concerning the tithes and church livings in Wales, and for advancement of religion and learning there." Under the Commonwealth the executive power was vested in the Cromwellian "Council of State," which was empowered by this Act to appoint persons within the counties of Wales and Monmouthshire to take the accounts of the Act for the better propagation of the Gospel in Wales. The Commissioners were required to value the church livings, tithes, and ecclesiastical revenues; to inquire how many ministers and schoolmasters had been ejected since 1649, and how many were fit to be restored; to ascertain how many livings had become void since the said year; to whom the patronage belonged; how the respective churches and parishes had been supplied, and what were the qualifications of those who supplied the same, &c., &c. All grants or leases of any glebes or tithes belonging to any parsonage or vicarage with cure of souls, made by the patron and incumbent after February 22, 1649, were rendered absolutely void.
A.D. 1662.—Two years after the Restoration of Charles the Second, the famous Act for the Uniformity of public worship and for establishing the form of making, ordaining, and consecrating Bishops, priests, and deacons in the Church of England (13-14 Charles 2, c. 4) became law. It reenacted the Uniformity Act of 1 Elizabeth, c. 2 (1558-1559) and subsequent Acts of the same character. It aimed at obtaining universal agreement in public worship, and with this object the Book of Common Prayer was directed to be used in all parish churches and chapels within the Kingdom of England and the Dominion of Wales.
By section 27, the Bishops of Hereford, St. Davids, St. Asaph, Bangor, and Llandaff were to "take such order among themselves for the soul's health of the flocks committed to their charge within Wales," that the Book of Common Prayer should be translated into the Welsh tongue; that the whole Divine Service should be used in
