Though one of the best-known provisions of the so-called Union of Wales with England in 1536 equipped the twelve counties with twentyfour representatives at Westminster, we now know that the first elected members sat only in 1542. Their presence and influence may well have contributed to the very large statute of the next session which at long last attended to the unfinished business of turning the intentions of 1536 into something like a settled order, for that the act incorporated Welsh demands and proposals is clear enough from its contents. Wales thus seemed well placed to share in the expanding use of parliamentary statute for personal, local and national purposes which characterised the years from 1530 onwards; one would expect to find bills promoted by Welsh knights and burgesses as one finds them promoted by other identifiable interests. A study of such bills, so far as the evidence survives, for the first forty years of Welsh participation should therefore prove illuminating, though it can be said from the start that the tally is not impressive, reveals no determined exploitation of the possibilities, and must call in doubt whether an entity to be called Wales had much reality in the middle of the sixteenth century.