While Conservatives and Churchmen called on the tradition of St David to help root them in Welsh soil, the Liberals were busy casting him in their own image. Their St David was progressive. A few of those who spoke at St David’s Day gatherings hazarded a guess about where the saint’s political loyalties would lay had he lived in the late nineteenth century. At a Swansea Liberal Club dinner in 1887, it was agreed that the saint would have been a reformer and made sure that Welsh-speaking bishops were appointed.[9] When Conservatives and Liberals met, St David’s Day gatherings could become heated affairs. After a meeting of the Welsh Liberal Federation on the afternoon of March 1 1888, many decided to attend a gathering of the Cardiff Cymmrodorion. This ‘social’ rather than ‘political’ assembly included a number of Conservatives. If a speech contained statements in defence of the Church, the Liberals shouted ‘No politics’.[10] The whole affair reads like an account of a family sitting down to dinner and trying to avoid divisive topics.