These laws were passed in response to the Welsh Rising of 1400, and imposed punitive sanctions on the Welsh. They remained in force throughout the fifteenth century. Henry VII allowed the principality and the lordships to buy charters (at a high price) that protected the Welsh inhabitants from these laws. Most of these legal disabilities were bypassed in the Acts of Union of 1536-43, but the penal laws themselves were not actually repealed until 1624.
