help sheet created by Lizzie Fincham for Swansea University's CREW.