-fcsûdf
y Cpmmrodor,
T H E M A G A Z I N E
ÜF THE HONOURABLE
SOCIETY OF CYMMRODORION
I
VOL. XXVII.
V
LONDON :
ISSUED BY THE SOCIETY,
NEW STONE BUILDINGS, 64, CHANCERY LANE.
1917.
\in.~7
Devizes:
Printed ry George Simpson & Co., Devizes, Ltd.
CONTENTS
TIib Beneòictiiie Abbey of St. Mary at St. Dogmaels. By
Herbert M. Vaughan, F.S.A., Member of the Honour-
able Society of Cymmrodorion . . . . . . 1
Im.cstrations : The S.W. View of St. Dogmael's Priory in
1740 .. .. facingp. 1
St. Dogmaels, Exterior view of N.W. Portal
of Nave .. facingp. 8
„ „ Interior of Refectory, look-
ing E. . . facing p. 10
Interiorof Refectory. showing
Alcove and Western Door-
way .. Eacingp. 11
„ Nave of Church, showing
West Windoẃ, Alcovcs, and
N.W. Portal facing p. 12
„ N. Transept of Church from
the S. . . facing p. 13
Rcfectoryand adjacentRuins
from the N.W. facing p. 14
The Refectory from the S.W.
facing p. 15
„ ,. The Sagranus Stone, fixed at
W. End of the Parish
rhurch . . facing p. 16
Ancient Incised Stones, placed
in Parish C'hurch
facing p. 17
Appendin : Abstract of the possessions of the Monastery at
the date of the dissolution.
Tbe Year of the Reception of the Saxones. By the Rev.
A. W. Wade-Evans, Vicar of France Lynch, Glos. . . 26
Some Insular Sources of the E.rcìdiinn Britanniae. By the
Rev. A. W. Wade-Evans, Vicar of France Lynch, Glos. 37
The Fate of the Strnctures of Conway Abbey, and Bangor
and Beanmaris Friaries. By Edward Owen, F.S.A.,
Secretary to the Royal Commission on Ancient Monu-
ments in Wales and Monmouthshire . . . . . . 70
Peniarth MS. 118. fos. 829-837. Introduction, Transcript and
Translation. By Hugh Owen, M.A., Exhibitioner at
Liverpool University ; Fellow of the Royal Historical
Society . . . . . . . . . . 11/3
Facsimile of MS. fo. 835 . . . . . . facing p. 142
Index of Namcs , , . . . . p. 150
Owen Glyndwr and the Welsh Church. Extract from the
"Rolì of the Welsh" (Calendar of Papal Register 1406-
1407). By J. Arthur Price, M.A. .. .. ..158
The Weísh National Emblem: Leek or Daffodil ? A Note by
Arthur IIughes, B.A. . . . . . . . . 155
Beau Nash : The Welsh Dandy. By W. Llewelyn Williams,
K.C, M.P. . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Balad: Y Bretiin a'r Cymry. Gan W. Llewelyn Williams
(Lhoydfryn), A.S. . . . . . . . . 169
Ballad : The King and the Welsh (a Translation of the fore-
going). By Sir Francis Eüwards, Bart, M.P. . . 172
The Application of Electricity to Practical Uses : A Welsh-
man's Contribution. [The iate Sir William H. Preece,
K.C.B., F.R.S.] By Llewelyn Preece, Mem. Inst. C.E. 175
WithPortrait .. .. .. facingp. 175
Some Recent Welsh Literature and the Limitations of
Realism. By T. IIuws Davies, Secretary to the Welsh
Church Commission . . . . . . . . 186
A National War Museum and a Public Record Office for
Wales. By Hubert Hall, F.S.A., Assistant Keeper of
the Public Records ; Secretary to the Royal Commission
on Public Records . . . . . . . . . . 206
Welshmen in the American War of Independence. By E.
Alfreu Jones. Author of "The Church Plate of the
Diocese of Bangor", etc. .. .. .. .. 230
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Cçmmrotiür.
Vol. XXVII. " Cared doeth yr encilion." 1917.
Z$t (^enẅícííne ($66ep of $t (îltarp
at *èt ©ogmaefe*
Bt HERBERT M. VAUGHAN, F.S.A.,
Member of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion.
History. — No doubt there existed at or near the present
St. Dogmaels, or Llandüdoch, in pre-Norman times, a
small Celtic monastic foundation which derived its narae
from Dogfael, the great-grandson of Cunedda Wledig,
who flourished in the fifth century. 1 This former Celtic
house, however, did not occupy the site of the later Bene-
dictine Abbey of Robert Fitz Martin, son and heir of
Martin, commonly named Martin de Tours, the original
conqueror and grantee of the lordship of Cemaes, or
Kemeys. Of this Martin the Elder we have it on the
authority of Mr. Horace Round, our leading media3val
historian, that " nothing is really known about him"
beyond the circumstance of this conquest and grant of
land in Dyfed. Nevertheless, Mr. Eound suggests that
he may be identical with the " Martinus de Wales "
whose name appears fìrst in the foundation charter of
Totnes priory in Devon, which shire was the home of this
powerful family. In any case, it was the son and heir of
this knight, Robert Eitz Martin, second lord of Cemaes,
1 See Arch. Camb. Journal, October 1864, p. 302. Article by the
Rev. Henry Vincent. Also West Wales Hist. Records, vol. iii, p. 280.
B
2 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
acting probably under the expressed wish of his late
father and certainly with the warm approval of his
rnother, who in 1 113 founded a priory of French monks at
St. Dogmaels, which five years later he enlarged and
raised to the rank of an abbey dedicated to the Blessed
Virgin .
" A certain Eobert of most noble birth
approached a holy man beyond the seas and taking with
him thirteen of his disciples passed through Norman and
English territories and reaching the farthest limits of the
land of Wales on the coast of the Irish sea close to the
river Teifi he established first indeed a cell but afterwards
with an equal number of monks together with an Abbot
at their request as we have mentioned he established a
Monastery fìtted with all appurtenances." '
Now "the holy man beyond the seas " was undoubtedly
the Blessed Bernard of Abbeville, wbo, according to the
Petits Bollandistes, was born in 1046 and died on April
14th, 1116. This St. Bernard founded in or about 1113 a
community or reformed Order under the Benedictine rule
at Tiron au Perche near Chartres. Special points of dis-
cipline marked this new Order, a salient feature being' the
insistence on skilled labour by the monks themselves for
the support of the new foundation. They were to be
painters, carvers, joiners, smiths, etc. Their habit was at
first a light grey, but was later changed to black. The
Order was started under favourable auspices in France,
and quickìy attracted the attention of King Henry I of
England, who probably himself recommended the new
Order to Robert Fitz Martin. Only this one house at St.
Dogmaels, however, seems to have been founded in Eng-
land and Wales, though four were founded in Scotland
under royal patronage. The Order of Tironian Bene-
1 J. H. Hounrt, Calendar of Documents of France, Pref ace, p. xxxv.
At St. Dogmaels
ô
dictines continued to exist in France until the close of the
seventeenth century. 1
The date of Eobert Fitz Martin's first visit to the
newly founded house of the Blessed Bernard of Abbeville
at Tiron was apparently the year 1113, and the date of his
second visit 1118, two years after the death of the Saint.
On the first occasion Robert brought over thirteen of these
Tironian monks to St. Dogmaels, and with that number
founded a priory as a cell, or subsidiary house to the
mother abbey of Tiron ; whilst five years later he again
crossed to France and returned with an additional tliirteen
monks from Tiron, whom he also installed at St. Dogmaels
with an abbot at their head, one Fulchard by name.
Henceforth St. Dogmaels ranked as an independent
house, no doubt in close' inter-communication with the
parent abbey of Tiron during the whole period of its
existence, but in no wise subordinate to it. That this
abbey was founded as such in or about the year 1118 is
proved by the two facts that at the consecration of Abbot
Fulchard there was present Bernard, bishop of St. Davids,
who was only elected in 1115 ; and that the original con-
firmation of the grant by Henry I includes the name of
Prince William, the English king's heir, who was drowned
in the sinking of the White Ship on November 28th,
1120. 2 The hitherto usually accepted date of September
1126 for the abbey's original charter, which is given by
Dugdale, is therefore eight years too late.
In this pious and munifìcent foundation at St. Dog-
maels, Robert Fitz Martin was also generously aided by
his wife, Maud Peverel, as well as by his mother, Geva, 3
1 Information obtained from the Rev. Abbot F. T. Beigh, O.S.B.
2 Cartulary of the Abbey of the Holy Trinity of Tiron, vol. i, p. 41.
3 She is so styled in one of the charters. I suggest the name is
an abbreviated form of Genevieva, the patron saint of Paris.
b2
4 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
the widow of the fìrst lord of Cemaes, and such being the
case there seems no reason to discredit the popular tradi-
tion that both parents of Robert Fitz Martin, as well as
himself and his wife Maud, were buried " in medio ehoro "
of the newlv erected church.
Of the many possessions of the Abbey we need only
state here that they included the manor of St. Dogmaels,
which extended from the little stream called Breuan or
Piliau 1 to the mouth of the Teifi; the chapelries of St.
Dogmaels, Llantood, Monington, Moylgrove, Eglwyswrw,
Bayvil, Maenclochog, Monachlog-du, Fishguard and Llan-
deilo ; the isle and subsidiary priory of Caldey (Geva's
gift) ; the rich cell of Pill Priory on Milford Haven ; and
the valuable manor of Rattrey in South Devon, which
English estate was retained by the Abbey till its dissolu-
tion. Of the two cells, Caldey paid the annual sum of
£5 lOs. lld. to the Abbey, and Pill £9 6s. 8d. This last
mentioned cell was founded towards the close of the
twelfth century by the de la Roche family, and had a
considerable private revenue of its own. In addition to
Caldey and Pill, the Abbey also owned the small Tironian
cell of Grlascareg in co. Wexford, which paid annually to
the mother house £3 6s. 8d., though the last abbot of St.
Dogmaels declared to the Royal commissioners in 1534
that his Abbey had received no payment from this Irish
source for forty years past.
The record of the Abbey's existence of over four cen-
turies seems on the whole to have been prosperous and
uneventful, if we except the successful raid carried out by
Scandinavian pirates at the estuary of the Teifi in 1138,
when the newly founded Benedictine Abbey suffered con-
siderably. Of its many abbots the names of eleven only
1 This stream flows into the Teifi at Castell Sidan, a little to the
east of Cardigan station.
At St. Donnaels.
&
have been preserved for us, and none of these rose to any
public eminence. In 1188 the celebrated Gerald de Barri
with Archbishop Baldwin spent a night here as the guests
of Prince Rhys during the English Primate's famous
Itinerary of the Welsh sees. At the close of the twelfth
century one Walter, a cousin of Gerald's and a rival can-
didate for the vacant bishopric of St. Davids, was abbot of
St. Dogmaels. Gerald speaks of this man as " an illiter-
ate monk who could not read his Psalter " ; but then the
versatile historian was rarely justified in his sweeping
charges of vice or incompetence against those who opposed
his will. That the Abbey was well endowed and kept in
good repair is evident from the surviving architectural
fragments, which go to prove there were constant em-
bellishment and rebuilding in progress here during four
hundred years. In July 1504, during a visitation of the
deanery of Cemaes, Dom. Lewis, lord abbot of St. Dog-
maels, as well as the priors of Pill and Caldey, were in-
terrogated as to the condition of their houses, and stated
in their replies (as one would naturally expect !) that "all
the brethren were of good and honest conversation and
obedient at their free will 'V
Thirty years later and we have the dismal story of the
suppression of the Abbey in 1 534. This matter is clearly
set forth in a well-preserved document acknowledging the
Royal Supremacy, which is now in the Record Offi.ce of Lon-
don. 2 This deed of surrender is signed by the last Abbot,
William Hire (to whom an annual pension of twenty
marks was subsequently granted) and by eight of his
monks. It is sealed with the abbatial seal, elliptical in
form and representing the Virgin and Child seated be-
1 Registers of the Archbishopric of Cunterbury, Warhara, f. 228.
2 A Facsimile of this document is included in Mrs. Pritchard's
volume, The History of St. DoymueVs Abbey (1907).
6 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
neath a gothic canopy and bearing on its bordure the
legend, " S. COMUNE. SANTI. DOG[MAE]LIS. DE.
KEMMEYS."
It did not take long to disperse the estates of the
Abbey whose revenue is variously stated at fìgures which
in one instance are put so low as £68 and in another place
aredescribed as amounting so high as £120 and over, so
that probably the commonly quoted rental of £96 derived
from the Valor Ecclesiasticus may be accepted as fairly
correct. Of the Pembrokeshire estates it is sufficient here
to mention that the manor of St. Dogmaels and the
monastic buildings and grounds, otherwise called the
Llandre, were, together with Caldey Island, acquired by
purchase from the King in 1543 by John Bradshaw of
Presteign for the sum of £512 odd.' This grant did not,
however, include the patronage of the parish church of
St. Thomas at St. Dogmaels, and its chapelries of Llan-
tood and Monington which remained with the Crown.
In all probability large portions of the abbey were now
pulled down and utilized for the building of the Bradshaw
manor house, which remained the residence of this family
for over a hundred years. The Bradshaws whose early
pedigree is given in Lewys Dwnn's Visitations (vol. i, p. 257)
are mentioned in local annals for some four or fìve gener-
ations, one of them, John Braclshaw, being High Sheriff
of Pembrokeshire in 1571. This man, who was either the
son or the grandson of the original purchaser from the
Crown, is almost certainly the John Bradshaw whose
monumental slab still exists. 2 He died in 1588, 3 and was
1 West Wales Hist. Trans., vol. iii, p. 281.
2 The full inscription on the stone is given by most writers. All
however that is now left are the words :
10HANNE | ARMIGER | O DIE M | NI 1588.
3 Dean Allen, Hif/h Sheriff* of PembroJceshire, p. 13.
At St. Dogmaels. 7
apparently father of William Bradshaw, M.P. for Carcli-
gan Borough in 1603. Other members of this family
appear in local history, including Captains Edmund and
John Bradshaw who were amongst the captured Royalist
Officers in the garrison of Pill Fort in 1643 1 This event
was shortly before the sale of the manor of St. Dogmaels
by the Bradshaws to David Parry of Neuadd-Trefawr,
near Cardigan. These Parrys held the manor for over
two centuries but do not seem to have resided within the
abbey precincts, where the old Bradshaw manor house
was probably allowed to fall to decay, so that its actual
site is now a matter for conjecture. In 1862 the ultimate
heir of these Parrys, David K. W. Webley-Parry, sold
this family estate, the farm of Pentood near the moutli
of the Piliau and the foreshore rights of the manor being
purchased by David Davies of Castle Green, Cardigan ;
whilst the farms of Manian-fawr, Manian-fach, Poppit
House and Ysgyborwen, whose names occur often in lists
of the monastic property, were sold to Thomas Harman
Brenchley, of Glaneirw.
Buins. — It is of course certain that large portions of the
abbey were demolished to erect the Bradshaw residence,
and it is also probable that much material was filched for
building purposes in the village. On the whole, therefore,
it is remarkable that so mucli of the Abbey should sur-
vive to-day, for the ruins at St. Dogmaels are more exten-
sive and present greater features of architectural interest
than do the existing monastic remains at Strata Florida,
Talley, Cwmhir, Haverfordwest or Whitland. The
earliest view of the abbey we possess is that drawn by
Buck in 1740 (facing p. 1). This drawing, which is
well executed, is taken from the south-west, and shows
most of the salient features of the present time, with the
1 J. R. Phillips, Civil War in Wales and the Marches, vol. ii, p. 152.
8 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
exception of some tall ruins on the north side of the Choir
that have since totally disappeared. This plan, made two
centuries after the Dissolution, is particularly valuable to
us, being evidently the product of a skilled draftsman,
whereas the various drawings in the illustrated books
that appeared in the early part of the nineteenth century
are often mere picturesque sketches, and consequently
somewhat misleading. This is especially true of Hassall's
" Chapel of St. Dogmael's Abbey ", which gives a most
incorrect impression of the interior of the north transept.
Gastineau's drawing in " Wales Illustrated " ' of the ex-
terior of this transept is better, and better still is Hughes's
charming little cut of the same subject in his " Beauties
of Cambria ". Both of these views are so planned as to
introduce in the foreground the ancient gnarled yew tree
which still flourishes opposite the porch of the present
parish church of St. Thomas. Of descriptions of the
Abbey ruins we possess practically nothing till the visit
of the Cambrian Archseological Association to Cardigan
in August 1859 at a time when a really able and enthusi-
astic antiquary, the Eev. Henry James Vincent, was vicar
of St. Dogmaels. Here again however we are doomed to
disappointment, for although the learned Vicar read aloud
a paper on the Abbey at one of the public meetings, his
manuscript was for some reason or other never printed in
the Arch. Gamb. Journal, although its publication was
promised by the Editor. In the summer of 1865 Mr.
Vincent died, and in the subsequent notice recording his
death, allusion is again made to his MS. history of the
Abbey " which he had just completed and which was now
being arranged for publication in the Journal of the
Association ". But the promised monograph never
1 Botli Hassall's and Gastineau's sketches aie reprodueed in Mrs.
Pritchard's work.
To face p. 8.
ST. DOGMAEL'S. EXTERIOR VIEW OF NORTH-WEST PORTAL
OF NAVE.
(S/cetc/ieä by Miss Vida Morris, Scptembcr içiô.)
At St. Dopmaels
0>
appeared, and the manuseript itself seems to have been
lost, though how and when does not transpire :
"Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished."
Fortunately, however, a short address on the Abbey
ruins in 1859 by Mr. Talbot Bury, an antiquary of some
standing, has been preserved in the Arch. Camb. Journal
for that year, and this account is invaluable to us at the
present day. Mr. Bury describes the ruins carefully, and
though some of his deductions appear to me erroneous,
yet it is evident he understood his subject. Perhaps the
most important statement in this brief lecture is Mr.
Bury's detailed account of a building within the Abbey
precincts which unhappily no longer exists. This is de-
scribed as standing about 150 feet east of the so-called
Refectory (of which I shall speak presently) and is men-
tioned by Mr. Bury as "being in a more perfect condition
than any other part of the ruins. It is about 38 feet long
by 20£ feet wide, but it is not easy to determine its char-
acter. The roof is of stone vaulted in the form of a
pointed arch but without ribs, and has been ingeniously
constructed to avoid all outward thrust of the walls ....
It had recesses in the south wall apparently occupied by
sedilia with the remains of a piscina. The building seems
to be of an earlier date than the church, and its con-
struction is of better masonry, exhibiting alternate rows
of dark and light stones. Over the panel of the east win-
dow is a corbel supported by an angel ".
I am of opinion myself that this building was the
Chapter House, but in any case all speculation is useless,
as about seven years later, shortly after Mr. Vincent's
death, this interesting and welî-preserved little structure
was demolished by the new vicar, the ítev. Daniel Jones,
and its materials used in the rebuilding of the Vicarage
and the construction of the present stable which stands
io The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
near the pond at the extreme eastern end of the Abbey
enclosure. Mr. Bury's account of this now-destroyed
appanage of the Abbey is particularly fortunate, as Buck's
view of the ruins in 1740 does not apparently extend to
the point where this building stood till so recently as
1866. 1
At this date (1859) great praise is bestowed by leading
rnembers of the Arch. Camb. Association on the care
taken of the ruins by their natural guardian, Mr. Vincent,
but with that excellent man's decease in 1865 no further
effort was made to maintain, still less to repair these
precious monastic relics. Apart from the flagrant piece
of vandalism just related, decay and neglect became
visible everywhere, and it was only so lately as this
present year (1916) that, thanks to a generous gift from
Mr. John T. Lewis, of Gwynfryn, Llanarth, Cardiganshire,
any steps have been taken towards their preservation. In
the summer of 1916 the whole of the ivy, the unchecked
g-rowth of half a century, was completely stripped from
the masonry, thereby exposing many features of interest
that had been hidden for nearly two generations. Before
however entering into closer details of this recent work, I
think I had fìrst of all better describe the ruins them-
selves as they survive to-day.
These consist of a considerable portion of the monas-
tic church, namely, the western gable-end of the nave
with its window ; the northern wall of the nave ; and the
shell of the north transept with its three windows. On
1 The Rev. J. Marsden, vicar of Llanllwch and a former curate at
St. Dogmaels under the Rev. Henry Vincent, writes to me on
Novemher Ist, 191(5: — "I distinctly remember that there was a
building standing to the east of the Abbey ruins, and on or very near
the boundary of the grounds in which the ruins stand. And I am
certain it was there when I left St. Dogmaels in 1860. Of the cir-
cumstances of its demolition I have no information to give.''
10
To /'U't' />. 10.
ST. DOGMAELS. INTERIOR OF REFECTORY, LOOKING E.
At St. Doçmaels. i 1
the south side is a moderate-sized roofless building which
has always been named the Refectory, so I shall speak of
it as such. This ruin is about 40 feet long by 25 feet
broad, and contains the remains of vaulting, two windows,
and a large arched recess with a small south window. It
has a low but elegant portal at its western end, of which
the upper portion is composed of local red sand-stone,
the " redd stone " which George Owen, the Elizabethan
historian of Pembrokeshire, notes as occuring in these
ruins. A few paces to the west of this doorway stands a
considerable f ragment of masonry whose identity I cannot
determine. Mr. Bury speaks of it as part of the cloister,
but personally I think it to be the remnant of some domes-
tic building, though it contains a gothic arch sunk deep
into the soil.
To return to the North Side. — The great west window is
still a prominent feature, and yet retains some of its
moulded splays in a broken condition. Within the north
wall are two well-preserved alcoves of the usual type,
which no doubt once contained eôîgies and ornamentation
that have long disappeared. The north transept itself is
the most imporfcant and strildng survival of the Abbey.
Its shell so far as the roof is almost perfect ; its three tall
windows retain much of their moulded jambs of red sand-
stone ; portions of three of the four springers of its former
fan-vaulting remain. Of these the supporting corbel of
one shows the figure of an angel (S. Matthew) ; of another
that of a winged lion (S. Mark) ; of the third an eagle
with wings displayed (S. John) ; doubtless, the fourth
springer, which has wholly vanished, rested on the winged
calf of S. Luke. AU, of course, are much mutilated.
As this fan-vaulting dates from the early years of the
sixteenth century, the decoration of this transept at St.
Dogmaels must be contemporary with the beautiful
12 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
Chapel of the Trinity erected by Bishop Vaughan in St.
David's Cathedral (1509-1523), and perhaps it is not too
rauch to suggest that both these late Perpendicular erec-
tions at no great distance apart were designed by the
same architect.
In the north-east angle of this transept are two bare
alcoves that once were tombs of importance. A good
deal of the original plastering still adheres to these walls,
which are heavily buttressed externally, these buttresses
displaying an effective scheme of decoration of red sand-
stone alternating with grey or light-coloured material.
The walls of nave and transept, and indeed all parts of the
abbey, are pierced at f requent intervals with holes about
a foot square. Their purpose has greatly puzzled me, but
as even the buttresses themselves are thus perforated, I
imagine that the object of these apertures was to drain off
the moisture of the porous stone of the fabric and not to
ventilate the interior of the church, as I surmised at
first.
In the north wall and near the west end of the nave
stands the lateral entrance to the church, which was pre-
sumably intended for the use of the public. Until the
summer of 1916 this doorway was partially blocked up
with rubbish and earth, so that barely five feet showed
above ground ; but now a f urther fìve feet and niore of
clearing has brought fresh features to light. On the
inner or the church side this portal is constructed of plain
grey dressed stone, but on the churchyard or northern side
it presents a good specimen of the decorated ball-flower
ornamental moulding, showing its date to be about 1300,
or possibly a little later. Excavation on this side has
recently exposed the whole of this archway with its richly
decorated scheme intact, shewing in the inner groove of
the arch forty speciraens of this ball-flower ornaraent (see
w
To face />. /j.
ST. DOGMAEL'S. NORTH TRANSEPT OF CHURCH
FROM THE SOUTH.
At St. Dogmaels. 13
illustration). Above, a much-mutilated weather-hood
ending in two corbels of faces (one of which has dis-
appeared) also shows some surviving ball-flowers, though
most of them have perished. It is hoped later to excavate
yet further afield into the churchyard, so as to exhibit
more clearly this beautiful doorway, of which the lower
portion has been hidden beneath the soil for some
hundreds of years. I may add that in clearing away the
earth for this object, a face-corbel was disinterred
amongst the rubble.
Last, I must make some reference to the many carved
fragments which are preserved mostly in front of the
present Vicarage to the south of the Abbey. There seems
to be an idea prevalent that these architectural columns,
capitals, corbels, bosses, tracery, etc, belonged to the
original twelfth century church, and were cast aside by a
later generation of monks when they rebuilt or enlarged
their church. This is not so, as the fragments in ques-
tion date from various periods, and I think there can be
little doubt as to their history, for I have every reason to
believe they were carefully removed from the adjacent
parish church when the former structure was pulled down
in the middle of last century. That the old parish church
contained a large number of such fragments is clearly
established from the remarks of Sir R. C. Hoare and
Bichard Fenton ; indeed, the latter historian even speaks
of this church as "evidently raised from the ruins of the
Abbey" (Hist. Tour, p. 513). Also, both these writers
mention the monumental stone of John Bradshaw as
being inside the church itself ; and as this identical stone,
now sadly diminished in size, is included amongst these
architectural orts and objects in the vicarage garden, it
was presumably deposited here at the same time by Mr.
Yincent, who doubtless intended later to remove all these
14 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
rescued fragments to some suìtable and safe place of
keeping.
As to the parish church of St. Thomas itself, appar-
ently in mediseval times the village church stood on a
hillock between the two mills due east of the Abbey at a
spot now called Shingrig. 1 Here in October, 1905, when
a couple of old cottages were pulled down to make room
for a new villa, a number of graves were discovered. The
eastern wall of one of these cotta^es also exhibited some
tracery in local red sand-stone, and on examination I con-
sidered it to have formed part of the chief window of a
small ancient church or chapel. Apparently it was not
before the close of the seventeenth century that the
original site of the parish church was abandoned and a
new building erected, largely of materials taken from the
monastic ruins, a little to the north of the Abbey church.
The western end of this second parish church is shown in
Buck's view as existing in 1740; whilst Gastineau's
sketch of a later date includes its chancel of bastard
gothic. In or about 1847 this church was replaced by
the larger edificé which now exists. In the present choir
are two fine carved oak chairs dated 1700, which may
possibly have been made specially for use in the church
which was traditionally re-erected here about that par-
ticular year.
To-day. — Except along the northern wall of the nave
no digging has to the best of my knowledge hitherto been
undertaken at the Abbey, and it is strange to think also
how little has been written until very recent years con-
cerning this interesting Tironian community. We have
no description of any value about its ruins previous to
Mr. Talbot Bury's short paper in the summer of 1859,
1 Said to be a corruption of cüyn-yrûg (heap of chaff), the refuse
of the milling.
í
If • .-.;
I Ä4JW, ÄP&
y.r '- ■* '***»
■ \u'A i ŴBS,%s£ aS':^&« \*.v
» v. .< ••* ,»"
At St. Donnaels. 15
frora which I have already quoted ; and the meeting of
the Arch. Camb. Association at Cardigan in August 1904
produced no fresh information in the pages of that
Society's Joumal. But in 1907, the late Mrs. E. M.
Pritchard, of Cardigan Priory, published a large and well-
illustrated quarto volume entitled The History of St.
Dogmaels Abbey — a really valuable contribution to Welsh
monastic history despite a good deal of irrelevant or digres-
sive matter. Here for the first time full extracts froin
the Cartulary of Tiron and from numerous English docu-
ments preserved in the Eecord Ofíice of London and else-
where were placed at the disposal of the student, who can
thereby obtain a clear history of the Abbey from its
foundation by Eobert Fitz Martin to the Dissolution, and
can also learn a good deal of the subsequent vicissitudes
of the manor of St. Dogmaels under the Bradshaws and
Parrys. Nevertheless, of practical excavation nothing has
yet been attempted since the days of Henry Vincent, the
account of whose labours and discoveries is lost to us.
The removal of four of the more important ancient stones
to the shelterof the parish church (through the generosity
of Dr. Henry Owen, of Poyston) in the autumn of 1915,
was the first step in the right direction, as this generous
act was followed almost inmiediately by Mr. Lewis'
welcome donation. Thanks to this, we have uncovered
several features of great interest, including two long-
hidden shafts of fan-tracery in the transept, and the small
south window of the so-called Eefectory. The excavation
of the fine lateral decorated doorway in the nave also pro-
duced most satisfactory results. Acting under the advice
of Mr. Evan Jones of Pentower, we now propose to place
some wooden props to strengthen the overhanging side of
the east wall of the north transept. What remains of our
money will, I think, be taken up with some necessary
i6 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
pointing of inasonry here and there, or alittle patching of
decaying places in the ruins. As to further excavation,
there is a fìne field open for soine enterprising antiquary
with money to spai-e. The Vicarage orchard which now
occupies the site of the Abbey is in reality some six or
seven feet above the original level of the church floor,
and at this depth there rnust exist the foundations of the
whole structure with pavements, bases of columns, and
many fragments of interest. Those who have seen the
excavations at Strata Florida and Abbey Cwmhir can
gain some idea of the results that almost certainly will be
attained at St. Dogmaels.
Of the ancient plan of the Abbey and its arrangements
both for purposes of worship and residence nothing has
so far been suggested. It is easy to trace the lines of the
actual church, but beyond this pretty obvious surmise, all
else is uncertain. The conspicuous building on the south
side of the church is invariably styled the Refectory, but
with all humility I venture to question the accuracy of
this popular nomenclature. The building itself is in my
opinion far too small to serve for the entertainment of
the twenty-six or more regular monks of the establish-
ment, especially when we consider that there must have
been constant guests and pilgrims at this religious house,
seeing that St. Dogmaels lay on one of the principal
routes from North Wales to St. Davids. Nor can I dis-
cover the smallest trace of its stone staircase or pulpit to
which Mr. Bury alludes. My own view is that this ruin
was once a private apartment of the lord abbot, a fine
chamber without doubt but wholly inadequate for the
purposes of a refectory of this monastery. It is also
usual to speak of the adjacent mass of ruin as part of the
cloister, but here again I join issue, for I suspect it
formed part of the Bradshaw manor house constructed
To face ỳ. 16.
ST. DOGMAEL'S. THE "SAGRANUS" STONE, FIXED
AT WESTERN END OF PARISH CHURCH.
At St. Dogmaels. 17
within the abbey-garth. The so-called Oven,to the south-
west of the nave, is, I think, a disused and filled-in well.
It is useless to speculate as to what only patient research
and scientific excavation can reveal, but I have a notion
that the foriner cloister was situated in the square sunken
plot of ground due east of the church, close to the site of
the interesting little building that was razed by Parson
Jones in 1866, which I hold to have been the chapter-
house.
Ancient Stones. — For sorae years past the precincts of
St. Dogmaels Abbey have been utilized for the preseiwa-
tion of various ancient stones and slabs from the neigrh-
bourhood, of which the following list has recently been
compiled by me.
(1) The Sagranus Stonë, now affixed to the west end
of the interior of the parish church. So many descrip-
tions of this celebrated stone have been already published
that no further account is required here.
(2) A moderate-sized stone with an incised key pattern
on its face, being probably part of a cross but much
obliterated by time and weather. In north transept of
church.
(3) The great Altar Stone of the Abbey, a ponderous
bevelled slab weighing nearly a ton. This was embedded
in the soil of the vicarage orchard till October 1915 when
it was removed and placed in its present position between
the altar of the parish church and the south wall of the
chancel. It is slightly damaged at one corner, but the
five small incised crosses 011 its surface are clearly visible,
whilst at the lately disinterred end of the stone are
apparent some notches, which are said on very doubtful
authority to be Ogam characters. (See the Cardigan and
Tẁyside Advertiser, November 13th, 1915.)
(4) The surviving portion being about two-thirds of a
c
18 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
rather thin dark flat stone, having the pattern of a wheel
cross. In south transept of church.
(5) A tall thin grey monolith with an elegant key
pattern and a wheei cross, broken at the top. At north-
east angle of the Eefectory.
(6) The Manian-fawr Stone, set upright in the autumn
of 1906 against the south wall of the Eefectory. It was
presented to the Cambrian Archseological Association by
the landowner, Mrs. Brenchley of Glaneirw, and was
erected here at the expense of that Society. It is the
laro'est and heaviest of all the St. Dogmaels stones,
weighing about a ton and a half, and measuring 7 feet
high, 16 inches broad, and 14 inches thick. Its face is
marked by a simple cruciform pattern. (See Cardigan and
Twyside Advertiser, July 26th, 1906.)
(7) A heavy slab about five feetlong, apparently plain,
propped against the south wall of the Eefectory.
(8) A fine green porphyritic monolith with a brancliing
pattern and the letters " D. I." at its thin end.
(9) A thick rectangular slab of plain grey stone. — Both
8 and 9 are placed on the south side of the ruin just west
of the Eefectory.
In conclusion I should like to express rny thanks for
kind assistance or advice in the preparation of this article
to the late vicar of St. Dogmaels, the Eev. Myfenydd
Morgan, who only passed away last autumn ; to Mr. (now
Sir) E. D. Jones of Pentower; to Mr. John Evans, F.A.I.,
of Cardigan ; to the Eev. G. Eyre Evans of Ty Tringad,
Aberystwyth, and to Mr. Ladd Davies of Cardigan.
At St. Dogmacls. 19
ST. DOGMAELS: APPENDIX.
As an addendum to Mr. Herbert Vaughan's interest-
ing account of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary at St.
Dogmael's we are glad to publish a full abstract of the
possessions of the Monastery at the date of the Dissolution
in the reign of Henry the Eighth, taken from the
" Ministers Accounts ' : in the Public Record Office, by
Mr. Edward Owen, a member of the Council of the
Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, and Secretary to
the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales
and Monmouthshire. — V.E.
The Monastery of St. Dogmaels.
Public Record Offi.ce : Ministers Accounts ;
27-28 Henry VIII, No. 5287.
Account of John Phillip Thomas, collector of the rents and ferms
of the late dissolved monastery of St. Dogmaels, from Michaelmas
27th to Michaelmas 28th Henry VIII.
Arrears — None, because this is the first account.
Demesne Lands — Rent of the demesne lands in the
hands of William Hyer, late Abbot . . . . 64s.
Rents at will, and by lease in the parish of St. Doymaels,
alias the Llandr\
One tenement called Mylle Broke in parish of Nevern,
and one close in the franchise of Newport (Novi Buryi),
with all arable, non-arable, meadow and pasture, wet and
dry, wood and plain, to the said tenement annexed, with
all appurt's, demised by lease to Lewis (Leodowico) Yonge
by the conventual seal of the late Monastery, which lease
was not exhibited . . . . . . 8s.
Two tenements called Haber Berkethelley, demised
by lease to Griffìn ap Phillip ap Powell, by conventual
deed which was not exhibited . . 6s. Sd.
One burgage with garden adjoining in the township
(villam) of St. Dogmaels, in the highway (vico) called Lan-
don, demised by lease to Richard ap Thomas ap Ieuan by
conventual deed which was not exbibited . . . . 7s. ád.
Two tenements lying in the parish of St. Dogmaels in
the barony [or franchise] aforesaid, of which one is
called Coit Parke John Lloyd, the other Tyre Wyat,
lying between the common lands of the said monastery
c2
20 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
called Castell y Drewe on the west, and extending itself
by a private road over against (rersus) the north to a place
called Bowlghe Never[n] to the land of William Hew. and
then eastwardly over against the land of Phillip John
Webbe, and so to the common land vulgarly called Lyte.
and then sontherly over against the Well (fontem) called
Colwill, and so to the place called Foxhyll Vaure, demised
to Phillipp Roger, by conventual lease of the 2 August,
27 Henry VIII, for 80 years, as by one part of such lease
with the Auditor more fully appears . . . . 6s. 8d.
One burgage with garden. and also one orchard demised
by indenture to Elizabeth Williams, heiress of William,
which lease is not exhibited .. .. .. 14d.
2 ac. lands, and one piece ditto, lying in the east field
(in orientale campo) of the said township demised by in-
denture to Elizabeth Williams, which lease is not ex-
hibited . . . • • • .. 2s. Gd.
2 ac. land in a certain place called Briscu' [or Bristu'],
between the lands of Thomas ap Jankyn ap Owen on the
north and on the east, by the common moor on the west
where lies the tenement of D'd Hew, and on the west
where lies the land of Rotheroth Lloyd surrounded by the
roadway [yia communa~\, and another acre called Pittac,
which ìies at the top [in capite] of Gurne Segier in the
demesne, demised to Rotheroth ap John Griffith, by deed
of 21 July, 24 Henry VIII, for 97 years, as by one part of
this imlenture with the Auditor more fully appears . . 3s.
Tenement in the parish of St. Dogmael's in the afore-
said barony, called Place Pene a Bounte, and extending
from the tenement of Owen ap Ph' on the north, and to
the public road on the east, to Pen abonde on the east,
and next (ju.rta) the river Sale to the said tenement,
And one other acre besides (e.rtra) meadow which lies
next the meadow of John D'd and Owen ap Ph' demised
to Rice ap D'd Richard, by deed dated 21 March, 25 Henry
VIII, for 99 years, as by one part of this deed with the
Auditor more fully appears . . . . . . 10s. 4d.
Half burgage with appurt's in London called Aruard
Plac' of the lands of Roos (terr , Roos), demised to Ieuan
ap Jenlcyn Griffith by deed which is not exhibited . . 3s. \0d.
Tenement with appurt's lying in the said demesne at
Capell S'ci Julian where now dwells a certain Howell, de-
mised to Howell ap Jenkyn ap Owen, by conventual deed
which is not exhibited . . . . . . 3s. 4d.
Tenement with appurt's demised to Owen ap Phillip
by conventual deed which is not exhibited . . 31 s. Sd.
Tenement next the orchard of John Gryn next the
bridge of Cardigan, and all our (?wstras) lands on the
north, demised to John Lewes for life, as it is said . . 18s. 9%d.
Tenement called Penralte with appurt's which a cer-
tain William Thomas of Tynbie held, and one park called
20d.
4».
3s
. ád.
LOí
. 4d.
35.
ád.
Ì2d.
»
7s.
8d.
2s.
6d.
£8
2
5 i
At St. Dogmaels. 2 \
P'ke Arhenward [yr hen ward] on the west of the forest of
Kylgorren, and one acre land between the park of John
D'd Lewes, demised to Rice ap John Awbery by deed of
8th June, 23 Henry VIII, for 80 years, which is with the
Auditor, more fully appears . . . . 17s. 8d.
One piece land with appurt's demised at will to Robert
ap Price ap Powell
Various lands demised at will to William Hewes
Certain lands with appurt's demised at will to D'd ap
Ieuan
Tenement with appurt's, and land to the same adjoin-
ing, demised at will to Morice ap D'd
Tenement with appurt's demised at will to Jenkyn
Roger . . . . . . . . 7s. 8d.
One dwelling (domus) demised at will to Jenkyn ap
Ieuan ap Gwill'm
One acre demised at will to Ieuan Powle
Various rents of lands with garden, demised at will to
John Sporyour . .
Tenement demised at will to John Mortymere
Total
Rents at will, by copy ofcourt roll, and by deed in Manoyhlohe duy.
Tenement called Mynyth certhe in the tenure of the
heir of Parat who holds (tenet) freely . . . . 13*. 4d.
Tenement in the said lordship and district (cowi') of
Monachlog duy ychathe where now dwells the above (sic)
Howell, demised to Howell ap Thomas ap Owen by deed
of the 8th October, 27 Henry VIII for 99 years, with the
Auditor, as more fully appears . . . . 8s. 8d
Tenement with appurt's called Place Pant Rege
[? Rhug], demised to Howell ap Owen ap Powell by deed
of lOth October, 27 Henry VIII, for 99 years, as by one
part thereof with the Auditor more fully appears . . 5s. 8d.
Tenement with appurt's called Come Rerwyn, demised
to D'd ap Rice ap Owen by deed of 12th October, 27
Henry VIII, for 99 years, as by one part thereof with the
Auditor more fully appears . . . . . . lOs.
Two tenements in the parish of St. Dogmaels, and in
the district \coit~] of Landr' Manachlog Duy, demised to
Lewis ap Ieuan by deed of lOth October, 27 Henry VIII,
for 99 years, as by one part thereof with the Auditor more
fully appears . . . . . . . . 16s.
Tenement lying at Capell S'ci Guliany, demised to
Hoeil ap Jenkyn ap Owen, by deed which is not extended 3s. Ad.
Tenement with appurt's called Pont'r Ithe demised to
Griffin ap Ieuan ap Jenkyn by deed of 9th October, 27
22 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
Henry VIII, for 99 years, as by one part thereof with the
Auditor more fully appears . . . . . . 9s. 8d.
Tenement situate in Blayne I Cowrse glethe, demised
to Eynon ap D'd by deed of 7th October, 27 Henry VIII,
for 99 years, as by one part thereof with the Auditor
more fully appears . . . . . . 5s. ád.
Three tenements with appurt's, of which one hes near
(apud) Y Vron Lase in the lordship of St. Dogmaels which
Griflin ap D'd gors lately held, the others lying near
Hengwrt, and within their metes and bounds, and all
other our tenements from the river Blaencryth to
Blae[nlba', demised to Owen ap Powell and D'd ap Powell
by deed of the 9th July, 25 Henry VIII, for 99 years, as
by one part thereof with the Auditor more fully appears lls.
Tenement with appurt's demised at will to James
[Jacobo] ap Powell ap Bowen . . . . 10s. 2d.
Tenement demised to Ll'n ap Ieuan Pickton at will . . 3s. 8d.
Tenement demised to Ieuan ap Powell ap Ieuan ap D'd
at will . . • • • ■ . . 5s.
Tenement with appurt's demised to Jenhyn ap Griffith
at will . . . • • • .. 5s. 8d.
Tenement with appurt's demised to Phillipp Thomas
at will . . . • • • . . 5*.
Tenement with appurt's demised to D'd Willyams at
will . . • • ' ' .. 2s. Id.
Tenement with appurt's demised to Thomas ap Dio
Gwill'm at will . . . . • • • • 2s - 6d -
Total £5 17 1
Lordship (dominium) of Iiattre in co. Devon.
The entire lordship, with all appurtenances and services,
tithes of the parish of St. Mary of Rattre, demised to
William ap Harry and William Phillip by indenture [set
forth at large]. Parties : William, abbot of the monastery
of St. Dogmael in Kemeys. diocese of St. Davids; William
ap Harry and William ap Phillip, gents., of the diocese of
St. Davids, in co. Carm'dine, and Treffegwynt in Pebid-
yauge ;
Term, 80 years ;
Rent of
£20
Dated in chapter house (in domo nostra capitulari), 24th
September, 26 Henry VIII.
lients at will in Haverforde and Pembrohe.
Tenement in Haverforde demised to John Daye at will 10s.
Tenement in Pembrolie demised to John Smyth at will 26s. 8d.
36s. 8d.
At St. Dogmaels. 23
The Mill of Ffysshynyarde, co. Pembrohe.
Water mill in Fysshyngarde, with all appurt's, demised
to Owin ap D'd ap Gwilì'm by deed which is not extended 20s.
Vill of Ffisshyngarde.
Rents in villa aforesaid . . . . . . £6 13s. Ad.
Rents at loill and by Indenture in Grandyston.
Tenement at Grandiston with appnrt's demised to
Thomas ap D'd ap Phillip by deed [set forth in extenso].
Parties: William abbot of St. Dogmael in Kemeys and
Thomas ap D'd ap Phillip of Grandiston, in the
lordship of Pebid[iog].
Tenement apnd Grandiston where the said Thomas
now dwells.
Terms, 60 years.
Rent . . . • • • • 18«.
Dated, lOth June, 27 Henry VIII [1525].
Tenement demised at will to John ap Ieuan . . 8s.
Various rents of waste land demised at will to John
Jonyns . . . . • • • • °a.
Total £16 8
Rents at will and by Indenture in Caldey.
Tenement in the island of Caldey demised to Thomas
ap William Owen by deed, as it is stated . . 7s. 4â".
Tenement with appurt's demised at will to John
Willyams
Tenement demised at will to John Whytyng
Tenement with appurt's demised at will to Richard
Prowte
Tenement with appurt's demised at will to Lewis
Whytyng
Tenement with appurt's demised at will to Thomas
Prowte
Tenement with appurt's demised at will to Lewis
Webe . . . . • • • ■
Tenement with appurt's demised at will to William
Gough
Tenement with appurt's demised at will to John Adam
All Tithes, with the site of the Priory of Caldey, con-
taining by estimation 18 ac, demised at will to Owen
Lloyde . . . . . . • • 60s.
Total £5 16 10
7.s.
id.
6s.
5s.
8s.
4d.
5s.
4d.
4s.
lOs.
3s.
6d.
24 The Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary
Rectory of Ffiscarde and Gragyston.
Tithes, oblations, and all profits, demised at will to
John D'd and William Phillipps, fermors of the same, by
William Hyer late abbot, for the time covered by this
account . . . . . . . . £10 6s. 8d.
Rectory of Manclonghhoc, Llandilo, and Llancolman.
Tithes, etc, demised to Henry Scurbell [or Scurvell],
etc. .. .. .. £8
Chapel (capella) of Manoghloke duy.
Tithes, etc, demised to Owin ap Powell, fermor of the
same . . . . . . . . £5
Rectory of St. Thomas the Martyr of St. Dogmael, alias the Llandr.
Tithes, etc, in the hands of William Hyer, late abbot. . £20
Church of Eglìscero [Eglwys Wrw\.
Tithes, etc, in the hands of William Hyer, late abbot £7 6s. 8d.
Chapel of Nountwyn clysprase and Newton.
Tithes, etc, demised to Owen ap Powell, by indenture,
as it is said . . . . . . ..£7 6«. 8d.
Rectory of Bayryll.
Tithes, etc, in the hands of William Hyer, late abbot £4 ÌSs. 4d.
Rectory of Molgrave.
Tithes, etc, in the hands of William Hyer, late abbot £6 \Ss. 4d.
Churches of Llantode and of St. Nicholas.
Tithes, etc, in the hands of William Hyer, late abbot £6 13s. 4d.
Pensionfrom the late Priory of Pulla.
Pension paid to (de) William Hyer proceeding f rom the
priory of Pull' . . . . . . . . £9 6s. 8d.
At St. Dogmaels. 25
Pensìon from Glasterell in Ireland.
Pension from the prior of Glasterell in Hibernia — nil,
because no payment has been made for over 40 years by
the oath of William Hyer, late abbot of St. Dogmaels . . nil
Chapel of Penhclthy Vaghan.
Tithes, etc, in the hands of the said late abbot for the
whole period of this account . . . . . . 25s.
Perguisites of Court.
Nothing, because none have accrued during the period
of this account, by oath of the accountant . . . . nil
Total receipts £140 8 8|
Fees and Outyoings.
Fee of Lord Fferres, steward of the court, granted to
bim by letters patent, under the convent seal, by oath of
William Hyer, late abbot, per ann. . . ..£3 6«. 8d.
Fee of Lewis Jordane, clerk of the court, granted simi-
larly, per ann. . . . . . . . . 14s. Od.
Fee of Lewis ap Powell, bailiff and collector of rents
and ferms, granted similarly, per ann. . . , , 4 0s. Od.
£8 0*. 8d.
Procurations and Synodals.
To Griffith Lloyd, archdeacon of St. David's for pro-
curations and synodals from all the churches aforesaid . . 32s.
Rents Resolute.
To the Castle of Cardigan proceeding from the town-
ship (vilf) of St. Dogmaels, alias Le Landete, per ann. . . lOs.
And he is debited for rents and ferms due to the king
for the said term, by the said William Hyer, late abbot,
received and expended, with . . . . £130 6s. 0\d.
Amount allowed and admitted as above . . £140 8s. 8%d.
which sum corresponds with the receipts above.
Et quietus est.
Z%t ^tar of t$t (Recepfton of t$t
£?a;cone&*
Bt the Eev. A. W. WADE-EVANS,
Vicar of France Lynch, Glos.
No small interval after the third consulship of Aëtius in
a.d. 446, when southern Britain was now occupied by in-
dependent communities of ' Welsh ' and ' English ', an
event occurred in the island, the significance of which
underwent in after times extraordinary misconception.
It appears that in that western portion of southern
Britain where the Britons were generally collected and
which in Latin was known as Britannia, a certain
* Welsh ' king invited certain 'English' to assist him
against his enemies and received them with hospitality.
The name of the king is given later as Vortigern, his
enemies are said to have been Picts and Scots, and the
Ensflish whom he invited and received are called Saxones.
Whether the incident was really important or otherwise,
it was afterwards made to mean the first coming of the
English to Britain, and the } r ear was remembered.
Let it be said at once that there was no year when the
English landed for the first time in the island of Britain
at the invitation of the Welsh. The story is as mythical
as the Gomeric origin of the Cymry. The Saxons, as is
well known, had begun to infest the south-eastern coastof
Roman Britain as eai-ly as the third century. To check or
regulate their movements the Eomans had established a sys-
tem of coast defence from the Wash to the Isle of Wight,
which was known as Litus Saxonicum, the Saxon Shore.
The Year of the Reception of the Saxones. 27
This system, which consisted of some nine forts, was in
full activity at the beginning of the fourth century, being
under the control of a comes or Count of the Saxon Shore.
To what extent the Saxons settled in Roman Britain
before and whilst this system prevailed, is a question
which as yet has hardly been raised, the general obsession
being that the first Saxon settlement in Britain must have
occuz*red after the departure of the tyrant, Constantine,
in a.d. 407. In 409 the Britannias were devastated by an
incursion of Saxons, which does not necessarily mean
Saxons from over the sea. In 429 Saxons were fìghting
in conjunction with Picts in some mountainous part of
south Britain. In 439 the Britannias, lost by the Romans,
yielded to the sovereignty of the Saxons. Again in 441
the Britannias, which up to this time had been torn by
various slaughters and disasters, are brought under the
dominion of the Saxons. And before the end of the fifth
century the Saxons were so powerful in Britain that Aelle
of Sussex was Bretwalda, or chief ruler of England, south
of the Humber. About the beginning of the sixth cen-
tury five of the chief kings of Britannia attacked by St.
Gildas are Constantine of Devon, Aurelius Caninus of
Cornwall, Vortiporius of Dyved (S.W. Wales), Cynlas of
Dinerth, near Llandudno, and Maelgwn Gwynedd of
Anglesey, which indicates that Britannia meant to him
that portion of Britain, which now goes under the names
of Wales and the West Country (the Devonian peninsula).
In 554 Britain contains three numerous nations, Britons,
Angles, and Frisians, which crowd the island to such an
extent that they migrate yearly in great numbers to the
continent. AU this and more proves that the English
were established in Britain not only before some interval
after the third consulship of Aëtius in a.d. 446, but even
long before that consulship.
28 The Year of the Reception of the Saxones.
Nevertheless, sorne no small interval after a.d. 446 a
'Welsh' king did invite and did receive Saxones into
Britannia, and this incident, as I have said, was strangely
niade to mean that on that occasion the English carne and
settled in Britain for the first time. It was regarded as the
fìrst advent of the Saxons, and in after times diligent
attempts were made both in Welsh and English circles to
fìx the precise year.
Now that year was known to the author of the Excidium
Britanniae, It was no small interval after the third con-
sulship of Aëtius in 446. He does not state what the
year was, but we can determine it in this wise. He tells
us that when the Saxones came, there was a prophecy
current among them that they should occupy Britannia for
300 years, and that for the first half of this period, that
is, for 150 years, they should not cease fìghting with the
Britons. As fighting did not cease until the Battle of the
Badonic Hill, which occurred in the first year of peace,
that battle was fought when a round 150 years had been
completed from the Saxon advent. We learn from the
Annales Cambriae that the Battle of the Badonic Hill took
place in a.d. 665. Consequently the 150 years of strife
extended from 514 to 664, and the year when the Saxones
were received into Britannia was a.d. 514.
II.
The Excidium Britanniae was written in a.d. 708. We
know this because its author tells us he was writing in the
forty-fourth year of the great peace which began in a.d.
665 with the victory at the Badonic Hill. The little book
received great attention both in Welsh and English circles.
By a.d. 725 it had come into the hands of Bede, who
quotes from it in that year in his De temporum ratione.
In a.d. 730 Bede was using it as his chief authority for
The Year of the Reception of the Saxones. 29
British affairs in the fifth and sixth centuries, quoting
and paraphrasing the greater portion of it in his cele-
brated Historia Ecclesiastica. Unfortunately, however,
the Excidium Britanniae was shoclringly misunderstood.
It came to be regarded as a work of the Welsh ecclesi-
astic, St. Gildas, who flourished in the early sixth century !
The forty-fourth year from the Battle of the Badonic Hill
was made to mean that the Battle was fought about forty-
four years after the Saxon advent ! And the author was
taken to be writing his treatise a generation later, that is,
about the middle of the sixth century ! Bede, however,
faithfully adhered to its evidence that the 8axones were
received into Britannia after the third consulship of
Aëtius in a.d. 446.
Now about the time when the Excidium Britanniae
was written, which, being also the age of Aldhelm and
Bede, was a period of increased literary activity, there was
a brief extant in Britain, which in its correct British form
would have read as follows : Quando Gratianus consul fuit
auarto et Aeguitius secundo, tunc his consulibus, Saxones a
Guorthigemo in Britanniam suscepti sunt anno CCCXLVIII°
a passione Christi, When Gratian was consul for the fourth
time and Aequitius for the second time, these being then
consuls, the Saxones were received into Britannia by
Vortigern in the 348 th year from the Passion of Christ.
The year indicated is our a.d. 375. The problem arose at
once as to how to reconcile this brief which places the
reception of the Saxones in a.d. 375 with the evidence of
the Excidium Britanniae which places it some interval
after the third consulship of Aëtius in a.d. 446.
The Erroneous Solution of 449.
Somebody observed that a.d. 375 was the first year of
the joint-reigns of Gratian and Valentinian II, and that
2,o The Year of the Reception of the Saxones.
a.d. 450 was the first year of the joint-reigns of Martian
and Valentinian III. He concluded that there had been
confusion between the names of the eniperors, and in
accordance with the evidence of the Excidium Brüanniae
which places the Saxon advent after a.d. 44G, he fixed it
in a.d. 450. Our tlieorist, however, in denoting that year
did not use the formula "a.d. 450" but another one,
which ignores the current year and reckons onl}^ the years
completed. He did not say that Vortigern received the
Saxons in a.d. 450, but (meaning the same thing) that
Vortigern received them when 449 years of our Lord were
completed and done with. It was from this theorist and
computist that Bede drew his 449 and his "'about 449"
as the year of the Saxon advent.
The Erroneous Solution of 428.
As 449 or "about 449" is forty years from the sack of
Rome by the Goths when Eoman rule in Britain was held
by some to cease, the computists who accepted 449 would
say that Vortigern received the Saxons forty years after
the end of Eoman domination in Britain. The Excidium
Britanniae, however, would make it appear that Eoman
rule in Britain ceased with the death of Maximus in 388.
It wa.s Maximus who drained the island of all its military
strength and exposed it for the first time to the attacks of
barbarians from over the water, first, the Picts and Scots,
and then the Saxons. Maximus took away with him to
the continent all the soldiers and military supplies of
Britain, and they never returned. With his death, there-
fore, in a.d. 388, Roman rule ended, notwithstanding the
fact that Eoman armies are made to come twice after-
wards to the island to assist the Britons. If, then, there
was an inteiwal of forty years between the end of Eoman
rule in Britain and the advent of the Saxons, those who
The Year of the Reception of the Saxones. 31
resarded the former to have occurred in a.d. 388 would
fix the latter in a.d. 428. It was from such inconsequence
that the Historia Brittonum deduced a.d. 428, when Felix
and Taurus were consuls, as the } r ear of the Saxon
advent.
III.
Let us now return to the puzzling brief which stated
that the Saxons were received into Britain when Gratian
was consul for the fourth time and Aequitius for the
second time, being the 348th year from the Passion of
Christ.
Before this brief was put together the computists in
Britain had come across the following remarkable passage
in a late edition of the Liber Pontificalis : —
Eleuther natione Graecus ex patre Abundio de oppido
Nicopoli sedit ann. xv, m. iii, d. ii. Fuit temporibus Antonini
et Commodi usgue ad Paterno et Bradua. Hic accepit epistula
a Lucio Britannio rege ut Christianus efficeretur per ejus man-
datum.
Eleuther, a Greek by nation, his father being Abundius
of the city of Nieopolis, occnpied the see 15 years, 3 months,
and 2 days. It was in the times of Antoninus and Commodus
till Paternus and Bradua [consuls]. This man received a
letter from Lucius, king of Britain, that he might be made a
Christian by his command.
I am not here concerned with the interesting matter
of the origin of this passage or its grammar or the strange-
ness of the form Britannio ; only that it was read in
Britain to mean that sometime from a.d. 161 when
Antoninus and Coiumodus began to reign, a king of Britain,
named Lucius, sent a letter to Pope Eleuther asking to be
made a Christian. Aldhelm (died 709) and the Excidium
Britanniae (written in 708) shew no knowledge of it, nor
does Bede when he was writing his De temjporibus in
702-3. When, however, in 725 he was writing his De
temporum ratione, he had already coine across the passage,
2,2 The Year of the Reception of the Saxones.
for under the reign of Marcus Aurelius he has Lucius
Britannìae rex, missa ad Eleutherium Romae Episcopum
epistola, ut Christianus efficiatur, impetrat, Lucius, king of
Britain, seeks to be made a Christian, a letter having been
sent to Eleutherius, Bishop of Eome (Opera Beclae, vi,
305-6). Bede does not fix the year in this work, but by
730 when he wrote his Historia Ecclesiastica, he places it
within the joint reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Aurelius
Commodus, that is, from 161 to 169 (i, 4), and limits the
incident to the year 167 (v, 24), thus: "In the year of our
Lord 167 Eleuther, being made bishop at Eome, governed
the Church most gloriously fìfteen years, to whom Lucius,
king of Britain, sent a letter, aslcing to be made a Chris-
tian, and succeeded in obtaining his request".
The Britons, also, had come across the passage in the
Liber Pontificalis, which they interpreted in this fashion :
Post CLXVII annos post adrentum Christi Lucius
Britannicus rex cum omnibus reyulis totius Brittanicae getitis
baptismum suscepit missa legatione ab imperatore Iìomanorum
et a papa Itomano Eucharisto (ov Euaristo or Eleutherio).
After 167 years from the Advent of Christ, Lucius,
British king, with ali the rulers of the whole British race,
received baptism, an embassy having been sent by the
emperor of the Romans and by the Roman Pope, E.
Thus it is evident that for some reason both in English
and Welsh circles the year 167 had been determined as
that when the Britons first received Christianity. Now, as
the frequent manner of the Britons was to compute from
events in their own history, it would be tempting to some
British computist to date from so important an event as
this supposed first general Christianization of Britain,
once it was believed that it had been chronologically deter-
mined. We must assume, therefore, that in this period
of revival of learning when Aldhehn, and the author of
the Excidium Britanniae, and Bede were living, some
The Year of the Reception of the Saxones.
Òò
British computist reclconed the Reception of the Saxones
into Britannia in a.d. 514 as having occurred in the 348th
year from the Conversion of Lucius, that is, 167 plus 347=
514. Somebody misread the 348th year from Lucius as
the 348th year from the Passion of Christ and, looking
up the consular names for that year, Gratianus IV and
Aequitius II, straightway wrote out the brief fixing the
Saxon advent in a.d. 375, which has proved the puzzle of
ages.
IV.
Although the author of the Excidium Britanniae knew
exactly what the year was in which the Saxones were
invited and received into Britannia, he did not state it
explicitly. He makes it clear, however, that it was no
small interval after the third consulship of Aetius in
a.d. 446, and that it began the 150 years of strife between
Welsh and English which immediately preceded the year
of the Badonic Hill. It is only because we have the
definite entry in the Annales Cambriae that the Badonic
Hill was fought in a.d. 665 that we are able to say that
the Saxones were received in a.d. 514.
Our author, however, must have had a way of fìxing
the year in his own mind. It is not likely that he counted
from the Conversion of Lucius, as he gives no indication
that he was aware of that legend. He may have reckoned
from the Passion of Christ. But it is more than probable
that just as he knew the interval between the actual time
in which he was writing and the victory at the Badonic
Hill, and just as he knew the interval between the victory
and the reception of the Saxones, so he would have been
quite cognisant of the interval between the reception of
the Saxones and the third consulship of Aëtius. He would
have said that the Saxones came into Britannia in the
sixty-ninth year from Aëtius, thrice consul (thus, 514
D
•?4 The Year of the Reception of the Saxones.
o
minus 68 = 446). Now it is this simple calculation wliich
seems to be the underlying cause of the initial year of the
Annales Cambriae.
If my readers will open the famous Volume ix. of
Y Cymmrodor at p. 152, they will there see the beginning
of the precious Latin Welsh Chronicle, drawn up in the
tenth century, which now goes under the unhappy, modern,
gimcrack name of Annales Cambriae. The Chronicle is
preceded by a number of chronological notes from the
Beginning of the World up to Decius and Valerianus.
Then the annals begin with Annus i, ii, iii, etc, the
first entry occurring opposite Annus ix. Mr. Phillimore,
who edits the Chronicle, follows earlier writers, such as
the editors of Monumenta Hist. Britannica, ab Ithel, and
Skene, in equating Annus i with a.d. 444. In this he
and his predecessors are wrong, even on their own show-
ing, for they equate other anni on the assumption that
Annus i is a.d. 445, which last is right. Thus Mr. Philli-
more equates Annus ix with 453 ; he should, therefore,
have equated Annus i not with a.d. 444, but with a.d. 445.
It cannot be stated too often that Annus i of the Annales
Cambriae is a.d. 445.
But why should the Chronicler have commenced his
annals with this year, 445, against which there is no
entry of any kind ? Many attempts have been made to
explain it, to which I now venture to add the one follow-
ing.
I believe that the opening of the annals with Annus i
[=a.d. 445J is intimately connected with the chronological
note which immediately precedes it, which note reads
thus : — [A~]b anno quo Saxones uenerunt in Brittanniam et
a Guorthigirno suscepti sunt usque ad Decium et JJalerianum
anni sunt sexaginta nouem, From the year in which the
Saxones came into Britannia and were received by Vorti-
The Year of the Reception of the Saxones. 3 5
gern until Decius and Yaìerian are 69 years. In short, my
view is that this note is the true beginning of the Chronicle.
It will be obseiwed that in the original manuscript, as re-
produced by Mr. Phillimore, this chronological note is not
connected with those which go before but begins a fresh
line, space being provided for a coloured capital [A] which
the illuminator failed to insert. The preceding notes
revolve around the erroneous idea that the 8axones were
received in a.d. 428. This note, however, reverts to the
brief , with which I have dealt above, that the Saxones were
received in the 348 th year from Christ's Passion, which is
our a.d. 375, for if 69 be added to 375 we obtain a.d. 444.
The Chronicler, having now commenced by saying that
from the reception of the Saxones to Decius and Valerian
are sixty-nine years, and having thus brought us to
a.d. 444, straightway begins his Chronicle with Annus I,
which equates with the year following, to wit, a.d. 445.
But what shall we say of Decius and Valerian, the
familiar names of two persecuting emperors of the third
century ! The answer is that Valerian has been added to
Decius from the mere familiar conjunction of the names,
as the ridiculous mus was added to the Decius of Pedi-
gree xvi of the genealogies in the same codex (Y Cymm-
rodor, ix, 176) ; and that decius is an easy error for aetius,
an error which will be readily appreciated by every reader
of medieval manuscripts, the interchange of d and a, and
of c and t, being common occurrences in these old writings.
I believe that the original computation gave the interval
between Aëtius in his third consulship in a.d. 446, to
whoin the Britons sent the famous letter cited in the
Excidium Britanniae, and the Reception of the Saxones in
a.d. 514, somewhat, let us say, as follows, In anno lxviiii°
ab aetio saxones uenerunt in britanniam, In the sixty-ninth
year from Aëtius came the Saxones into Britannia, etc.
d2
2,6 The Year of the Reception of the Saxones.
This was erroneously paraphrased to signify that there
was an interval of sixty-nine years from the Saxon Advent
to Aëtius. Aëtius was raisread as Decius with Yalerian's
name added from force of habit. The Saxon advent being
fìxed at a.d. 375, the interval of sixty-nine years to Decius
and Valerian brought the compiler down to a.d. 444, He
then commences the Chronicle with a.d. 445, on which
hypothesis, be it observed, the initial year of the Annales
Cambriae is of no particular importance.
^omt ^neuíat ^ources of íÇe
" 45;ccíbtum Ql3rífanmae "♦
By the Eev. A. W. WADE-EVANS,
Vicar of France Lynch, Glos.
By the Excidium Britanniae I mean chs. 2-26 only of the
work commonly so called. The remaining chapters, that
is, ch. 1 and chs. 27-110, originally formed another and a
much earlier work, namely, the Epistola Gildae, the
Epistle of Gildas. In my new series of articles on this
question, beginning with that entitled "The Romani in
the Excidium Britanniae'''' in the Celtic Revieiv (Edinburgh)
for August 1913, I find that the Excidium Britanniae was
written in a.d. 708 which is about two centuries later than
the Epistola Gildae. The succeeding articles, which are
still in progress, appear in the Celtic Revieiv for April
1914, November 1915, and June 1916. In adopting the
view that the Epistola Gildae and the Excidium Britanniae
are distinct productions, I am at variance with all the
scholars, students, and inquirers of the present day who are
known to me, with the exception of Mr. Alfred Anscombe.
In 1911, Prof. J. E. Lloyd in his History of Wales, 161, could
say " The authenticity of the De Excidio as a real produc-
tion of the early sixth century is no longer seriously ques-
tioned". And again, " The efforts of Thomas Wright
(Bŵgraphia Britannica, i, 115-35) and A. Anscombe
(Academy, 1895) to find a place for it, either as a whole or
in part, in the seventh century have been quite unsuccess-
$& Some Insular Sources of the
ful ". And still more recentlÿ we have been assured by
so distinguished a scholar as Dr. F. Haverfield that he sees
" no reason to put either Gildas or any part of the Epistola
later than about 540 " (Haverfield's Romanization of
Roman Britain, 3rd ed., 1915, p. 84, n. 1).
In 1894, Mommsen edited this supposed work of Gildas,
now divided into 110 chapters, under a lengthy title
beginning- Gilclae Sapientis cle excidio et conauestu Britanniae,
Gildas the Wise on the Ruin and Conquest of Britain
(M. G. H. Chronica Minora, iii, 1-85). In 1899, Momm-
sen's Latin text was edited with translation and notes by
Professor Hugh Williams of Bala as No. 3 of the Cymm-
rodorion Record Series. The work has long been popu-
larly known from the handy little volume entitled Six Olcl
English Chronicles in Bohn's Antiquarian Library where it
is translated into English under the heading The Worìcs of
Gilclas. Students should be warned against using this
translation or even that of Prof . Hugh Williams without
reference to the original. No mediseval Latin work known
to me needs such careful handling as chs. 2 to 26 of this
collection, which, as I have said, constitute no part of the
Epistola Gildae, but f orm a much later work wrongly incor-
porated with the Epistola Gildae and alone meriting the
title Excidium Britanniae, the Loss of Britain. It actually
possesses a Table of Contents proper to itself, now ingeni-
ously interwoven with the prefatory remarks of the
Epistola Gildae, and is also furnished with a typically
formal ending, now blunted and blurred to make the close
of the one book read smoothly into the succeeding portion
of the other.
The Excidium Britanniae must have been completed
bef ore a.d. 725 because by that year it had come into the
hands of the great English scholar and historian, Bede.
The consequences were fateful, for Bede used it again in
44 Excidium Britanniae ". 39
his Historia Ecclesiastica as his foremost authority for
insular events in the fifth and sixth centuries, quoting or
paraphrasing' the greater portion of it. The first and
immediate- result was that the Excidium Britanniae was
lost, so to speak, in the more brilliant narrative of Bede.
Henceforward men read the Excidium Britanniae only
through Bede's eyes. The Excidium Britanniae was sup-
planted by Bede's borrowings therefrom, the latter being
universally accepted whilst scant attention was paid to the
former.
More than a century ago Peter Roberts in his Chronicle
of the Kings of Britain (London, 1811) complains of
Leland, Lhuyd, Ussher, and Stilling'fleet, that while they
were always ready to attend to the references made by
Bede and his chronicling drsciples to the writings ascribed
to Gildas, yet, says he, these scholars " do not appear to
have given that attention to the writings themselves,
which was extremely necessary ". Aud so to-day one has
cause to complain and protest that writers of distinction
issue works from the press, dealing with fifth and sixth
century Britain, of whom it may equally truly be said
(for a close scrutiny of their books and articles proves it),
that they "do not appear to have given that attention,
which was extremely necessary " to the Excidium Britan-
niae, notwithstanding their assurance that its author was
the chief, if not the only, contemporary voice speaking to
us out of those two dark British centuries. They attend
to the Chronicles which follow Bede, and they attend to
Bede who follows the Excidium Britanniae, but they curi-
ously stop short at giving that close and serious attention,
which is extremely necessary, to the Excidium Britanniae
itself. Seventy years after Peter Roberts sent out his
disregarded protest, it was possible for John Richard
Green, the author of A Short History of the English People,
40 Sorne Insular Sources of the
to write in all seriousness and sobriety that " Gildas had
seen the English iiwasion " ; and yet the man, whom
Green took to be Gildas, tells us plainly that from the
very year in which he was born there had been peace
between the English and the Welsh !.
Bede's use of the Excidium Britanniae was followed by
a far greater calamity than the one I have mentioned
because of the manner in which he misunderstood it.
Indeed almost all the prevailing misconceptions as to the
work in question are traceable to him. It is Bede who,
missing the purport of the Excidium Britanniae that the
Britons lost the whole island of Britain except certain cor-
ners in the west, north Scotland first, and south Scotland
with the English lowlands from the Firth of Forth to the
English Channel next, limits the loss to the latter alone.
It is Bede, who, mistaking the chronological sequence of
the narrative bef ore him, makes the English to have landed
shortly after a.d. 446, and interprets the forty-fourth year
from the Battle of the Badonic Hill as about forty-four
years from the English arrival, with the fatal result that
he throws back the victory and the writing of the book by
a hundred and fifty to two hundred years. And fìnal ìj it
is Bede who virtually ascribes the authorship of the
Excidium Britanniae to Gildas who died in the sixth cen-
tury, and so starts the notion that Gildas was par excel-
lence the historian of the Britons.
That Bede should have set the seal of his immense
authority on such lamentable misconceptions of the
Excidium Britanniae has so weighed with subsequent
writers, both mediaîval and modern, Welsh writers no less
than English, that one can hardl} r get a hearing for any
other view. Peter Roberts at the commencement of the
nineteenth century, Thomas Wright in the middle, and
Alfred Anscombe at the end, have been so many voices
" Excidium Britanniae" . 41
crying in the wilderness. For over a thousand years the
knowledge of our national origins, both English and
Welsh, has been poisoned at the springs. On the strength
of a slight sermonical sketch of a supposed national
decline, written in a.d. 708 and erroneously conceived to
have been by a prominent and learned Welsh ecclesiastic
about a.d. 5 10, there is taught as sober history throughout
the schools of the world the fable of an English conquest
of Britain commencing shortly after a.d. 446, and accom-
panied by a vast displacement of Welsh people from the
eastern districts of southern Britain into the midlands and
from the midlands into the western corners of Strathclyde,
Wales, and the Devonian peninsula. The true story of
fifth and sixth century Britain, whatever that may have
been, is obscured almost toobliteration, the chronological
sequence of events thrown out of gear, and the events
themselves distorted in exposition to force them to fit into
the scheme of a fìctitious theory.
Of the history of Britain down to the memorable siege
of the Badonic Hill there appears to have been no con-
nected narrative known to the author of the Excidium
Britanniae. He tells us in ch. 4 that he follows the
account of the island as given by foreign historians, which
says he, is far from clear owing to its scrappiness. Appar-
ently there are 110 British historians to draw from,no British
Paulus Orosius or Rufinus, but it should be noted that
he does not altogether deny having made use of British
documentary evidence. He will write, says he, non tam ex
scriptis patriae, not so much from native records, which, if
they ever existed, have been burnt or carried away, and so
are not at hand. He will write not so much from native
records quam transmarina relatione, as from foreign ac-
counts. Decisive as this language may sound, it does not
preclude British writings but even implies some use of such.
42 Some Insular Sources of the
Indeed, if we consider his words closely, it is the
paucity or lack of native records in the times qf the Roman
emperors that he is referring to. His words are as
follows : " Only those evils which the island has both
suífered and inâicted upon other and distant citizens in
the times of the Boman emperors will I attempt to make
public. I shall have done it, however, as well as I can,
not so much from writings of the country or records of
authors, which indeed, if they ever existed, have either
been burnt by the enemies' fires or carried far away in the
citizens' fleet of exile and so are not at hand, as from
foreign accounts, which, broken by frequent gaps, are not
very clear." Now a long time had elapsed since the days
of the Roman emperors and the crackling of the enemies'
fires and the over-sea migration of citizens. First, there
had been forty-three years of peace between Britons and
Saxons, that is, since the victory at the Badonic Hill.
Secondly, there had been a period up to that victory of
alternate successes and reverses going back to the days of
Ambrosius Aurelianus, who, after the Britons had been
bundled into the west, rallied them to their fìrst victory
over the Saxons. Thus at the date when our author was
writing, there had been ample time and occasion for
learned Britons to jot down memoranda of events in their
history. Note well then that it is the affairs of the island
in Roman times for which he lacks native records. If such
ever existed, they were either burnt in that rapid fìery
advance of the English from the eastern portion of the
island to the Western Ocean, even from sea to sea, or they
were carried away by those Britons who quitted Britain
for foreign strands. Our author is not referring to what
historical memoranda may have been written since those
fires and flights. And it is one of my objects in this paper
to shew that he must have had some such before him.
" Excidium Britanniae " 43
But first I will deal with the use which he made of arch-
seolog-ical evidence, especially for that Roman period, for
which he professes himself to be short of native written
material. The îoreign accounts of Eoman Britain being*
scrappy, he is constrained to seek what the actual Eoman
remains in the island may have to tell him.
(a) Arceüeological Evidence.
(i) Cities and Sirongholds. — In ch. 3 he says that the
island of Britain is " beautified by twice ten and twice
four cẅitates, cities, and some castella, strongholds, moli-
tiones, laborious building's, built in an unexceptionable
manner, of muri, walls, turres serratae, serrated towers,
portae, gates, domus, houses, the tops of which, stretching
aloft with threatening' height, were firmly fi^ed". 1 In ch.
24, where he describes the Saxon advance, he says, " For
the fire of just vengeance blazed, because of former crimes,
from sea to sea, heaped up by the eastern band of sacri-
legists (i.e. the Saxons), and as it devastated all the nearest
cẁitates agriaue, cities and lands, did not cease after it
had been kindled until it burnt up nearly the whole sur-
face of the island and licked the Western Ocean with its
red and savage tongue .... Thus were all the coloniae
1 The chapter, in which the above passage occurs, is given a
capitulum in ch. 2 entitled De situ [Britanniae]. This capitulum
doubtless applies only to the opening of the chapter " on the geo-
graphical situatiou of Britain ", although the chapter itself includes
also a short general description of the island, its dimensions,
physical features, towns, forts, and a reference to its former history.
If situs is meant to include all this, a still more extended use of
the word may be exemphfied in another document of Welsh import-
ance, the De situ Brecheniauc, early thirteenth century, copied from
a MS. at least as old as the eleventh century and printed in Y
Cymmrodor, xix, 24-27. Nothing is said in this of the geographical
situation of Brycheiniog, but there are indications that the document
is incomplete.
44 Some Insular Sources of the
brought low with the frequent shocks of battering rams,
also all the coloni with the bishops of the church, with
priests and people, whilst swords gleamed on every side
and ílames craclded. They were mown down together to
the g-round. And, sad sight ! there were seen in the
midst of plateae, streets, the bottom stones of turres, towers,
with tall cardo, beam or door, cast down, and of muri celsi,
high walls, sacred altaria, altars There was no
sepulture of any kind save domorum ruinae, the ruins of
houses ", etc. In ch. 26 describing the state of Britain
forty-three years after the Battle of the Badonic Hill, he
says: "not even noware the cẁitates, cities, of the country
inhabited as formerly ; but deserted and dismantled they
lie neglected until now ".
The chapter, in Avhich the first of the above passages
occurs, includes much of what the author had doubtless
seen with his own eyes, the sea promontories and curved
bays, the plains, hills, mountains, the flora, wells, streams
and lakes. His eyes are receptive to the physical objects
about him, and when these chance to be the work of
men's hands, he will try to make them tell their story.
The number of cities in Britain may have been a common-
place, but his additional mention of strongholds, his
account of such structures as works of great labour, his
detailed notice of walls, towers, gates, and houses, strong
in their foundations and therefore able to have borne
lofty and threatening superstructures, — all this certainly
suggests the description of an eye witness. The land is
full of ruined cities and forts from Eoman times, and our
author has seen some of them and may see them again at
any time.
It was a sad sight. He could still wander in the
deserted streets and view those strong foundations where-
on had once stood towers, high walls, and altars. Around
' ' Excidiu m Briía nniae". 45
him were ruins of houses, and as he gazed he could re-
create in his mind the lurid scenes of their destruction.
All this would have occurred long before he was born.
There had been peace in his time, ever since the year of
the great victory at the Badonic Hill, which was the forty-
fourth backwards from the time in which he was writing.
And these cwitates and coloniae had perished long even
before that.
The ciwitates and coloniae to which he refers, are to be
sought in Britain south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde.
The coloniae properly so called were York, Lincoln, Col-
chester, and Grloucester. Their destruction was from that
eastern portion of the island where the Saxons first landed
no small interval after a.d. 446 to the Western Ocean,
even from sea to sea.
(ii) The Two Walls. — In ch. 15 the Eoman legion,
which after the death of Maximus in 388, comes to the
assistance of the Britons against the Picts and Scots, is
made to bid the citizens " to build a murus, wall, across
the island between two seas, so that when manned by a
troop it might be a terror to repel the foe and a protection
to the citizens ; which being made not so much of lajndes,
stones, as of cespites, turf, proved of no benefit to the
foolish and leaderless mob ". In ch. 18 the Eomans, who
came to assist the Britons for the second time against the
Picts and Scots, — " because they were thinking that this
would bring some advantage to the people whom they
were leaving behind, build a murus, wall, not [like the
other, at the public and at private expense, the wretched
inhabitants being joined with them ; [they build the wall]
in their wonted manner of structure, across, in a straight
line, from sea to sea ".
These two walls are those of Antonine and Hadrian
(as we commonly call them) respectively, constructed not
46 Some Insular Sotirces of the
as our author says after the death of Maximus in 388, but
in 140 and 124 (or 211). Whether he had seen them
himself does not appear, but he is certainly well informed
as to their character. Of the fìrst, which he says was
made of turf rather than stone, modern archseologists
declare that it is a wall of regularly laid sods resting on a
stone pavement. As to the second he knows that it is
built of stone, in the manner of the Romans, and that it
runs directly from sea to sea.
(iii) The Forts on Hadrian , s Wall. — In ch. 18 the
Romans build the stone wall " between urbes, forts, which
had perhaps been erected there through fear of enemies."
By the urbes he doubtless means the larger f orts, con-
tiguous to the wall or generally so, some sixteen in
number. He knows that they were older than what he
deems the wall itself to be. But why they should have
been erected there, he is at a loss to know. It must be
remembered that he thought Britain to have been wholly
British and to have been wholly unmolested by barbarians
till after the revolt of Maximus (383-388), when Picts and
Scots began coming for the fìrst time. The wall was
built to keep these back, but why the urbes, forts, between
which the wall had been built, should have been erected
there, he could not tell. He suggests that it was owing
to some enemy.
(iv) The Forts of ihe 8axon Shore. — In ch. 18 he says
that the Romans " on the shore of the ocean also ad
meridianam plagam, towards the south, where their ships
were wont to ride, erect turres per intervalla, towers at
intervals, overlooking the sea, because from that quarter
also wild barbarian hordes were being feared."
The nine forts of the Saxon Shore extended from the
Wash to the Solent. They were all erected before the
death of Constantius Chlorus in a.d. 30G, and not as our
" Excìdium Britanniae" . 47
author says after the death of Maximus in 388. There is
no indication that he has seen them, but he is well in-
formed of their situation. They overlook the sea, they
are built at intervals, and they are towards the south of
the island.
(v) Sculptured Remains. — In ch. 4 : " nor do I enumerate
those diabolical portenta, monstrosities, of the country,
almost surpassing in number those of Egypt, of which we
still see some, of ugly features, within or without deserted
walls, stiff with stern looks as was the custom."
Here we have confessedly the testimony of an eye
witness, who spealcs of what he himself has seen and of
what may be seen by anyone in his time, of monuments of
pagan gods, once honoured but now neglected and shunned
lilce the walls about them. They are the remains of the
old idolatry, of the old gods of pagan Eome affined or
otherwise with barbarian deities, and of oriental cults
such as of Mithras, Isis, and Serapis. Many of these
still survive.
(vi) Coins. — In ch. 7 : " whatever [Britain] might have
of copper, silver, or gold, might be stamped with the
image of Csesar."
Our obseiwant author could not have been otherwise
than familiar with Eoman coins, which are still being dis-
covered yearly in Britain. The complete subjugation of
the island to Rome is evident to him from the universal
image and superscription of Csesars on the old coinage.
(vii) Weapons. — In ch. 18 the Eomans before their
final departure urge the Britons " to provide their hands
with peltae, shields, enses, swords, and hastae, spears." And
the Romans leave behind exemplaria instituendorum
armorum, patterns for the manufacture of weapons. In
ch. 19 there is mention of the uncinata tela, the hooked
weapons, of the Picts and Scots with which they drag the
48 Some Insular Sources of the
citizens from the walls. In ch. 21 reference is made to
hostium tela, missiles of enemies, and in ch. 22 to mucro, a
sword. In ch. 24: "all the coloniae were brought down
with the frequent shocks of arietes, battering rams,"
i.e., by the Saxons, who are also provided with gleaming
mucrones, swords.
The author is apparently distinguishing between the
weapons of the Britons and those of their enemies. The
weapons of the Britons are Roman weapons, copied from
Eoman patterns. He may have arrived at this conclusion
or corroborated it to his own satisfaction by examination
of such relics from Roman times.
(viii) Ships. — In ch. 3 rates, vessels, were wont to bear
foreiom luxuries alon£ the Thames and the Severn. In
o o
ch. 4 there is reference to civium exilii classis, citizens'
fleet of exile. In ch. 15 a Roman legion crosses the
ocean to the country in rates, vessels. In ch. 16 the Picts
and Scots " burst the boundaries, borne across by wings
of oars, by arms of rowers, and by sails bulged with
wind." In ch. 18 Roman naves, ships, were wont to ride
near the coast towards the south. In ch. 19 "the Scots
and Picts eagerly emerge from the curuci, coracles, in
which they sailed across the sea." In ch. 23, "the
Saxons came tribus ut lingua eius exprimitur cyulis nostra
longis navibus, in three ships, cyulae, keels, as it is
expressed in their language (English), longae, llongau, in
ours (Welsh)." Another company of Saxons follows
"borne in rates, vessels." In ch. 25 some of the Britons
fled beyond the seas "singing beneath the swelling sails".
In comparing the above passages it will be seen that
our author is clearly distinguishing between the vessels
used by the different peoples connected with the British
Isles. The coracle was doubtless a slight vessel, provided
with sails as well as oars. The Saxon heels are equated
" Excidium Britanniae". 49
with the British llongau, the latter word being from the
Latin long(a navis), ship of war.
(ix) Ancient Martyrs. — In ch. 10, our author in
referring to the Diocletian persecution (303-312) speaks of
" holy martyrs, the grayes of whose bodies and the sites
of whose sufferings might now be inspiring the minds of
beholders with no small glow of divine love if they were
not, guam ylurima^yerj many of them, taken away from
the citizens on account of our crimes owing to lugubre
diuortium barbarorum, the disastrous partition caused by
the barbarians. I speak of saint Alban of Verulam,
Aaron and Julius, citizens of Caerlleon, and the rest of
either sex in diverse places who in Christ's battle stood
firm with lofty nobleness of mind." In ch. 10: "Thus
when ten years of the violence referred to had scarcely
passed they repair the churches ruined to the
ground, they found, construct, and complete basilicae of
holy martyrs, and set them forth in many places as em-
blems of victory ".
Here again the author doubtless has his eye on actual
sites, where he supposes martyrs to have perished in the
Diocletian persecution, or where he supposes the bodies
of martyrs to lie. There can be but little doubt that he
is referring to the merthyr place-names of ' Britannia ',
which were formerly far more common than they are now
and which are still sufficiently numerous, and, in the one
instance of Merthyr Tydvil, sufficiently important to make
the term familiar to all. They are generally associated
with personal names, not only of men like Cynog but also
of women like Tydvil, so that when our author speaks of
martyrs of both sexes in diverse places, he is doubtless
thinking of our merthyr place-names, which carry with
them the names of both males and females. In Y Cym-
mrodor,xxiv, 46-7,1 have collected instances of these merthyr
E
5<d Some Insular Sources of the
place-names, and it is to be observed that they are
only found in those parts of Wales where Irish influences
are known to have prevailed. [I shall not be far wrong
when I say that they are found in " the regions producing
inscribed stones with rude Latin capitals " of which Prof .
J. E. Lloyd speaks in his History of Wales, 115.] The
personal names are those of " saints ' : who fiourished,
not indeed in the time of the Emperor Diocletian or any
other persecuting Emperor, but in the fìfth and sixth
centuries, many of them being members of the very Irish
family of Brychan. In fact they were, many of them,
contemporaries and perhaps acquaintances of St. Gildas,
who therefore (densely ignorant though Prof . Lloyd thinks
him to have been, ibid., 98) could hardly have supposed
that they were victims of Christian persecution two cen-
turies previously.
Merthyr in Welsh place-names does not stand for
martyrium in the catholic sense, that is, a church raised
in memory of a martyr on the site of his martyrdom or
over his remains. According to Sir Edward Anwyl it
simply meant a saint. " Am ystyr y gair Merthir (says
he) mewn enwau lleoedd yng Nghymru, credwn nad oes
ynddo unrhyw gyfeiriad at ' ferthyrdod ' o gwbl, ond ei
fod fel y gair Gwyddelig martir yn gyfystyr a ' sant '
(Y Beimiad, ii, 135). Hitherto from some words of
Zimmer I have understood that Welsh merthyr is from
the Latin martyr-ium bearing an Irish meaning 'the
burial place of a saint ' ; that Merthyr Dingad, f or in-
stance, in Monmouthshire, has an exact English equation
in Dingatstow, i.e., the holy place of saint Dingad. How-
ever this may be, one thing is certain that our merthyr
place-names do not in any way involve reminiscences of
Diocletian martyrs.
The author of the Excidium Britanniae, therefore, in
" Excidium Britanniae". 51
considering the many merthyr place-names of ' Britannia',
would have made two mistakes about them, first, in sup-
posing that thej were martyria in the catholic sense
familiar to readers of such fathers as St. Jerome ; and
secondly, in supposing that they derived their origin from
the Diocletian persecution. It would have been impos-
sible for a sixth century Welsh ecclesiastic to have com-
mitted such a blunder, which ranks with the author's
statement about the Walls of Hadrian and Antonine and
the Forts of the Saxon Shore that they were built after
a.d. 388, and with those other equally stupid statements
relative to the Picts and Scots that they never entered
Britain till the departure of Maximus exposed the island
to their forays, and relative to the Saxons that they
landed in Britain for the first time some considerable
interval after a.d. 446 ! Much less could that ecclesiastic
have been St. Gildas who was familiar with Irish Christi-
anity, and who must at least have met people who knew
some of the ' martyrs ' after whom the merthyr place-
names are called. It is obvious that the man who wrote
the Excidium Britanniae was writing at a much later
period, when Irish influences in Wales had decayed, and
did not even suspect that the merthyr place-names could
stand for anything other than martyres or martyria in the
catholic sense.
In this connection it is instructive to realize that the
author of the Excidium Britanniat, seemed to be unaware
of any permanent Irish settlements in southern Britain.
The Picts and Scots had seized Scotland, north of the
wall of Hadrian, before a.d. 446, and had ravaged
southern Britain. But when, sometime after a.d. 446, the
Britons inflicted upon them a very decisive defeat, the
Scots went back to Ireland, whilst the Picts retired
beyond the Wall of Antonine to settle there for the first
e2
52 Some Insular Sources of the
time ! No small interval after a.d. 446, which interval
was a periocl of unpredecented prosperity, the English lan-
ded in Britain for the first time and drove the Britons in
one amazing, irresistible sweep out of the eastern division
of southern Britain into the mountains, forests, and sea-
islands of the west. The English had come at the invita-
tion of the Britons because the Picts and Scots had re-
commenced worrying them. No particulars are giyen of
this fourth invasion of Picts and Scots, but as it is made
to occur no small interval after a.d. 446, it may point to
the advent of the Dalriad Scots in Cantire under Fergus
mac Erc. At any rate, the author of the Excidium
Britanniae nowhere gives any indication that he knew of
Irish settlements in Wales. No wonder, then, that he
blundered in his interpretation of martyr with its specifi-
cally Irish meaning.
Our author states that very many of the graves of his
supposed Diocletian martyrs and of the sites of their
sufferings had fallen into the hands of the barbarians,
which he might very reasonably have calculated must
have been so, seeing that according to him the whole
island of Britain from Totnes to Caithness was occupied
by the Britons under Roman rule until after the revolt of
Maximus in a.d. 383-8. If there were numerous martyr
sites still left in Wales, how many more must there not
have been in the rest of Britain whence the Britons had
been driven out ! Our author, then, might simply have
concluded from the merthyr place-names of Wales (as of
Julius and Aaron at Caerlleon) that there must have been
similar martyr sites in England (as perhaps at that time
of Alban at Verulam) and in Scotland as well, which had
been captured by the barbarians. This may have been all
that he meant. But he here uses a very peculiar phrase.
He spealcs of graves having been taken away owing to a
" Excidium Britcuiniae" . 53
iugubre dẁortium, a disastrous partition, a ' divorce ', a
cutting-asunder, caused by the barbarians. The word
dẁortium, 'divorce', seems too specific to mean the general
destruction of the island. May it not refer to some speci-
ally disastrous cutting-asunder of Britons, such as we have
all hitherto fancied ensued 011 the Battle of Dyrham in
a.d. 577 when the West-Saxons successfully penetrated
the tripolitan area of Gloucester, Cirencester, and Bath,
and 'divorced' the Britons of Wales from those of the
Devonian peninsula? If Britons or Irish really did
occupy this tripolitan area, we might here find room for
lost merthyr place-names, an extension eastwards of the
merthyr place-names of Monmouthshire.
(x) Retreats of persecuted Ghristians. — In ch. 11, our
author says that those who survived the Diocletian perse-
cution " hid themselves in sifoae, woods, and in deserta,
deserts, and in secret spelunca, caves ".
Ever since the Christian religion triumphed in
' Britannia ' there have existed place-nauaes of woods,
deserts, and caves, associated with ' saints '. The Latin
desertum has become the Welsh place-name dyserth,
meaning a wild desolate spot adopted for religious retire-
ment by some Christian eremite. We have to-day such
places as ogof Edi, St. Edi's cave, and Gelli Cawrdaf, St.
Cavvrdav's wood. In such place-names our author might
very possibly have seen evidences of Christian persecution
in Britain as he doubtless did in the merthyr place-names.
I cannot refrain in this connection from quoting some
words of that excellent Welsh clergyman, Carnhuanawc,
writing between 1836 and 1842. He says, " Pe buasai
hanes y wlad hon yn amser Diocletianus ar glawr mewn
cyflwr o gyflawnder, diameu y gwelsem amryw enghreiff-
tiau o ferthyrdod a dioddefaint. Ac am fod yr ychydig
hysbysiad a roddir gan awdur yr Excidium Britanniae yn
54 Some Insular Sources of the
mynegi i'r Cristionogion orfod ffoi i'r coedydd a'r llefydd
anial aW ogfeydd celedig, y mae'n ddilys y buasai gennym
yr awrhon goffadwriaeth am ddefnyddiad amryw leoedd
adnabyddys yn ein plith i'r cyfry w ddiogeliad. Ac y mae
ynof duedd cryf i feddwl fod rhai ogfeydd yng Nghymru
eto yn dwyn arnodiad o'r cyfryw wasanaeth neu o ryw un
cyffelyb". There is no foundation, however, for this
belief. As in the case of the merthyrs, the saintly names
associated with wood and rock retreats are those of fifth
and sixth century ecclesiastics.
(b) Indications of Native Records and Traditions.
(i) Among these we must class the Epistolae ad Agitium,
the Letter to Agitius. Agitius is Aëtius (wrongly spelt
in transcription), chief minister of the Western Empire
under Placidia and Yalentinian. He was f our times consul,
to wit, in 432, 437, 446, and 454. In 455 he was assassi-
nated by Valentinian himself . The author of the Excidium
Britannia.e must have had access to a copy of the letter sent
by the Britons to this Aëtius, and as Aëtius is described
in it as ter consul, consul for the third time, we are fortu-
nately furnished with an important date which helps us to
determine the chronological frameworlc of the narrative
of the Excidium Britanniae. Only a portion of the letter
is given, which is made to represent the misery of Britain
owing to the ravages of Picts and Scots. It begins as
follows : Agitio ter consuli gemitus Britannorum, to Agitius
in his third consulship, the Groans of the Britons. That
the author of the Excidium Britanniae was actually quoting
from a copy of the very letter, is proved by the fact that he
tells us he is skipping a passage before going on with his
quotation. Then : " the barbarians drive us to the sea, the
sea driues us to the barbarians ; between these two sorts of
deaths we either have our throats cut or are drowned ". And
" Excidium Britanniae" . 55
again the author instead of quoting gives the sense, to the
effect that the Britons assert they have no aid. Now as
Aëtius was consul for the third time in a.d. 446 this letter
must have been written any time from that year to the
year when he became consul for the fourth time, i.e., a.d.
454. In other words, the letter was written and sent not
earlier than a.d. 446 and not later than a.d. 453. And as
it was in this interval (circa 447) that St. Germanus of
Auxerre came to Britain for the second time, who, we
know, did go afterwards to Ravenna to intercede with
Aëtius for the peace of Armorica (Vita s. Germani, II, i,
62), we may not unreasonably believe that he at the same
time carried with him " the Groans of the Britons ".
The author of the Excidium Britanniae is making too
great a demand on our credulity when he would have us
believe that the barbarians mentioned in the letter were
only the Picts and Scots. We know from other and
better sources that the Saxons too were busy in Britain at
this time. But our author would make no small interval
inteiwene between the despatch of the Letfcer to Aëtius
and the first landing of the Saxons. He tells us that after
the Letter to Aetius in 446 the Britons won their first
victory over the Picts and Scots. The Scots retired to
Ireland, whilst the Picts withdrew to north Scotland to
settle there for the first time ! Then followed a period of
unprecedented prosperity, and the narrative demands that
it should be no small period. Only at its termination did
the Saxons come. Whatever may be thought of this, one
thin.2 is certain that the author of the Excidium Britanniae
was quite clear in his own mind, although he may not
have managed to make it so clear to us, as to the year
when he conceived the English to have landed for the first
time in the island. It was no small interval after a.d.
446.
5 ^ Some Insular Sonrccs of the
(ii) It is evident that in his account of St. Alban our
author is quoting from some Passio Albani. It is the
only part of his narrative where the miraculous element
is introduced, and at this point he seems to imply the
presence of a Roman army in the island which he cer-
tainly does not do elsewhere except in his account of
Maximus, where also he appears to be following some
written account. Whether the Passio was of British or
continental origin is not so certain. St, Alban was cer-
tainly known in Gaul in the sixth century as evidenced
by the poem of Fortunatus (Bede's H.E., i, 7), and also in
the fifth century, for Constantius malces St. Germanus
visit St. Alban's tomb in his Vita S. Germani. Possibiy,
therefore, the Passio was compiled in Gaul. This may
account for the mention of the Thames as the river which
'the saint crossed. It is significant that Bede, who fixes
the site of the martyrdom at Verulamium, does not name
the river. The Excidium Britanniae names the river,
which, as I have said, is the Thames, but does not fix
the site. Alban is only said to have been of Verulamium.
There is evidence that the site was really Mount St.
Albans, nearly two miles N.E. of Caerlleon in Monmouth-
shire, and that the river was fche Usk. The two other
martyrs mentioned, Aaron and Julius, both of Caerlleon,
may have figured with Alban in one and the same incident.
However this may be, the Passio Albani, from which our
author is drawing, does not strike one as being particu-
larly British. 1
1 In my notes on St. Alban's near Caerlleon (Arch. Camb., 1905,
pp. 256-9; Y Cymmrodor, xxii, 75, n. 6) I overlooked the adilitional
evidence of Giruldus Cambrensis, who passed through Caerlleon in a.d.
1188. He tells us {Itinerarium Rambriae, i, 5): " Here lie two noble
persons, the leading proto-martyrs of Great Britain after Alban and
Amphibalus, adorned in this place with the martyr's crown, to
wit, Julius and Aaron, each of whom had a fine church in the city,
" Excidium Britanniae ". 57
(iii) Maximus proceeds to the Gauls with magna sdtel-
litum catewa, a great crowd of followers. Our author is
using expressions here which go contrary to the trend of
what he has hitherto said. Maximus is started on his rebel-
lious career by tumultuans miles, a turbulent soldiery. He
takes away with him omnis armatus miles, all the armed
soldiery, militares copiae, the military supplies, the rectores,
rulers (or as he called them before praepositi, overseers),
cruel though they had been, and the able-bodied youth.
In the words tumultuans miles, armatus miles, militares
copiae, and rectores, history seems to be peeping through the
narrative as though the author were for a moment quitting
distinguished by his own name. For in ancient times there loere three
e.rcellent churches in this city, oneof the martyr Julius graced with a
choir of virgins dedicated to God ; another raised to the name of
his blessed companion Aaron and enriched by a renowned order of
canons ; and the third distinyuished as the metropolitan see of all
Wales ". This, of course, is clearly reminiscent of Geoffrey's H.B.B.,
ix, 12, as quoted and translated by me in Y Cymmrodor, xxii, 57.
But there is a striking difference. Geoffrey says there were two
churches and a school of astronomical philosophers. Giraldus says
there were three churches, the third distinyuished as the metropolitan
seeofall Wales. The three sites referred to are without doubt the
three chapels mentioned by Coxe in his Historical Tour throuyh
Monmouthshire, 1801, reprinted 1904, p. 103, namely, 'one near the
present site of St. Julian's'; 'the other at Penros, in the vicinity of
the town'; 'a third chapel, dedicated to St. Alban, another martyr,
which was constructed on an eminence to the east of Caerleon, over-
looking the Usk '. The legend of St. Alban demands the proximity of
a large river near the site of the martyr's death. Bede, who fixes
the site at Verulam, carefully omits the name of the river. The
E.icidium Britanniae, which omits the name of the site, mentions a
large river — the Thames. It is clear that before the appearance of
either Bede's Book or the Excidium Britunniae, St. Alban had some-
how been associated with Verulam, the modern St. Alban's in Hert-
f ordshire, for in both works that place is mentioned, and according
to Bede a church had already been erected there to his memory
where miracles frequently occurred (H. E., i, 7). But that site won't
fit. According to the legend as quoted by Bede, the martyr was
58 Some Insular Soiwces of the
his own fancies and quoting some reliable document.
Whether such a document was British or continental is
uncertain. He adds that Maximus' host never returned.
Much has been made of this. It has proved the tiny seed
of legend and pseudo-history galore even to the present
day. Before relying 011 it, this important point should
be borne in mind that it is our author's explanation of
the wonderful ruin and loss of Britain. For many years
the island became the sport and prey of Picts and Scots
attacking from over the sea. Appeals had to be made to
Roine. The north was completely lost. The south was
ravaged from end to end. Finally the English had to be
brought to a river, but would not have been able to arrive that
evening at the place of esecution had not the river miraculously
divided. The spot was outside the city (for the judge was left be-
hiud in it) and on the opposite side of the river. It is called at first
the harena ubiferiendus erat, the arena where he was to be executed.
Then, when he had crossed the river, he ascends the hill of his
martyrdom, which is about half-a-mile from the arena ! This con-
f usion is due to corruption in the text, the idea of which seems to be
that the martyr was led some distance out of the city, the other
side of the river, and up a hill situated about half-a-mile from the
river. These conditions are met by Mount St. Alban's near Caer-
lleon.
The importance of the question as to the site of St. Alban's
martyrdom is very great, because it determines one of the localities
which St. Germanus of Auxerre visited in 429, and helps to elucidate
the point as to what that Britannia was which needed purging of
Pelagianism in that year. Messrs. Baring Gould and Fisher in their
Lires of the Tiritish Saints, i, 142, say, that the account of Germanus'
visit to Alban's tomb does not appear in the original Life of Ger-
manus by Constantius. " It is (they say) an interpolation of the
first half of the ninth century ; it is not found in any of the copies
of the unadulterated Life by Constantius." And again, ibid., iii, 53,
they say that " the seeking for, finding and translation of tlie relics
of S. Alban" is not to be found in the earlier life, " and is, in fact,
an early ninth century amplification ". Hovvever this may be, Bede
certainly refers to it in his H. E. t i, 18, which he wrote about A.D.
730.
" Excidium Britanniae ". 59
called in. If an incredulous reader asks why did not
Britain defend itself, the answer is here pat. It was
because Maximus drained the island of all its arraed
soldiery, all its railitary supplies, all its overseers or rulers,
all its able-bodied youtli. Not a fighting man was left or
even a weapon to fight with. And they never returned ! !
Judging from the Excidium Britanniae what good
Latinists the Britons were able to produce, it is incredible
that no historical memoranda of any kind were written
throughout the forty-three years of peace since the
Badonic Hill, and still backwards through the period of
occasional victories to tlie time of Ambrosius Aurelianus.
There may indeed have been 110 connected narrative of
British history, for the scholarship of the time was con-
centrated on purely religious matters, but it is impossible
to believe that there was a total lack of any description of
historical meraoranda. How else could our author have
quoted from the Epistolae ad Agitium, which hailed even
from the times of the emperors ? How else could he have
learnt the precise interval between the despatch of that
letter and the yeai' when the Saxons were invited to help
the Britons ? I take it, therefore, that he did have some
good written sources with reliable chronological data,
whence he sketched the history of the island from the
Roman period to that in which he himself lived.
(iv) For instance, it seems evident that he had before
hira a stateraent to the effect that Britannia was invaded
from over the sea by two nations who came in coracles,
the Scots a circione, from the north-west, and the Picts ab
aauilone, from the north. Their cruel ravages extended over
many years. They differed partly in their customs, but in
appearance they were the same, wearing beards and appar-
ently kilts. All this occurred in and about the fifth cen-
6o Sonie Insular Sources of the
tury. Now we know that the only part of Roman Britain
which could be attacked from the N.W. and the N. by
nations coining over the water, is Wales. The record,
which the author of the Excidium Britanniae presumably
had before him, was a perfectly sane one. It referred to
the well-known invasions of Britannia, that is, Wales, in
the fifth century by Scots and Picts. In the Yita s.
Carantoci, ch. 2, we read that about a.d. 432 the Scots
overcame Britannia, the names of the leaders being Briscus,
Thuibaius, Machleius, and Anpacus. The Picts are well
known to us by the name gwyr y gogledd, men of the
north, including the bands which came with Cunedda.
One of the Pictish leaders was Caw, the father of St.
Gildas, who came from Arglud, a district on the river
Clyde, to Twrcelyn in Anglesey. The record, I say, was
a perfectly plain and sensible one. What does the author
of the Excidium Britanniae do with it? He converts
' Britannia' into the island of Britain, and makes the Picts
a people living outside the island and attaclnng it from
some northern habitat beyond the Pentland Firth ! Not
until after the Revolt of Maximus (383-388) did Picts or
Scots ever set foot in Britain ! Not till after a.d. 446 did
the Picts begin to settle for the fìrst time in the north of
Scotland!
(v) After the despatch of the Letter to Aëtius in
a.d. 446, the Britons win their fìrst decisive victory over
the Picts and Scots with the result that the latter returned
to Ireland whilst the Picts for the first time begin to
settle in extrema parte insulae, in the extreme part of the
island. As the narrative stands, this means that the
Picts now for tlie íirst time settled down beyond the
Firths of Forth and Clyde ! The brief before our author,
however, may have stated that the Picts now after a
lengthy period of conquest settled down in sinistrali parte
" Excidium Britanniae". 61
Britanniae, in the nortliern part of Britannia, that is to
say, in the left part of Wales as distinct from the dexter-
alis pars, y deheubarth, the south, the reference being to
the settlements of the sons of Cunedda from the river Dee
to the river Teifì. The decisive victory may be Cad-
wallon's defeat of the Scots at Cerryg y Gwyddyl in
Anglesey, for our author, who knew of no Scots or Picts
in southern Britain, would not realize that Cadwallon and
his son Maelgwn were ' Picts '. Or it may be one of the
Arthurian victories, for as is proved by the precious frag-
ment already referred to, viz., the Vita s. Carantoci prima,
Arthur flourished in the second half of the fifth century. 1
(vi) Following the expulsion of the Scots to Ireland
there was a considerable period of prosperity. No age
previously remembered thé possession of such affluence.
Kings were now annointed, some of whom were quickly
cut down and succeeded by others. Our author says
there was no room for kings of milder disposition. If
such a king attained power, he was soon withstood as
1 For the historic Arthur see sections 4 and 5 of the first Vita s.
Carantoci printed with translation and notes in the Rev. J. T. Evans's
Church Plate of Cardiganshire (Stow-on-the-Wold, 1914), 133-142.
[The two Vitae s. Carantoci are printed as one Vita and with many
errors in Rees' Cambro-British Saints, 97-101.] Here it will be seen
that the locale of Arthur is our modern Somerset and Dorset. He
rules in conjunction with Cadwy ab Geraint at Dindraithor, which
may be either Cadbury on the R. Camel (a tributary of the Yeo or
Ivel) in Somerset, or Dundry, near Bristol, in the same county. He
moves about the district from the mouth of the R. Willett which
flows into the Bristol Channel near Watchet, to Charmouth in
Dorset on the coast of the English Channel. But we need not
suppose that Arthur was confined to the places mentioned in the
Vita, only that he was certainly connected with them. As Mr.
Egerton Phillimore says, all the various hill-forts in the Devoniau
peninsula called Cadbury, are probably so named after the above
Cadwy ab Geraint, which means that this king ruled from the
Dartmoor-Exmoor line across Devon as far east, say, as the Bristol
and Wiltshire Avons. As Arthur was ruling in conjunction with
62 Some Insular Sources of the
though he were Britanniae subversor, a subvertor of
Britain, which phrase is reminiscent of well-known Welsh
ones, Pabo Post Prydain, Pabo the Pillar of Britain, and
especially, now that we are in the Arthurian age, Iddawc
Cordd Prydain, Iddawc the Churning Staff of Britain.
(vii) This age of unprecedented prosperity is suddenly
brought to an end by a fourth invasion of Picts and Scots.
As we are now no small interval of time later than a.d.
446, we have probably to do here with the coming of the
Dalriad Scots under Fergus mac Erc circa a.d. 500.
Then comes the famous pestilence, which in a short time
brings down such a number that the living are unable to
bury the dead. Again, as we are no small interval after
a.d. 446, and we know that the Yellow Plague which
raged in Britain carried off Maelgwn Gwynedd, who was
fifth ancestor to Cadwallon (ldlled at Eowley Water in
a.d. 634), we can have no doubt that it is this Yellow
Plague which is referred to here and that we are now in
the very early sixth century.
him, these must be his approximate boundaries also. The Yita s.
Carantoci prima also fixes the chronology of Arthur, for being a con-
temporary of St. Carantocus, wbo went to Ireland tbe same time as
Bishop Patrick, that is, a.d. 432, Arthur must have flourished in the
fifth century. It may also be said that St. Carantocus was uncle to
St. David, who was born in a.d. 462.
Arthur is described by Geoffrey of Monmouth as a contemporary
of the Emperor Leo (457-474) and of Pope Simplicius (468-483), both
of whom he is made to survive, but not later than 492. And this
evidence is all the more convincing, inasmuch as the chronology
implied is unknown to Geoffrey, who unwittingly contradicts it.
But it still remains to be seen how far this chronology is based on
the Bedan misinterpretation of the Eicidium Britanniae that Badon
was fought the forty-fourth year from the Saxon Advent. In my
Chronoloyy of Arthur the argument is vitiated by the view which I
took from Mr. Anscombe and which I have since discarded, that the
passage in the Excidium Britanniae about the forty-fourth year is an
interpolation (Y Cymmrodor, xxii, 137-8). The evidence inthe above
Vita, however, as to_Arthur's period is independent of Geoffrey.
" Excidium Britanniae" . 63
(viii) So the time is drawing near when the iniquities
of Britain should be complete. A council assembles to
determine as to ways and means to withstand the Picts
and Scots. The council with the proud tyrant is blinded,
and the Saxons are invited to assist the Britons. They
come in three ships. Here our author shows some famili-
arity with English traditions. First they called their
ships heels ; secondly, there was a prophecy current
amongst them that they should occupy Britain for 300
years. For half this time they should be fighting the
Britons, that is, for 150 years. After that (so it is
implied) there would be peace. Now as peace began with
the Battle of the Badonic Hill which had already iasted
over 43 years, it follows that the Excidium Britanniae was
written 193 years after thatparticular year in which the
Britons asked the Saxons to help thein.
(ix) Our author of course knew that particular year,
though all he conveys is that it was no small interval after
a.d. 446. There can be no manner of doubt that he is
referring to a real event, which it was hardly likely for
him to have known without some documentary evidence.
I say it was a real event, although of course he distorts it
into the first landing of the English in Britain ! Just as
no Picts ever settled permanently in north Scotland until
after a.d. 446, so not till some considerable interval after
this same year did ever English set foot in Britain ! The
English landed somewhere " in the eastern part of the
island," and soon drove the Britons pell-mell into the
hilly country of the west, Strathclyde, Wales, and the
Devonian peninsula. The truth now peeps out in one of
his phrases. He says that after the Britons had been
cooped up in the mountains, forests, and sea-islands of
the west, the Saxons " returned home ". And cum
recessissent domum crudelissimi jpraedones, when the most
64 Some Insîilar Soìirces of the
cruel robbers had returned home, the Britons rallied
under Ambrosius Aurelianus and won their first victory.
The phrase indicates a good written source from which
our author is drawing. The incident, which he regards
as the first advent of the Saxons in Britain no small
interval after a.d. 446, was doubtless an invitation sent by
some British tyrannus in 'Britannia' to Saxones in Britain.
The Saxones came and afterwards rebelled and ravaged
the British lands. When the Saxones had returned home,
that is, to their own lands in Britain, Ambrosius
Aurelianus, a ' Roman ', rallied the Britons and won a
victory.
(x) In ch. 7 : the Romans place praepositi, overseers or
taskmasters, over the Britons to make nomen Romanae
servitutis, the name of Roman slavery, to cling to the soil,
and to vex the crafty race " so that it might no longer be
regarded as Britannia, but as Romania ". In ch. 13:
the island retaining nomen Romanum, the Roman name,
but not [Roman] law and custom ", sends Maximus to
the Gauls. In ch. 17: again messengers are sent to
ask help of the Romans " lest the wretched country
be completely destroyed and nomen Romanorum, the
name of Romans, should grow vile ", etc. In. ch. 20 : the
miserable survivors send a letter to Agitius, Gemitus
Britannorum, the Groans of the Britons. In ch. 25 : "to
Ambrosius Aurelianus, a modest man, who alone of the
Roman race chanced to survive in the shock of such a
storm, his parents being killed in it, who doubtless were
people clad in the purple ".
Althouo-h the author of the Excidium Britanniae is care-
ful to distinguish between Britons and Romans through-
outthe whole of his narrative, yet in some of the passages
here quoted there are distinct reminiscences of a very
thorough Romanization of Britain. He suggests that the
" Excidium Britanniae". 65
name of Roman supplanted that of Briton, especially
where he says that the gens, race, " might 110 longer be
regarded as Britannia but Romania ". In the word
Romania, he seems to me to be translating from the
Welsh Rumein. Rumein from Romani, Romans, like
Ffrainc from Franci, Franks, meant people at first, and
then country. To-day Rhufain and Ffrainc mean Rome
and France : new nouns, Rhufeiniaid and Ffrancod, have
been mvented for Romans and French. If we suppose
our author had some note before liim which stated that
the Britons were Rumein rather than Bridein (or what-
ever the form may have been) meaning Romani rather
than Brüanni, he might very well have translated
these two words into Romania and Britannia respec-
tively, treating them as plac'es rather than peoples. Still
it is evident that he had no idea that Britain was
Romanized to the extent that we are taught by
Dr. Haverfield. With him Britons and Romans are
always two distinct and hostile racial elements. The
Britons are the native population, conquered and enslaved
byRome; the Romans (of whom Ambrosius Aurelianus
was the last) are the official alien class, placed in power by
the imperial govemment. In a.d. 446, when the Britons
appeal to Aetius, they do not say ' the groans of the
Romans in Britain ', but ' the groans of the Britons '.
Dr. Haverfield tells us that " the old idea that Britons
and Romans remained two distinct and hostile elements,
has, of course, been long abandoned by all competent
inquirers ". Doubtless this is so, but Dr. Haverfield will
have to face the difficulty that the Excidium Britanniae,
written according to him by Gildas "about 540", differen-
tiates carefully between them.
(xi) A study of ch. 2, which formed originally a 'Table
of Contents' to the Esccidium Britanniae, reveals a well
66 Some Insular Sources of the
arranged order of incidents in chronological sequence.
Beginning with the Letter to Aëtius we have: de epistoìis
ad Agitium, of the Letter to Agitius, de victoria, of a
Vietory, de sceleribus, of crimes, de nuntiatis subito hostibus,
of enemies suddenly announced, de famosa peste, of the
famous Plague, de consilio, of counsel, de saeviore multo
primis hoste, of an enemy far more savage than the first,
de urbium subversione, of the ruin of cities, de reliauis, of
the survivors, de postrema patriae victoria, of the last
victory of the country, which has been granted in our
times by the will of God. The first of these items pro-
vides us with a clefinite date beyond which it could not
have occurred, viz., a.d. 446, so that all the other items
mentioned here must have occurred later than a.d. 446.
Our author certainly was familiar with the chronology of
these events, which he could hardly have been unless he
had written material to go upon. The crucial date is that
of the Battle of the Badonic Hill, which he helps us to
determine, first, by making the Saxon Advent to have
occurred no small inteiwal after a.d. 446, and, secondly,
by mentioning the proj)hecy of the 300 years during
which the Saxons were to occupy Britain and for the fìrst
150 of which they were to continue their aggressions on
the Britons. Now as these aggressions ceased with the
Badonic Hill, this battle must have been fought no small
interval after a.d. 446 plus 150 years. And as the
Excidium Britanniae was in Bede's hand when he was
writing his De temporum ratione in 725, the Badonic Hill
must have been won at least 43 years before that year,
that is, by a.d. 682. We must therefore look for the
victory about the middle of the seventh century. Fortu-
nately the date is preserved for us in the tenth century
Latin Welsh Chronicle, the so-called Annales Cambriae,
which has opposite Annus ccxxi the words Bellum Badonis
" Excidium Britanniae". 67
secundo, the Battle of Badon for the second time. Strik-
ing out secundo as due to Bede's misinterpretation of the
Excidium Britanniae who fixes the Badonic Hill about
44 years after the Saxon Advent, we have no other alter-
native than to accept Annus ccxxi as the year of the
Victory, which in the era of that document is 665. The
Chronological scheme of the Excidium Britanniae, there-
fore, is as follows, and it cannot but have been drawn by
the author from good written sources.
a.d. 446. — The Letter to Aëtius.
446-514. — The fìrst victory over Picts and Scots.
The period of unprecedented prosperity.
The sudden arrival of Picts and Scots for
the fourth time. The famous Pestilence.
The assembly of Britons invites the Saxons
to their assistance.
514. — The arrival of the Saxons.
514-665. — The Britons expelled into the western
corners of Britain. The victory of Am-
brosius Aurelianus. 150 years of warfare
between Britons and Saxons.
665.— The Battle of the Badonic Hill. Birth of the
author of the Excidium Britanniae.
708. — The forty-fourth year of peace. The Excidium
Britanniae is being written.
(c) Conclusion.
The Excidium Britanniae is a first class authority,
only if we realize the true date of its composition. Re-
garded as a Gildasian work written "about a.d. 540 ", it
is absolutely irreconcileable with all we know from other
sources. The many attempts, for instance, to square its
supposed evidence with the story of the invasion of
Wessex, have completely broken down. That the leading
f2
68 Some Insular Sources of the
Welsh ecclesiastic of the sixth century, St. Gildas, writing
" about a.d. 540 ", sliould have made the English land in
Britain for the fìrst tiine no small interval after a.d. 446,
and even the Picts to settle in Scotland for the first time
after that same date, he himself being a Pict born near
the R. Clyde, is so incredible and nonsensical that only a
long series of writers from Bede downwards, desperately
ignorant of Welsh affairs, could by the massive weight of
their names have imposed a conception so baseless and
perverse even on Welsh scholars. The author of the
Excidium Britanniae was very short of native records for
the Eoman period, but for the succeeding age his narra-
tive shews that he had some valuable memoranda to go
upon. Some of these he grossly misunderstood, especially
in the matter of the meaning of ' Britannia ', the first
settlements of the Picts, and the invitation for assistance
which brought 8axones on the scene in a.d. 514. But his
general conception of the relations between Britons and
Saxons from the time when he supposed the former to
have been driven into the west to a.d. 665 is sane and
historical. From that year there was, as he tells us, com-
parative peace. The old Roman cities were abandoned
and in ruins. Social order among the Britons was steady
and hopeful. It is true he mentions civil wars, but these
were normal throughout Europe at that time, being the
then equivalent of our modern party strifes. As a zealous
religionist he was naturally dissatisfied with what was to him
the prevailing religious apathy. He was not, however, like
the men of St. Gildas' day, above writing history or above
quoting Yergil. 1 The general impression left on the mind
1 The only secular writers, with whom Mommsen can trace some
familiarity in the 110 chapters which he supposes to have been all
written by Gildas, are Vergil (chs. 6, 17, 25), Juvenal (epimenia, 23),
Persius or Martial or both (catasta, 23, 109), and Claudian ( Tithica
yallis, 19). Of these, catasta must be ruled out as it frequently
" Excidium Britanniae ". 69
by his treatise is that in a.d. 708 the Britons of Strath-
clyde, Wales, and the Devonian peninsula were well
organized, well able to hold their own, faithful children
of the Christian Church, fond of learning, and producers
of no mean Latinists.
occurs in early Christian literature (Williams' Gildas, 55, note). Thus
the only traces of familiarity with secular authors which Mommsen
can find in the 110 chapters, are confined to those chapters (2 to 26)
which in my opinion are not by Gildas at all, but constitute the
distinct work to which alone the title E.rcidium Britanniae applies.
The attitude of the genuine Gildas to secular writings is made
plain to us by himself in ch. 66, where in his censure of the clergy of
Britannia he says of them that they are "listless and dull ad prae-
cepta sanctorum, towards the precepts of the saints, if at any time
they should only have heard what ought to be heard by them very
often ; and ready and attentive ad ludicra, to public games, et ineptas
saecularium hominum fabulas, and improper stories of men of the
world, as though what opened the way of death were the way of
life". By praecepta sanctorum is meant religious literature, and by
ineptae saecularium hominum fabulae is meant secular literature. As
is well known, in the time of Gildas (i.e., from the close of the fifth
to about the middle of the sixth centuries) the Church authorities
frowned on all studies of codices seculares, secular books. Men like
Jerome and Augustine had felt uneasy with respect to the reading
of heathen writings, and before long Homer, Vergil, and Cicero were
abandoned. By the time, however, that the author of the E.rcidium
Britanniae and Bede were flourishing this hostility to secular learn-
ing had largely passed away. Hencewe are not surprised that Vergil
is quoted in the Excidium Britanniae, though we would have been
had Gildas quoted him.
Jô Tlie Fate of the Structures of Conway
£0e §aü of í0e ^frucíurea of £on;
roap @66^ t anò QJ3an<jor anî>
Qj3eaumane jjfríartea*
Bt EDWAED OWEN, F.S.A.,
Secretary to t/ie lioyal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales
and Monmonthshire.
The document of which a full abstract is oriven below
requires few prefatory or explanatory remarks ; its pur-
port is conveyed with ample fulness in the long title with
wliich it opens. A few obseiwations may, however, not
be out of place for the j>urpose of drawing attention to
some points of interest that present themselves, and to the
bearing which they have upon a much neglected branch
of Welsh historico-archseological research.
The chief value of the document lies in the light that it
throws upon the disposal of the actual structures of several
of the Welsh monastic houses, the fabrics of which have
so totally disappeared that if we had to depend solely
upon the researches of archseology we should never
know of even so mucli as their existence. Archseology
gives no warrant for the past existence of a monastery of
Conway, or of friars' houses at Bangor and Beaumaris.
Yet the evidence is, of course, both clear and abundant
for the long-continued presence of ecclesiastical estab-
lishments in all those j)laces ; but it is entirely docu-
mentary, and is at best but feebly reinforced' by the
survival of a few place-names which mark with no great
certainty the actual sites upon which the buildings of the
Aòbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friancs. 7 ì
monastery or the friary stood.' It is true that of the
greater number of Welsh monasteries, in the most favour-
able instances sufficient remains have survived to enable
us to obtain a more or less clear idea of their size and
appearance, and where archseology has had anything to
work upon, Welsh archseology has seized its oppor-
tunities, and given us in the long series of volumes
of Árchceologia Cambrensis fairly satisfactory accounts of
what the present ruins comprise, and what appearance the
completed whole may be conjectured to have presented.
But there are a few of the pre-Reformation religious
houses of Wales of which it may be said that they are
as though they had never been. Conway is one of these.
Conway Abbey has indeed been singularly unfortunate in
not finding its vates sacer, though Mr. Harold Hughes,
F.S.A., has proved quite convincingly 2 that the present
parish church of Conway contains portions of the building
that was in existence when Edward the First removed the
Abbey from its site within the town of Conway to Maenan
about a dozen miles further up the river Conway. The
latter, of course, is the position of the real monastery of
Conway, or Aberconway as it called itself during the
whole course of its existence. But not a vestige remains
of what was probably a beautiful though it may be a
small establishment, seeing that the king himself aided
liberally in its erection, and that the buildings were
erected when Gothic architecture was about its zenith.
The meetings of the Cambrian Archseological Association
in the years 1895 and 1911 took place in the immediate
neighbourhood, and 011 the last occasion the members
1 There have, of course, been small discoveries on each of the sites,
but ndjvhere sufficient to show the nature of the edifices that had
stood thereon. Some walling has been uncovered at Bangor (Arch.
Camb., 1900, V, xvii, 24).
2 Arch. Camb., 1895, p. 161.
72 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
actually passed by the site but did not consider it worth
while to pay it even the empty homage of an afternoon
call.
The present document gives us at any rate the reason
why there is not one stone standing upon another of
Aberconway Abbey — it was most carefully taken down
and diligently removed to Carnaiwon, where a large quan-
tity of the material was doubtless used upon the works
which were in progress there, or was stored for future
requirements.
Similar work was being carried on simultaneously at
Bangor and Beaumaris on the small houses of friars in
those towns that had just fallen into the king's hands.
In addition to the important light here thrown upon
the fate of these establishments, the documents give
valuable information as to the wages paid to the skilled
and unskilled labour employed, and on the prices of com-
modities. Much too little of this class of information has
been made available for the student of Welsh economic
history at the dawn of the modern period. My friend,
Dr. E. A. Lewis of the University College of Aberystwyth,
has been left to labour alone in this field of research.
It remains but to add that the document as here pre-
sented is not a verbatim transcript of the original. This
in turn is evidently no more than a compilation from the
weekly wages sheets and bills, prepared at the close of the
undertaldngs by Robert Burghill who calls himself " sur-
veyor and paymaster ", and doubtless occupied much the
same position as what we would term "clerlc of the works".
In such accounts there is much repetition of the same
or similar phrases. These have been for the most part
omitted, though it will probably be thought by . some
that too much has been suffered to remain. All the
place and personal names are of course given, and much
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. J2>
of the quaint and extraordinarily diverse spelling has been
kept. It will be noticed that the weeks are reckoned
according to the church calendar, and that though work
was going on simultaneously at Carnarvon, Beaumaris and
Harlech, the same weeks are not called after the same
saint or service by the different time-keepers. A number
of other points of niuch interest will become apparent
upon a careful study of the document.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE : EXCHEQUER K.R.
ACCOUNTS— WORKS AND BUILDINGS.
Bundle 489, No. 16.
Account of worhs executed in North Wales, 30-1 Henry VIII
[1539-40] .
[m. i.]
THE PRINCIPALITY OF NORTH WALES.
Reparacons there made from the ffeaste of Saynte Michaell tharch-
aungell in the xxxtie yere of the Raigne of oure Souvraigr.e King Henry
the VIII th unto the ffeast of Sainte Michaell tharchaungell then nexte
folowing, That is to witte in the xxxi u yere of his seide moste noble
raigne, by vertue of the king's warraunt dated the ffirste day of July in
the xxx th yere of his saide noble raigne directed to John Paldngton and
john Arnolde, esquiers, to be supervysors of the same in manner and
forme hereafter folowing.
The Castell of Caern', the King's Hall, Shyre Courte wher
his lawes be kepte, the exchequyer, treasorye, keye [quay]
and towne walls there.
Imprimis to David ap R. ap Mereduth forffalling of wood
to burne lyme withall ... ... ... v]d.
It'm to Lewes, laborer, for the ffalling of wood, by the
space of viij days ... .. ... ü-?- viij<£
It'm to Thomas Griffith for hym and his horse for the
caryage of wood, by the space of ij days ... xvd.
It'm to the said Thomas for hym and his horse for the
carriage of wood by the space of one daye ... \'}d.
It'm to Will'm Ffoxewist for hym and his horse for the
karyage of wood by the space of xj days taking by
the day v]d. ... ... ... •■■ vs. v]d.
It'm to John Rouland for hym and his ij horses for cary-
ing of wood to the water syde by the space of one
daye ... ... ... ... v'ú)d.
It'm to Thomas ap Ieuan ap Hoell for caring of lyme
stones to the Kylne ... ... ... vs.
74 The Fate of the Structures of Comvay
It'm to Will'm Ffoxevvyst for breking of stones to the
kylne ... ... ... ... vs.
It'm to the said Will'm for making of the kylne and
burning ... ... ... ... vs.
It'm for caryage of Tange and watching of the kylne ...
It'm to John Dykon for mendyng of the stone wall of
the kylne
It'm for caryage of iij loose loodes of wood from Redyn-
uocke velyn to Caern' at xvjd. the loode
It'm for woode boughte by Roberte Laurens to make an
ende of the kylne
It'm paide for the cariage of the said lyme from the kylne
unto the Shire hall
It'm paide for xj hundrede lathis after the rate of vd. the
hundreth, and \)d. more in the grosse some
It'm paide for a thousand and three hundreth sclats after
the rate of \\)d. the hundreth
It'm paide for xv pecks of lyme after the rate of v\d. the
pecke
It'm paide for iiij m 1 ccc large nayles, that is to saye for
every thousande xv]d., and vjd. for the saide three
hundrede
It'm paide for spiking nayles
Item payde to Thomas Sclater for the sclating and sett-
yng up of viij ml sclats after the rate of ijí. ü\]d. the
thousand ... ... ... . ... xvin>. viijí/.
It'm paide to Hughe Smyth for a stone and iiij lb. of iron
to make the racks in the kychyn after the rate of
xiiijí/. the stone ... ... ... xv\)d.
It'm payde to Jenkyn Smyth for the makying of the said
racks ... ... ... ... v\i)d.
It'm paide to Thomas Sclater for the mendyng of the
kychyn wyndowe and dressing of the gutter over the
said kichyn ... ... ... ... vjd.
It'm for nayles for the same worke ... ... i)d.
It'm paide for the caryage of xij lodes of claye to the
making of the Wouen [Oven] ... ... \i\jd.
It'm paide to Lewes mason and John Dykon for one
day's worke upon the oven after the rate of vjd. the
daye to every oí them ... ... ... x\')d.
It'm paide to a laborer to serve the mason by the space
of one daye ... ... ... ... i\\]d.
xi)d.
\jd.
ÌÜjí.
\)d
\\')S.
v\\)d.
iiijí.
\xd.
\\')S.
iijd.
V\)S.
v]d.
vs.
xd.
ii\)d.
Sm a ... ... iiij//. ]d.
The coosts and chargs that were done in talung downe of the
churche rouffe of the late Abbeye of Conweye and the kariage of Stones
and Tymbre from the said Abbeye to Caern'
Imprimis payde to Thomas Hervy and Robert ap Willm
carpenters by the space of yj days after the rate of
v\d. the day unto eu'y of them ... ... vjj.
It'm payde to the same carpynters for theire labor in
taking downe the said rouffe \\\)d. a pese ... \'û\d.
Abbey, anci Bangor and Beanmaris Friaries. 75
It'm paide to other iij Carpynters by the space of vj days
for taking downe oí'the said rouffe after the rate of
vd. the daye unto eu'y of them ... ... vn>. v]d.
It'm paide to the same iii Carpynters at an other tyme
for taking down of the same rouffe unto eu'y of
them \]d. ... ... ... ••• VJÄ
It'm paide to a laborer to carye the said Tymbir oute ot
the churche and to lode the same uppon horses to
the Pykarde by the space of vj days and a halfe after
the rate of iiijŵ. the daye ... ••• 'i^- ij#-
It'm paide to Will'm Beisley for the cooste of hym and
his horse from Caern' to Conwey for pulling downe
the roufe of the churche, by the space of x days ... xs.
[m. id.]
It'm paide to Roberte ap John ap Atha for the freyghte
of his pykarde of vij Tonne to carye the said Tymbre
by water to Caern' ... ... ••• xijí. viiijrf.
It"m paide to Rouland Griffith for the fraighte of his
Pykarde of v Tonne the same tyme ... ... ixs.
It'm paide to a laborer by the space of twoo days in
makiug clene of the greate sellar under the Shyre
Hall to leye the said Tymbre in after the rate of
iiijrtf. by the daye ... ... •■• vii]V.
It'm paid to Roger ap John ap Atha for the ffraight of his
pykarde at an other tyme in karying of the said
Tymber toCaern' from Conwey
It'm paid to a laborer to lode the said Tymber in the
said pykarde
It'm paide to Richarde Maynwaring for the ffraighte of
his pykarde loden witli stones f'rom the Abbey
of Conweye to Caern' ... . •••
It'm paide for the ffraighte of an other pykarde laden
with stones of iij tonne from the said Abbey to
Caeru'
It'm paide to Roger ap John Atha the viij th daye of
August for the ffraighte of his pykarde laden w'th
stones from Conwey to Caern'
It'm paide to Richarde Maynwaring the same daye for
the ffraight of his pykarde laden with stones from
Conwey to Caern'
It'm paide for the taking downe of xxxv tie sparres in the
Abbey, and for Ale to the tenaunts that caryed
stones to the water syde ...
Sm a ... ... ciiijí. vij^.
Ebdomeda in ffesto Sancti Petri advincla [ìst August] anno supra-
dicto R. predicti.
It'm paide to Morys ap John ap Hoell for the cariage of
xiiij bote lodes of stones from Angles' to Caern' ... xiiijí.
It'm paide to John Roulande for the cariage of x Iodes
of stones írom the water syde to the Hall after the
rate of iij^. the lode ... ... ... \]s. vjä.
X1ÌJÍ.
\]d.
X]'í.
vs.
\\]d.
x\\']S.
v\\]d.
X]'í.
viij^.
v\\]d.
j6 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm paide to tlie said John for the caryage of other iiij
lodes of the said stones after the rate of \\x\d. the
lode ... ... ... ... xv]d.
It'm paideto the said John Roulande for the cariage of
syxe score and xij lodes of sande to temper the lyme
in the vvorke, after the rate of \d. for every four lodes \]s. \xd.
It'm paide to Will'm Ffoxvviste and John Jonson for the
cariage of foure score lodes of sande after the rate
aforesaid ... ... ... ... xxd.
It'm paide to John Rouland for the cariage of a pykarde
loode of stones from Conwey to Caern' ... v]d.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... xxijs. \xd.
Ebdomeda ante ff'm S'ci Laurencii [loth August].
It'm to John Rouland for the cariage of iij bote lodes of
stones from the water side to the worke ... \xd.
It'm to the said John for the cariage of lij lodes of sande x\\]d.
It'm paid for a tliousand latthis after the rate of vd. the
thousand and \]d. farther in the hole some ... iiijí. \\\]d.
It'm paide to John Clarke for xltie lodes of sande ... xd.
It'm paide to Morys ap John ap Hoell for the cariage of
twoo bote Iodes of stones oute of Anglesey to Caern' \]s.
It'm paide to the saide Morrys for two fleyks to make
sckafoldes ... ... ... ... \\\]d.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... \xs. \\\]d.
Ebdomeda ante ffestum Assumptionis B'te Marie [15U1 AugustJ.
It'm paide to John Asshe for the cariage up of twoo
pykardes lodes oi stones that came from Conwey
from the water syde to the Justice Hall ... xv\]d.
It'm paide to Thomas Griffith for the cariage of xvj lodes
ofsande ... ... ... ... iüj^.
It'm paide to John Asshe for the caryage of xij lodes of
claye ... ... ... ... \\\]d.
It'm paide to Thomas Griffith for the cariage of xij lodes
ofclaye ... ... ... ... \\\]d.
It'm to the said John Asshe for xl tie lodes of sande ... xd.
It'm paide to Moris ap Ieuan ap Hoell for v bote lodes of
stones from Anglesey to Caern' ... ... vs.
It'm paide to Johu Clarke for cariage of v bote lodes of
stones from the water syde to the worke ... xvd.
It'm to the said John for the cariage of lx lodes of sande xvd.
[m. 2.]
It'm paide for xj hundrede of sclats after the rate of \\]d.
the hundreth ... ... ... ij^. \ X( l
It'm paide to Will'm ap Holl, laborer, by the space of
twoo days in dyggyng and heving up of claye ... v\\]d.
It'm paide to Lewes mason onwarde 011 his payment ... xlvijí. v]d.
Snmina ejusdem ebdomade ... lxjj. v\\]d.
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. JJ
Ebdomeda ante ffestum Bartholomei ap'li [24th August].
It m paide for v thousand sclats ... ... xijí. \\]d.
It'm paide to John Asshe for the cariage of xxxix lodes of
claye after the rate of iij lodes a peny ... xú]d.
It'm paide to the said John for the cariage of lix lodes of
sande after the rate of iiij lodes a peny ... xvd.
It'm paide to Lewes mason the same vveke ... xxiiijí. \]d.
It'm paide Morys ap Yeuan ap Hoell for the cariage of
viij lodes of stones oute of Angleseye to Caern' ... viijí.
It'm paide to John CIerke for cariage of the said stones
from the water syde to the worke ... ... ijí.
It'm paide to the said John Clerke for the caryage of
fourtie loodes of sande ... ... ... xd.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... xlix.y. v\]d.
Ebdomeda proxime post ffestum S'ci Bartholemei ap'li.
It'm paide to Morys ap Ieuan ap Hoell for cariage of vj
lodes of stones that were broughte from Anglesey ... v]s.
It'm paide to John Clarke for the cariage of the said
stones from the water side to the work ... x\\\]d.
lt'm paide to the said John for the cariage of viij loodes
of sande ... ... ... ... \]d.
It'm paide to John Asshe for the kariage of xv loodes of
Claye ... ... ... ... vd.
It'm paide for three thousand and a halfe of sclats ... viijí. \xd.
It'm paide for a Barrowe ... ... ... \\\d.
It'm paide for xiiij clamstaves to make up the wall be-
twene the Buttery and the servaunts' chamber ... \\\]d.
It'm paide to Lewes mason ... ... ... xvs.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... xxxijj. vd.
Ebdomeda ante ffestum Nativitatis B'te Marie [8th September].
It'm paide to Lewis Mason for making the stone work
of the Hall at one tyme in grosse ... ... xxs.
It'm paide to Roberte ap Will'm and Thomas Harvy,
carpynters for the setting up the rouffe of the Justes
Hall ... ... ••• ••• xxv]s. v\\]d.
It'm paide for cariage of certayne Tymbre to make
sckaffoldes ... ... ... ... v\\]d.
It'm paide for the cariage of twoo stones from the
churche of Sainte Beblike unto the worke towarde
the making ot' the Hall doore ... ... v\\]d.
It'm paide for ij Stocks to make pynne wood for the car-
pinters ... ... • •• ••• iüj^-
It'm paide to Morys ap Ieuan for cariage of vj bote loode
of Stones oute of Anglesey to Caern' ... ... v]s.
It'm paide to John Clarke for the cariage uppe of the
same Stones from the water syde to the worke ... xviii^.
78 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'ra paid to Thomas Sclater in parte of payment for
sclating the Justices Hall ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to Jenkyn Smyth in parte of payment for the
making the Iron \voork of the dores and wyndowes
of the Justice Hall ... ... ... vh>. \]d.
Summa to the huius Ebdomade
Ebdomeda post ffestum Nativitatis B'te Marie.
It'm paid for a thousand and three hundreth sclats after
the rate of \\}d. the hundreth
It'm paid for vij pecks and a halfe of lyme after the rate
of \]d. le peck
It'm paid to Morys ap Yeuan for vj lodes ot stones
caried out of Anglesey to Caern'
It'm paid for the cariage up of the said stones from the
water syde unto the worke
It'm paid to a laborer for one day's worke in dygging
upp of Clay taking by the daye foure pens
[m. 2d.]
It'm paide for the cariage up of the same that is to
wytte for xxiiij loodes
It'm paid to Lewes mason for parte of payment of the
taske for making the Justices Hall
It'm paide to a laborer for ij days in caring of tymber at
the rering of the forsaid Hall
Summa huius Ebdomade ... xxìxí. vj«.
Ebdomeda post ffestum Exaltationis S'te Crucis [i4th September].
In primis paid for a thousand sclats ... ... i]s. \]d.
It'm paid for xviij pecks of lyme ... ... ixí.
It'm paid for the cariage of the Bateling [? Battlement]
Stones from Conweye to Caern' ... ... vs.
It'm paide for the cariage of the said Stones from the
water side to the worke ... ... ... i'ij^.
It'm payde to Morys ap Hugh for ij days werk about
necessaryes done in the kytchin and the stable ... xi]d.
It'm paid to Thomas Sclater in parte of payment for
Sclating the hall of justice ... ... ü]s.
It'm paide to a laborer for ij days work in dygging of
claye ... ... ... ••• viij<£
It'm paide to John Reynolde for the kariage of xviij
loodes of claye ... ... ... ••• ixrf.
It'm paid to the said John for the cariage of x loodes of
sande ... ... •■• •■• i}d. ob.
It'm paide to Morys ap Yeuan for the cariage of one boote
loode of Stones from Anglesey to Caern' ... xi]d.
It'm paide for the kariage up of the same from the water
syde to the wourke ... ... ... ü\d.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade xxii\s. \i\\d. ob.
]XÌX5.
iiiî^.
Üjí.
ihy.
Ì\)S.
ixd.
\]s.
x\i'\]d.
iii]d.
\\i]d.
xii]s.
iìi]d.
\ii]d.
viijí.
\]d.
Üjí.
\xd.
ijí.
viijrf.
\')S.
\\\')d.
\)S.
\\\]d.
iijj.
xx\\]d.
\d. ob.
\\\]d.
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries, 79
Ebdomeda prox post ffestum Sci Mathei Apli. [2ist September].
Inprimis paid for viij hundreth scklats ... ... \)s.
It'm paid for xvij pecks of lyme after the rate of \]d. le
pecke
It'm paide to Roberte Comb[er]bache and John Smyth
for ix loodes of sparres after the rate of \d. the loode
It'm paide to ij laborers the space of iiij days for rydding
[and] clensing of the rubbell out of the Hall and
Court
It'm paide to Lewes Mason for parte of payment of the
Taske for making of the Justices Hall
It'm paide to Thomas Harvy and Robert ap Will'm,
carpinters, in parte of payment of a Taske taken in
malcing of the Hall
It'm to Thomas Sclater in parte of his Taske for sclating
oftheHall ...
It'm paid to John Rouland for the cariage of lxviij loodes
of claye
It'm paid for the cariage of xxij loodes of sande
It'm to the said John Rouland for the temp[er]ing and
dawbing the same claye ...
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade xxxvî. x\d. ob.
Ebdomada post ffestum S'ci Mich'is arch. [2Qth September].
It'm paide for a thousand aud ij hundreth of sclats
It'm paide for vij pecks and di' of lyme
It'm paide to Jamys Smyth for vj sparrys ...
It'm paide to Stevyn Bodington for m 1 and a halfe
[1,500] oflathe nailes
It'm paide to the said Steven tor iij stone and foure
poundes oí Iron ...
It'm paide to Thomas Scklater in parte of paym't of his
Taske for sclating the hall
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... x\\s.
Ebdomada ante ffestum S'ci Edward [i3th October].
It'm paide for xij c [hundred] scklats ... ... \\\s.
It'm paide for iij pecks of lyme ... ... xviijtf'.
It'm to Thomas Sclater ... ... ... xs.
It'm payde for yj pecks of lyme ... ... \\'\s.
[m. 3]
It'm paide for foure loodes of sande ... ... ]d.
It'm payde to Thomas Harvey carpinter ... ... v]s. \\\]d.
It'm paide to Hughe Smythe for yj m 1 lathe nailes after
tlie rate ot xvjí/. le thousand ... ... viijj.
It'm to the said Hughe for iij c. gade nayles after the rate
ofvijrf. thec. ... ... ... xxjrf.
It'm paide to the said Hughe for ij c spike nayle after the
rate of iiij</. the hundredth ... ••• \\\]d.
\Ì)S.
\\]s.
\xd.
x\]d.
\]s.
Üjí.
\\')d.
Üjí.
8o The Fate of the Stmctures of Conway
It"m paid to the said Hughe for di. c. [50] borde nayle ... \]d.
It'in paide to John Smyth for viij sparrys after the rate
of ij ob. le sparre ... ... ... xxd.
It'm paide to Thomas Becke for c. and di. [ij cwt.] of Iron
after the rate of vijs. v]d. the hundreth [cwt.] ... xjí. \\]d.
It'm paide to the said Thomas for ij Rugs for the Halle
doore ... ... ... ... v'û)d.
It'm for a hundreth and a halfe of gadde nayles after v\]d.
the hundrethe ... ... ... xd. ob.
It'm paide for a hundrethe of spike nayles... ... vd.
It'm paide for a thousand lathe nayles ... ... xv]d.
It'm paide for vj c lathe nayles after the rate of v]d. the
hundreth ... ... ... ... W]s.
It'm payde to Jenkyn Smyth in full payment of his Iron
werk to the Justice courte ... ... iiijí. xd.
Summe ejusdem ebdomade ... h'irjí. xd. ob.
Ebdomada post ffestum Omnium Sanctorum [ist November].
It'm paide to Rauffe Jonson for making the chymney in
the chechin [ldtchen] ... ... ... xiijí. \\\]d.
It'm paide to Ieuan Cotmfer] for a pece of Tymber to the
work over the staire from the Hall to the chamber \\s.
It'm paide for viij c sclats after the rate of \\]d. le c ... \]s.
It'm for iiij pecks of lyme after the rate of yj le pek ... \]s.
It'm paide to Thomas Beeke for a hundreth latthis ... v]d.
It'm paide to the said Thomas for viij c lathe nailes ... x\]d.
It'm paide to Thomas Sclater for his werk ... xxs. \W]d.
It'm payde to Jenet Ffrauncs for caruing [carrying]
water to the making of morter ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to Morres ap Yeuan for vij boate loodes of
Stones to fill and stoppe the hooles in the kaye
[quay] after the rate of v\\]d. the loode ... iiijs. v\\]d.
It'm paide to the said Morrys and to other laborers for
the stopping and ffilling up of the hooles in the keye
withe the said stones ... ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to Thomas Glasyer for the glasing of lxiij
foote of glasse after the rate of v]d. ob. le foote ... xxxiiijí. \d. ob.
It'm paide for wynding roddes ... ... xvj</.
It'm paide for v pecks and a halfe of lyme after the rate
of v]d. le pek towardes the rep[ar]acone of Mr.
Arnolde's chamber and the shire nall ... ... \]s. \xd.
It'm paide to Ric. Sclatter by the space of x days in
sclating of the said chamber after the rate oí v]d.
le daye ... ... ... ... vs.
It'm paide for a hundreth lathe nailes ... ... \]d.
It'm paide for a shovill with a hed ... ... W]d.
It'm paide for a syve to rydle the lyme ... ... \]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade iiij//. xiijí. v\]d. ob.
x\]d.
Aòbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 8 1
Ebdomada tercia quadragesime.
It'm paid to Will'm ap leuan ap Yockyn for iij dars
vvorke in hewin and cutting of wood to the lyme
kylne after the rate of \\\]d. the daye ... ... x \]d.
It'm paide to Thomas Griffitli in Iike wise for iij day's
worke on thesaid kyeue [quay] ... ... x \]d.
It'm paid for iij days woorkein lyke man[ner] to Richarde
laborer
It'm paide for cariage of the wood to the water syde and
towardes the looding of the same ... ... v]s.
[m. 3 d.]
It'm to Ll' ap Will'm for the cariage of iij boate loode of
woode by water after the rate of xv]d. le loode ... iiijí.
It'm paide to Morrys ap Ieuan for the cariage of one
boate loode of wood ... ... ... x\\d.
It'm paide to the said Morrys for fyve boate loode of
lyme stones ... ... ... V s.
It'm paid to Will'm Ffoxewist for breking of the said
stones ... ... ... ... ví.
It'm paid to the said Will'm for setting and brennyng
[?burning] of the same kylne . ... ... vs.
It'm paid to the said Will'm for kariing of th£ stones '
from the water side and loyding [?loading] of the
Tange of the said kylne ... ... ... X xd.
It'm paid to John Rouland for the kariage of lyme out of
the said kylne to the Justice Hall ... ... üj.y. îîjjá
It'm paide to John Dyckon for the mendyngand dressing
of the said kylne ^ ... ... ... v ]d.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ^. ... xxxiiijí. v]d.
Ebdomada quinta quadragesime.
It'm paid for a pykarde loode of Tymbre being of v tonne
to Robert ap John ap Atha ffrom Conwey to Caern' v\\]s.
It'm paid to Ffulke Maynwayring and toThomas Griffith '
for the unlayding of the said tymbre oute of the said
pykarde ... ... ... ... v ]d.
It'm paide for dygging of clay for twoo days ... v\\]d.
It'm paid to Robert ap Griffìth for the cariage of fyftie
loods of Claye after the rate of every iiij lods ]d. ... x \]d.
It'm paide to John Rouland for xvj loode of claye ... \\\]d.
It'm payde to Will'm Ffoxewiste for the making, tem-
p[er]ing and dawbing of the wasting [? wainscotting]
of the Hall and pointing the same with lyme by the
space [of] ix days after the rate of ú\]d. the daye ... \\]s.
It'm paide to Morys ap Ieuan for a boote loode of stones
to the making of the chymney in the kychen ... x \]d.
It'm to John Rouland for the cariage of the saide stones
from the water syde to the Justes courte ... '\\\d.
lt'm paid for caruing of water to temper the claye and
morter for the said chymney ... ... \md.
82 TJie Fate of tJie Structures of Conway
It'm paide for xlviij loode of claye to the chymney ... x\}d.
It'm paide to John Mason and Lewes his brother for one
day's vvorke on the chymney after the rate of \]d. le
day ... ... ... ... x\]d.
It'm to Will'm Ffurberor' and to Ric' the laborer for s'uyng
[serving] the masons for one daye after the rate of
iii]d. by the daye le pere ... ... \\\]d.
It'm paide to John ap R., mason, for one day's \vork
taking by the daye \]d. ... ... ... \]d.
It'm paide to Ric, laborer, for serving the said mason ... i\i]d.
It'm to Rouland Ffoxevviste for taking downe sclats in
the kichin ... ... ... ... \i\]d.
It'm to Henry ap Lli' for foure hoopis and twoo turnells
to carie up the lyme ... ... ... \\\]d.
It'm for xij loodes of sande to pointing of the chymney in
the kichin ... ... ... ... üj^.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xixs. \]d.
Ebdomada ante ffestum vanus palmar'.
It'm to Thomas Ffoxwist for the pointing of the chymney \\\]d.
It'm paide to D'd the laborer for the making of claye and
dawbing the said chymney the space of iiij days
after the rate of ii\]d. le daye ... ... x\]d.
It'm to Rouland Ffoxewiste in the same weke the space
ofiijdais ... ... ... ... x\]d.
It'm paide for carinng of water to tempre the said morter i]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... iijí. \]d.
[m. 4.] [No heading of the week.]
It'm paid to John ap R. and Lewes his brother and to
the other masons for making the windowes, dores
and stayres in the Hall ... ... ... liijí. \\\]d.
It'm gyven in rewarde to the said masons ... xiijj. iiijrt'.
It'm paide to the mason for mendyng the chymney in the
Justeschamber ... ... ... xiijj. \\\]d.
It'm paide unto Ieuan ap John ap D'd Vichan for the
ffalling of xvj greate oks at Conwey, for every one
i\]d. ... ... ... ... in>- viij<£
It'm paid unto Griffith ap John for the hewing and
squaring of the said oks ... ... ... x]s. ii\]d.
It'm paide unto the above namyd Griffith ap John for the
sawing of the said Treys for iij roodys et di [?2j
roods] after the rate of \s. le roode ... ... xi]s. \]d.
I'tm paide for the cariage by water of the said tymber
from the late Abbeye of Conwey unto Caern' unto
Griffith ap Ll' ... ... ... x\]s. \]d.
It'm paide to Griff ap Hoell ap Jhon, Hughe ap D'd ap
Ll' and others for the cariage of stones and tymber
by lande at soundrie tymes for the Justice Hall at
Caern' from the Abbeye of Conweye to the water ... xlí.
Summa istius Ebdomade ... vlijẃ".
Abbey, and Bangor anci Beaumaris Friaries. 83
Ebdomeda prox'ante ffestum apostolorum Ph'i et Jacobi [ist May].
In primis paide to Thomas Hervy carpinter tor iiij dais
work in pulling downe tlie rouffe of Oure Lady
Chapell at Bangor taking by the daye v\\d. ... \]s. \\'\]d.
It'm paide to Roberte ap Will'm for iiij days worke in lyke
manner taking v]d. le daye ... ... ijí.
It'm paide Rouland ap Will'm carpinter for iiij days
worke in lyke manner taking by the daye v]d. ... \]s.
It'm paide to Ric' Browne carpinter for iiij daies work in
pulling downe the rouffe of the said chapell, taking
\]d. le daye ... ... ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to Richard ap Will'm sclater for ij dais woork
in taking downe of the sklats from the said chapell,
taking \]d. le daye ... ... ... x\]d.
It'm paide to Thomas Ffoxewist sklaterfor ij dais wourke
in taking downe of the sclats from the said chapell,
taking \]d. le daye ... ... ... x\]d.
It'm paide to ij laborers by the space of ij dais to take
the sclats from the sclaters ... ... xv]d.
It'm paide to John Smythe for the making of two Iron
pynnes ... ... ... ... \\\]d.
It'm paide to Thomas Osbaston mason for v dais work
in pullyng downe of the stones from the churche of
Bangor, taking by the daye \'\]d. ... ... i]s. x]d.
It'm paide to Hughe ap R. mason for taking downe of
stones in like manner from the church of Bangor, by
the space of v dais, taking v]d. le daye ... i\s. v]d.
It'm paide to David Dromme laborer for v dais wourk
to take up the stones from the said masons, taking
\\\]d. by the daye ... ... ... xxd.
It'm paide to D'd ap Roberte laborer for v dais worlc
taking up stones from the said masons, taking by the
daye iüj«. ... ... ... ... xxd.
It'm paide to John Sadler for hym and his horse for foure
dais labor to karie stones from the Ffriers of Bangor
to the water syde, taking le daye v]d. ... ... ijs.
It'm paide to Thomas ap Ieuan for hym and his horse
for iiij dais worke to cary stones from the Ffriers of
Bangor to the water side, taking le daye v]d. ... \]s.
It'm paide to John ap S. Griffith for hym and his horse
for iiij dais labor to carye stones from the said Ffrier
House to the water side, taking le day v]d. ... \]s.
It'm paide to David ap Will'm for hym and his horse by
the space of ij dais to carie stones in like manner,
taking by the daye v]d. ... ... ... x\]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xxvijí. \xd.
Ebdomada in ffesto Apostolorum Ph'i et Jacobi.
[m. 4d.]
It'm paide to Robert Griffith for hym and his horse for
iiij days laboryng to carie stones from the Ffriers
house of Bangor unto the water side taking by the
daye v]d. ... ... ... ... i]s.
G 2
84 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm for one gable rope of vj stone and a halfe after the
rate of \}s. \}d. le stone ... ... ... xiiij,y.
It'm paide to Thomas Hosbaston mason by the space of
iiij days and a halfe in poling downe of stones from
the said church, taking by the daye \\}d. ... ijy. \\\d. ob.
It'm paid to John ap Ieuan mason for iiij dais vvorke in
taking dowiie of stones from the churche of Bangor,
taking by the daye \)d. ... ... ... i)s.
It'm paid to David Dromme laborer by the space of iiij
days and a halfe taking stones from the masons,
talíing by the daye iii)d. ... ... ... xviij^.
It'm paide to John ap Thomas laborer for iiij days and
a halfe in taking stones from the masons, taking by
the daye iii)d. ... ... ... xvii)d.
It'm paide to Ric. Browne and Thomas Harvy carpinters
for j dai's vvorke to make ij cradeis to worke uppon
the castell walle ... ... ... xij</.
It'm paide to the Constable of Caern' for his pilorde
laden twyes [twice] to carie stones from Bangor to
Caern' ... ... ... ... \)s. \ii)d.
It'm paide to John Sadler for hym and his horse the
space of iiij days, after the rate of \)d. the daye to
carie stones from the Ffriers to the water side ... i)s.
It'm paide to John ap S. John Gruff for hym and his
horse the space of iiij days after the rate of \)d. the
daye in karing stones from the churche of Bangor to
the water syde ... ... ... i)s.
It'm paide to Morrys ap Hoell for hym and his horse the
space of iiij days to carye stones to the water side
from the churche of Bangor, taking by the daye \)d. i)s.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade xxxvijj. ü)d. ob.
Ebdomada post ffestum Apostolorum Ph' et Jacobi.
It'm paide to Thomas Hosbaston mason for vj dais
laboring 011 the keye and castell walls, taking by the
daye \i)d. ... ... ... ... ii)s. \)d.
It'm paide to Griff ap Hoell mason for vj dais laboring
011 the keye, taking by the daye \)d. ... ... ii)s.
It'm paide to David ap Hoell mason for vj days laboring
on the kaye, taking by the daye \)d. ... ... ii)s.
It'm paid to Hugh ap R. mason for vj days laboring on
the kaye, taking by the daye \)d. ... ... ii)s.
It'm paide to John ap R. mason for yj dais laboring on
the kaye, taking by the daye \)d. ... ... i'\)s.
It'm paide to David Drome laborer for vj days laboring
on the kaie, taking by the daye iii)d. ... ... ijí.
It'm paide toThomas Ffoxewist laborer for v dais labor-
ing on the keye, taking by the daye iii)d. ... xxd.
It'm paide to Ieuan ap John laborer for v dais laboring
on the kaye, taking by the daye iii)d. ... ... xxd.
It'm paid to Gruff. ap John for v dais laboring 011 the
kaye, taking by the daye ii\)d. ... ... xxd.
Abbey, and Baugor and Beaumaris Friaries. 85
It'm paide to Rouland Ffoxewist laborer for vdais labor-
ing 011 the kaye, taking by the daye iiijW. ... xxd.
It'm paide to David ap Richarde laborer fof v dais labor-
ing on the kaie, taking by the daye \\\]d. ... xxd.
It'm paide to Hoell ap Dicus for iiij boote loode laden
with stones from Angles' to Caern' ... ... iiijí.
It'm paide to a laborer for the cariage of xij loode of
sande ... ... ... ... W]d.
It'm paide to Thomas Beeke for the ffreight of his
pikarde at ij tymes from Bangor to Caern' with
stones ... ... ... ... v\]s. \\\]d.
It'm paide to John Roulland for hym and his horse the
space of v days to kary sande and morter, taking by
the daye v]d. ... ... ... \]s. v]d.
It'm paid to Ratheryne Morrys for gethering of viij
bourden of mosse ... ... ... viij<£
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... x\s. v\]d.
[m. 50
Ebdomada in festo translacionis Sc'i Bernardi [17U1 May].
It'm paide to Thomas Hosboston, mason, for vj days
laboring on the kaye, taking be the daye v\]d. ... W]s. v]d.
It'm paide to Griffith ap Hoell, mason, for vj dais labor-
ing on the keye, taking by the daye v]d. ... \\]s.
It'm paide to David ap Hoell ap Griffith, mason, for vj
days laboring on the kaye, taking by the daye v]d. \\]s.
It'm paid to John ap R. for vj dais laboring 011 the kaye,
taking by the daye, v]d. ... ... ... W]s.
It'm paide to Lewes ap R., mason, for vj days laboring
on the keye, taking by the daye, v]d. ... ... \\]s.
It'm paid to Hugh ap R., mason, for vj dais laboring on
the kaye, talcing by the daye v]d. ... ... iijí.
It'm paide to Gruff ' ap Yeuan, laborer, forsixe days labor-
ing on the kaye, takyng by the daye, \\\]d. ... \]s.
It'm paid to David Drome for vj dais laboring on the
kaye, taking by the daye \\\]d. ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to John ap Madock, laborer, for vj dais laboring
on the kaie, takyng by the daye, W\]d. ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to greate Richarde, laborer, forvj daislaboring
on the kaye, taking by the daye iiijäf. ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to Thomas ap John, laborer, for vj dais Iabor-
ing on the keye, taking by the daye, iiij«. ... ij\r.
It'm paid to Ric' ap Ieuan, laborer. for vj daislaboring on
the kaye, takyn by the daye \\\]d. ... ... \\s.
It'm paide to Morys ap Yeuan for the cariage of iiij boote
lods with ffilling stones oute of Anglesey to Caern' \\\]s.
It'm paide to Rateryne Morrys for the gethering of viij
bourden of mosse ... ... ... v\\\d.
It'm paid to John Griffith for v dais laboring to cut and
fall downe rodds in Rredonoke filling [Velen],
takyng by the day \\\]d. ... ... xxd.
&6 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm paide to David ap Yeuan for v dais laboring to cut
and fall wood in Rredomoke Vellen to branne
[burn] the lyme kylne, taking by the daye \\\]d. ... xxd.
It'm paide to John ap Hoell for hym and his horse the
space of vj dais, after the rate of \]d. the daye, to
carye the said woode to the water side ... iijí.
It'm paide to Robert Gruffith for hym and his horse the
space of vj days, after the rate of \]d. the day, to
carie the said wood to the water side ... ... \'\]s.
It'm paide to John Roulande for hym and his horse for
cariing of morter to serve the masons by the space
of vj days, taking by the daie \]d. ... ... \\]s.
It'm paide to John ap S'r Gruff ' for hym and his horse
the space of vj dais to carye sande and morter, taking
by the daye yj</. ... ... ... iijí.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... \s. \]d.
Ebdomada prox' post ffestum translacionis S'ci Bernardi.
It'm paid to Griffìth ap Hoell mason for v dais labouring
on the keye, taking by tlie daye \]d. ... ... \]s. \]d.
It'm paide to David ap Hoell mason for v days laboring
on the kaye, taking by the daye \]d. ... ... \]s. \]d.
It'm paide to John Mason for iij dais laboring on the
kaye, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... x\\\]d.
It'm paide to Lewes mason for iij dais laboring in poling
downe of stones fro[m] the churche of Bangor, taking
by the daye \]d. ... ... ... x\\'\]d.
It'm paide to iij laborers the space of iij days to serve the
said masons, taking by the daye \'\\]d. ... ... \\]s.
It'm paide to John Sadler for hym and his horse the
space of iiij dais to karye stones from tne Ffriers
house of Bangor to the water side, taking by the
daie \]d. ... ... ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to Jamys ap Ithell for hym and his horse the
space of iij days to carie stones from the said Ffryers
house to the water syde, taking \]d. le daye ... x\\\]d.
It'm paide to Ric. ap Yeuan for hym and hys horse the
space of iij dais to karye stones from the said Friers
house to the water side, taking by the daye \]d. ... wiijí^.
[m. 5 d.]
It'm paide to the Constable of Caern' for the ffraight of
his pikarde laden with stones from Bangor to Caern' iijí. \\\]d.
It'm paide for the cariage of one pikarde looden with
Tymber from Conweye woode to Caern'... ... viijj.
It'm paide for falling down of a c [100] oks in Conwey
woode ... ... ... ... x\'\]s. \'\\]d.
It'm paid for iij shovills ... ... ... \]d.
It'm paide for iij greate nailes ... ... ]d.
It'm paide for ij tournells ... ... ... xijí/.
It'm paide for iij [cwt. ?] of nailes to make the sckaffoldis \]d.
Aòòey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. Sy
It'm paide to Robert of [?ap] Will'm carpinter for iij days
\vourke in making ij scícaffoldes ... ... i\]s.
It'm paid to Mooris ap Ieuan ap Hoell for the kariage of
vj boate loods of lyme stones ... ... vjf.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... Ijí. ixd.
Ebdomada prox' ante ffestum Translationis S'ci Edmundi [9U1 June].
It'm paid to Gruffith ap Hoell mason for vj days laboring
upon the kaye, taking by the daye v]d. ... i\]s.
It'm paide to D'd ap Hoell mason for yj dais laboring on
thekaie, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... üjí.
It'm paide to John mason for vj dais laboring on the
kaie, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... i\]s.
It'm paid to Denes mason for vj dais laboring on the
Caye, taking v]d. by the daye ... ... ü]s.
It'm paid to Hughe ap R. mason for v dais laboring 011
the kaie, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... i]s. v]d.
It'm paide to vij laborers the space of v dais to serve the
said masons, taking by the daye iiij a pece ... x\s. vi\]d.
It'm paide to Will'm ap Will'm the space of v days, after
the rate of v]d. the daye to karie sande and morter... ijí. v]d.
It'm paide to Moris ap Yeuan ap Hoell for the cariage
of one boote loode of woode from Riedonock Velen
to Caern' to burne the lyme kylne ... ... xijí/.
It'm paide to Moris ap Yeuan for iiij boote loode of
filling stones oute of Anglesey to Caern' ... i\\]s.
It'm paide to Thomas ap R. for breking of stones to the
lyme kylne ... ... ... ... vs.
It'm paide to the said Thomas for brannyng [?burning]
of the said lyme kylne ... ... ... vs.
It'm paide to the said Thomas for the caryage of woode
and tunge from the water side to the lyme kylue ... ijí. viij^.
It'm paide to John ap Ieuan for ij dais laboring to cutte
woode in Redanok Velen, taking \\\\d. le daye ... v\\\d.
It'm paide to John ap Griffith for hym and his horse the
space of v dais, taking by the daye v]d. ... \]s. v]d.
It'm paide to Katerine Mooris for ix burden of mosse ... ixd.
It'm paide to Lewes ap R. masor. for vj dais worke
laboring uppon the kaye, taking v]d. le day ... iijj.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... liijí. ii]d.
Ebdomada in ffesto Translacionis S'ci Edmundi.
It'm paide to Gruff. ap Hoell mason for vj dais laboring
on the kaie, taking by the daye vj^. ... ... iijs.
It'm paide to D'd ap Hoell mason for vj dais laboring on
the kaye, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... ú]s.
It'm paide to Denes mason for vj dais working on the
kaie, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... \\]s.
It'm paid to John ap R. mason for yj dais laboring on the
kaye, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... \\]s.
SS The Fate of the Structures o/ Coniuay
It'm paide to Hugh ap R. mason for vj dais laboring on
the kaie, taking v]d. the daye ... ... üjs.
It'm paide to Lewes ap R. mason for vj dais laboring on
the kaye, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... ii]s.
It'm paide to vij laborers the space of vj dais to serve
the said masons, taking ii\]d. a daye to every of them xiiijí.
[m. 6.]
It'm paide to John ap S'r Gruffith for hym and his horse
the space of vj dais to cary sand and mort[er] to
serve the masons, taking by the daye v]d. ... ii]s.
It'm paide to Mooris ap leuan ap Hoell for iiij boats
loade of Stones out of Angles' to Caern' ... iiij.y.
It'm paide for the cariage of iiij boats loode of wood
ffrom Redemok Vellen to Caern' to Lewes ap Ll' ... vs.
It'm paide to Roberte Gruffith for hym and his horse for
ij dais to carye sand and morter, taking by day v]d.... x\]d.
It'm paide to Ratheryn Morris for the kariage of viij
burden of mosse ... ... ... viijí/.
It'm paide to Annes ap Meredith for the cariage of water
to slake the lyme ... ... ... \d.
It'm paid to the Constable of Caern' for his pikardeladen
with stones from Bangor to Caern' ... ... \\]s. \\\]d.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... xlixí. vd.
Ebdomada prox' ante ffestum Nativitatis S'ci Johannis Baptist'
[24th June].
It'm paide to Griffith ap Hoell mason for vj days laboring
on the keye, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... iijs.
It'm paide David ap Gruff ' ap Hoell mason for vj days
laboring on the keye, taking by the daye v]d. ... iijí.
It'm paide to Denes Roche mason for vj dais laboring on
the kaye, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... ii]s.
It'm paid to John ap Ieuan mason for vj dais worke
uppon the kaye, taking by the daye v]d. ... Y\]s.
lt'm paid to Hugh ap R. mason for vj dais working
uppon the kaye, taking v]d. the daye ... ii]s.
It'm paide to D'd Drome laborer for vj dais worke on
the kaye, taking by the daye iihy. ... ... ijj.
It'm paide to Rouland Ffoxewist for vj dais worke uppon
the kaye, taking by the daye iii]d. ... ... i]s.
It'm paide to Roberte Griffith for vj dais working on the
kaie, taking by the daye iii]d. ... ... i]s.
It'm paide to D'd ap Ric' ior vj dais laboring on the kaye,
taking by the day iiij^. ... ... ... ij^.
It'm paid to John ap Will'm for hym and his horse the
space of vj dais to karie morter and sand, taking by
the daye vj</. ... ... ... ii]s.
It'm paid to John ap Robert for hym and his horse the
space of ij dais, taking by the daye v]d. ... x\]d.
It'm paide to Moris ap Ieuan for iij boote loodes with
stones from Angles' to Raern' ... ... ìijí.
xi]d.
ÜJÄ.
i'\]d.
xx'] d.
\\\]d.
xY]s.
\\\]d.
Abbey, and Batigor and Beaumaris Friaries, 89
It'm paide to John ap R. for a boate loode of stones from
Bangor to Caern' ... ... ... \]S. \]d.
It'm paid to John Smythe for sharp[en]ing the masons'
toles [tools]... ... ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to Eatheryn Mooris for getheryng vj bordens
of moosse ... ... ... ... \]d.
It'm paide to Mooris ap Yevan for the kariage of one
boate loaden with woode frome Redonoke Velen to
Caern'
It'm paide to Richarde Louelake for one roope of one
stone and a halfe, after the rate of ij.y. i]d. le stone ...
It'm paide to Thomas Harvy in iij days laboring in going
to Conwey woode and to Harloghe to mark the trees
there to be ffallyn, taking by the daye vij</.
It'm paid for twoo syves to syft the lyme ...
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade
Ebdomada in ffesto Nativitatis S'ci Johannis Baptiste.
It'm paid to Grufhth ap Hoell mason for vj dais laboring
on the keye, taking by the daye \}d. ... ... i\]s.
It'm paide to D'd ap Hoell mason for vj dais worke upon
the kaye, taking by the daye \}d. ... ... ii]s.
It'm paid to Thomas Roche for vj dais worke on the
kaye, taking by the daye \}d. ... ... ii]s.
It'm paid to Lewes mason for vj dais worke on the kaye,
taking by the daye \]d. ... ... ... U]s.
It'm paid to David Dromme íor v dais working of the
key, taking by the daye v]d. [?ii'\]d.] ... ... xxd.
[m. 6d.]
It'm paide to David ap Ric. laborer for v dais laboryng
on the kaye, taking by the daye iii]d. ... ... xxd.
It'm paide to Thomas Ffoxewiste for laboring upon the
kaye, taking by the daye iii]d. ... ... xxd.
It'm paid to John ap Madock for working upon the kaye
the space of v dais, talung iiij^. le daye ... xxd.
It'm paid to John ap S'r Griffith for hym andhis horse by
the space of iiij days, taking by the day \]d. ... \]s.
It'm paide to Ratheryn Morys for the gethering of iiij
bourden ofmosse ... ... ... iii]d.
It'm paide to Will'm ap Hoell for the kariage of iij boate
loode of stones from Bangor to Caern' ... ii]s.
It'm paide for ijlb. of tallo to tallo the roope [rope] ... ij^.
It'm paide to Annes ap Meredith for caring of water to
slake the lyme ... ... ... iüj^-
Summa ejusdem ebdomade ... xxiiijí. \]d.
Ebdomada prox' post ffestum Nativitatis S'ci Johannis [Baptiste].
It'm paid to Griffith ap Hoell for yj dais laboring on the
keye, taking by the daye \}d. ... ... üj?
9<D The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm paide to David mason for vj dais laboring on the
keye, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... i\]s.
It'm paide to Denes Rooche mason for vj dais vvoorke
uppon the kaye, taking by the daye v\d. ... \\}S.
It'm paid to John ap Yeuan mason for vj dais vvoorkyng
uppon the kaye, taking v]d. by the daye ... \\\s.
It'm paide to David goz [goch] mason for vj dais laboring
on the keye, taking v]d. by the daye ... ... iijí.
It'm paide to John ap Madock for sixe dais laboring on
the kaye, taking iiijrtf. by the daye ... ... \\s.
It'm paide to David Drome for laboring on the kaye by
the space of yj days, taking \\\]d. le daye ... \]s.
It'm paide to David ap Ll' laborer for vj dais vvorke upon
the kaye, taking by the daye \\\]d. ... ... \]s.
It'm paide to John Ffyvyon [? Vivian] for v dais laboring
on the kaye, taking by the daye \\\]d. ... xxd.
It'm paide to John ap Ric. laborer for iiij dais vvorking
uppon the kaie, taking by the daye \\\]d. ... xv]d.
It'm to Ratheryn Morys for vj bourden of mosse ... v]d.
It'm paide to Jolin ap S'r Griffith for hym and his horse
the space [of] iiij dais, taking v]d. by the daye ... ijí.
It'in paide for iiij smale roopes ... ... \\\]d.
It'm paide for the mending of one tornell ... ... \]d.
It'm paide for the kariage of water to slake the lyme ... \\\]d.
Summa ejusdem ebdomade ... xxvij5. \\\]d.
Ebdomada in ffesto Translacionis S'ci Thome [3rd July].
It'm paide to Hoell mason for vj dais laboring on the
kaye, taking v]d. by the daye ... ... iijj.
It'm paid to David ap Hoell mason for vj dais laboring
on the kaye, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... \\]s.
It'm paide to Denes Roche mason for vj dais laboring on
the kaie, takyng by the day v]d. ... ... \\]s.
It'm to John ap Yeuan mason for vj dais laboring on the
kaye, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... \\]s.
It'm paide to D'd goch mason for vj dais laboring on the
kaye, talcing by the daye vd. ... ... \\s. vd. 1
It'm paide to David Drome laborer tor vj dais Iaboring
on the kaye, taking by the day iiijW. ... ... \\s.
It'm paide to D'd ap Ll' laborer for vj days laboring on
the kaye, taking iiij</. le daye ... ... \]s.
It'm to John ap Madocke for vi dais laboring on the kaie,
taking i\\]d. le daye ... ... ... ijí.
It'm paide to John ap Ric' laborer for vj days Iaboring on
the kaye, taking \\\]d. le daye ... ... ijs.
It'm to Will'm ap Griffith for vj days laboring on the
kaye, taking by the daye \\\]d. ... ... \]s.
1 Should be yj, but in total as v.
Abbey, anci Bangor anci Beaumaris Friaries. 91
It'm paide to John ap S'r John Gruff' for vj dais laboring
for hym and hys horse, taking by the day v]d. y to cary
sande and morter ... ... ... \\)S.
It'm paide to John ap leuan for hym and his horse the
space of iij days and a halfe to cary sand and morter,
taking also v]d. le daye ... ... ... xx]d.
[m. 7.]
It'm paide to Katerin Moris for sixe bourden of mosse ... v]d.
It'm paid to Richarde Sparrowe for one boote [boat]
laden within stones from Bangor to Caern' ... xi]d.
It'm paide to Morys ap Yenan ap Hoell, for one boote
laden with stones from Bangor to Caern' ... xije/.
It'm payde for mendyng of one turnell ... ... i]d.
It'm paide to Ratheryn Moorys for kariing of water to
slake the lyme ... ... ... iii]d.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... xxxijí. i]d.
Ebdomada prox' ffestum Translacionis S'ci Thome.
It'm paide to Rouland Ffoxewiste laborer for one dai's
wourke in taking downe of scklats from the churche
of Bangor, taking by the daye iiij^. ... ... iii]d.
It'm paid to Richarde ap Yeuan laborer for one day's
worke to take the sclats from the sclater ... iii]d.
It'm paid to Jamys ap Ithell for hym and his horseby the
space of ij dais to bring the said slats to the water
side, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... xi]d.
It'm paide to Richarde Sparowe for the cariage of one
booté loode of slates from Bangor to Caern' ... xi\d
It'm paid to Hughe ap Hoell for the cariage of one bote
loode of sckiats from Bangor to Caern' ... xi]d.
It'm paide to John Sadlar for the cariage of the tymber
of the Porche of Bangor, and sclats to the watersyde vii]d.
It'm paide to David Thome for twoo dais laboring to
rydde the stable, takyng by the daye iii]d. ... vii]d.
It'm paide to David ap Ll' laborer for ij dais laboring to
ridde the stables, taking by the daye iii]d. ... vii]d.
It'm paide to Hughe ap Hoell for the caryage ofiij boots
loode with scíats from Bangor to Caern' ... iijí.
It'm paide to Richarde ap Yeuan ap R. for hym and his
horse the space of ij dais to carye sclats and glasse
to the water side from the churche of Bangor, taking
by the daye v]d. ... ... ... xi]d.
It'm paide to David ap Will'm sclater for the taking
downe the one half of the slats of the cloyster ... v'ûjd.
It'm paide to John ap S'r Grnffith for the cariage of iij
boots loode of síclats from the water side to the
Shyre Hall ... ... ... ... xd.
It'm paide to Ll'i ap R. for one pykarde laden with
tembre from Conwey wood to Caern' ... ... xs.
; j
92 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm paide to Roberte ap Will'm and to Rouland ap
Will'm for iij dais laboring to sarve the planks for
the stable, taking by tlie daye v]d. le pece [each] ... iijí.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xxiiijí. ]d.
Ebdomada in ffesto S'ce Marie Magdalene [22nd July].
It'm paide to Lewes ap R. mason for sixe dais laboring
to make the porche of the Hall and by the Chambre,
taking by the daye v]d. ob. ... ... û]s. \\]d.
It'm paide to greate Richarde laborer for vj dais laboring
to serve the masons, taking by the daye \\\]d. ... i]s.
It'm paide to Robert ap Will'm and Rouland ap Will'm
carpinters for vj dais laboring on the Porche and the
lytle Chambre, takying by the daye v]d. le pece ... v]s.
It'm paide to David ap Yeuan carpinter for vj dais \vork
on the Porche and litle Chambre, taking by the daye
v]d. ... ... ... ... iijí.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... xiiijí. iij<s?.
Ebdomada post ffestum S'ce Marie Magdalene.
It'm paide to Lewes ap R. mason for iij dais work in
making the stone wourke of the Pourche and lytill
chambre, taking by the daye, v]d. ob. ... ... x'\xd. ob.
It'm paide to John ap Yeuan mason for vj dais work to
make the Porche and litle Chambre, taking v]d. le
day ... ... ... ... iijí.
It'm paide to David Dromme for vj dais laboring to serve
the masons, taking by the daye \\\]d. ... ... ijí.
It'm paide to greate Richarde for vj dais laboring to
serve the masons, taking by the daie \'\i]d. ... \]s.
It'm paide to John ap S'r Gruff" for hym and his horse
the space of vj dais to carie sand and morter, taking
by the daie v]d. ... ... ... \\]s.
[m. 7d.]
It'm paid to Roberte ap Will'm and Rouland ap Will'm
carpinters for vj dais worke on the Porche and litle
Chambre, taking by the daie v]d. le pece ... v]s.
It'm paide to David ap Yeuan carpinter for vj dais work
on the Porche and litle Chambre, taking by the daye
v]d. ... ... ... ... \\]s. .
It'm paide to Richarde Sparro for the kariage of one bote
loode of scklats from Bangor to Caern' ... xijr/.
It'm paide to Will'm ap Hoell for iiij boote Ioode of
stones from Anglesey to Caern' ... ... iiijí.
It'm paide to Ric. ap Will'm sclater for yj dais work on
the Exchequier, takyng by the daie vj«. ... iijí.
It'm paide to John Clarke tor vj dais laboring to serve
the sclater, taking by the daye ü\]d. ... ... \]s.
It'm paid to Richarde ap Yeuan ap R. for hym and his
horse the space of one daye to carie sclats from the
churche of Bangor to the watei side, taldng by the
daye v]d. .. ... ■•■ ■■■ vj<£
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaides. 93
It'm paide to John ap Madock and to grete Ric' for the
cariage up of iij bote loode of sclates from the water
syde to the Shyre Hall ... ... ... v\d.
It'm paide to David ap Hoell mason for iij dais work in
making the cubberde in the Hall, taking vjd. le daye xvii]d.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... xxxin>. ]d. ob.
Ebdomada post ffestum S'ci Jacobi apostoli [25th July].
It'm paide to Roberte ap Will'm for v dais worke in
plancking the stable and making the racks, taking
by the daye v]d. ... ... ••• n> v]d.
It'm paide to Rouland ap Will'm and David ap Yeuan
carpinters for v dais in plancking the stabulls, taking
by the daye vjd. le pece ... ... ... vs.
It'm paide to Hugh ap Hoell ap Dicus for the cariage of
an Auter [altar] stone from Bewmaris to Caern' ... xi]d.
It'm paide to the said Hughe for iiij boats loodeof stones
from Anglesey to Caern'... ... ... iü]s.
It'm paide to John ap Madock laborer for ij dais work in
ridding the courte, taking by the day iii]d. ... vii]d.
It'm paide to John Clark for ij dais work in serving the
mason, taking by the daye [iiij^.] ... ••• vii]d.
It'm paide to Roberte ap Will'm carpinter for vj dais
work in plancking the stable and setting the bordes
in the hall, taking by the daye vijd. ... ... iijí. v]d.
It'm paide to Roulland ap Will'm and to David ap Ieuan
carpinters for vj dais work in making the bordes in
the Hall, taking by the daye v]d. le pece ... vjí.
lt'm paide to John Gruff laborer for iiij dais laboring to
rydde the courte and the stable ... ... xv]d.
It'm paide to Will'm ap Hoell laborer for yj dais work in
ridding the courte and the stable, taking by the daye
iii]d. ... ... ... ••• i]s.
It'm paide Roulande Ffoxewist sclater for vj dais work in
pointing the Hall, taking by the daye iii]d. ... i]s.
It'm paide to Hughe ap Hoell for the kariage of one
boote loode of lyme from Caern' to Bewmarys ... xi]d.
It'm paide to John ap Madock and to greate Ric. for the
lading of the said bote with lyme ... ... iii]d.
It'm paide to Hugh Smyth for ij hundreth of lathis ... xi]d.
It'm paide to Hugh Smyth for half a hundreth of spikins ij^.
It'm paide to John ap Yeuan for iij dais laboring on the
Exchequier, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... xvii]d.
It'm paide to Rouland Ffoxewist in twoo dais for poynting
the Hall, taking iii]d. le daye ... ... viijí/.
It'm paide to Ric' ap Will'm sclater for vj dais on the
Exchequier, taking by the day v]d. ... ... ü]s.
It'm paide to John Clark laborer for vj dais work to serve
tlie sclater, taking iii]d. by the daye ... ... ijí.
It'm paide to John Smyth for the making of the barres
for the litle Chambre ... ... ... iüj^-
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... xxxvih>. viij^.
94 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
Ebdomada in ffesto S'ci Laurencii [ioth August].
It'm paid to Ric. ap Wili'm sclater for yj dais worke in
sklating the Porche and the litle chambre ... iijí.
It'm paide to Hugh Goodfrey for v dais \vork in glasing
the wyndowes in the lytle Chambre ... ... ijí. \]d.
It'm paid to Holl ap Yenan for vj trees to bere the boordes
in the Hall ... ... ... ... xi]d.
It'm paide to Ric. ap Will'm sciater in pointing the Hall,
the space of one daye ... ... ... \]d.
[m. 8.]
It m paide to Hughe Smyth for a m 1 [1,000] lathe nailes viij</.
It'm paid to the said Huglie for halfe a hundreth of borde
nailes ... ... ... ... i]d.
It'm paide to Roberte ap Will'm carpinter for iiij dais
work on the Exchequyer and Stable, taking \]d. a
day ... ... ... ... n>.
It'm paide to John Smyth for one lock and a keye to the
litle chamber dore ... ... ... xd.
It'm paide to Thomas Hervy carpinter for iiij dais work
in making the boordes in the Hall, taking by the
daye viij«. ... ... ... ... üs. \ii]d.
It'm paide Lewes ap Yeuan carpinter for iiij dais worke,
taking by the daye \]d. ... ... ... iis.
It'm paide to Hugh ap Hoell for the hariage of one boote
loode of sclats from Bangor to Caern' ... ... x\]d.
It'm paide to greate Ric' laborer for one dai's work to
rydde the courte, taking iii]d. by the daye ... \\\\d.
It'm paide to Will'm Poell laborer for iij dais work to
ndde the courte and stabie, taking iinẂ. le day ... xi\d.
It'm paide to Thomas Gouff' for hym and his horse the
space of ij dais, taking \]d. by the daye to ridde the
courte and stable ... ... ... x\\d.
It'm paide to John ap Madock for one dai's worke to
ridde the courte, taking by the daye iii\d. ... iii\d.
It'm paide for the kariage up of a boote loode of stones
from the water side to the Justice Courte ... ii]d.
It'm paide for the kariage of a pikarde loode of tymbre
from the water side to the Justice Courte ... \]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xixy. ixd.
[Period omitíed.]
It'm paide to Robert Plumer for saudring and dressing
the leade over the Treasure House by the space of
iij dais, taking for every daye xd. ... ... i]s. \]d.
It'm paide to the plumerfs] servant for serving his
master iij dais, taking \]d. every day ... xviijflf.
It'm paide to Thomas Sclater for making a doore goyng
in to the leade of the Tresore House, for one day ... \]d
It'm paid to Thomas ap David Hoell for ij bourdes to
make the said doore ... ... ... \\d.
It'm paide to Hugh Smyth for a paire of hengs [hinges] xij^.
It'm to the said Hugh for nalis to make the said dore ... ij^.
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 95
It'm paide for a lock and a kaye boughte for the same
doore ... ... ••• • •• v \d-
It'm paide for ij gists [joists] to set underthe leadein the
said Toure ... ... ... ••• xvjú?.
It'm paide for iij burdys [boards] to leye under the said
leade ... ... ... • •• ix<£
It'm paid for ij locks for ij doores within the Bell Towre x\)d.
It'm paide for an other lock for dore in the Towre
Hickhyn ... ... ... ••• v)d.
It'm paide for an other looke for a doore within the said
Towre ... ... ... ••• vj<£
It'm paide for an other lock for the kechin doore ... v'újd.
It'm paide for iijc. sclats boughte of Thomas ap Meredith
for the stable ... ... ... ixd.
It'm paide for ij peicks of lyme ... ... x\]d.
It'm paide to Thomas Sclater for iij dais working, taking
every daye for hym selfe vj«., and to his servant
serving hym by the said space for every daye ì'újd.... \]s. v]d.
It'm paide for a lock for the stable doore ... ... v]d.
It'm paide for clamstaves and rooddis for the stable
walle ... ... ... ... in>. i\\]d.
It'm for the cariage of xltie carrefull of claye to Griff'
laborer for hym and his horse, taking v]d. by the
daye for iiij dais ... ... ... ijí-
It'm paid to the said Gruff' for dawbing and winding for
x dais, every daye v\d. ... ... ... vs.
It'm paide for Irons for the Postern gate ... ... v\\]d.
It'm paide to John Smyth for a dai's work on the said
Postern gate... ... ... ... v\d.
It'm paide for a hanging lcock for the same gate ... x\\d.
It'm paide for iij bourdes to set under the leade ... \xd.
It'm paide to Thomas Sclater for one dai's work upon
the same burdys ... ... ... v]d.
It'm paide for iij boordes of v yardes in length for the
Exchequier, every bourde v]d. ... ... xviij^.
It'm paide íor iij c of greate sclats, at iiij^. le c. [100] ... x'\]d.
It'm paide for ij pecks of lyme ... ... x\]d.
It'm paide for iij dais work to Thomas Ffoxewist sclater,
taking v]d. a daye ... ... ... xviijV/.
lt'm paide for xl tie bourdes to burde the chamber fflores
in the Castell, for every bourde i\]d. ... ... xs.
It'm paide for viij gysts for the Dettrs [Debtors'] Chamber,
for every giyste x\]d. ... ... ... viijí.
[m. 8d.]
It'm paide to Hugh Smyth for ij c spiking nailes, for every
hundreth vd. ... ... ... xd.
It'm paide to Thomas Hervy for v dais working uppon
the Detters chamber ... ... ... \\s. v]d.
It'm paide for xxiiij bordes for Eve Towre for the p'son
[prison] house, for every borde iiijrf. ... ... viiJ5~.
96 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm paide for c and di. [150] of spildng nailes for the
same work, after the rate of vd. the c... ... vijrf. ob.
It'm paide to Thomas Harvy for iij dais working uppon
the same, taking v]d. by the daye ... ... xv\\]d.
It'm paide to Griff ap Hoell caruing of iiij xx [80] carefull
of claye for the fflores of the Detters Chambers and
the fflore in the pryson house in Eve Toure ... \\]s. \\\]d.
It'm paide to the said Gruff for dawbyng and makyng
the same ffloures by the space of viij days, taking by
the daye \\\]d. ... ... ... \]s. v\\]d.
It'm payde to the plumer for the sowdryng of the valting
leade, and for the souder of the same, by the space
of ij dais, taking by the daye xd. ... ... \]s. xd.
It'm paide for one peick of lyme for the reparacions of
the Exchequier ... ... ... v]d.
Summa ... ... ...lxxvi.viijrf.ob.
The Castell of Harloghe.
In primis to Morgan ap Jenkyn for xx tie trees, price of
every tree v\\]d. ... ... ... x\\]s. \\\]d.
It'm paid to Ric. ap Ffyvyan ior the ffalling downe of the
said trees, and two greate somers ... ... iijí. \\\]d.
It'm paide for kariage of xviij of the same xx trees to
Thomas ap John ap Ll' and to Robert ap Eignion et
al' ... ... ... ... xiijí. v]d.
It'm paide to Ric. ap Ffyvian for the kariage of iij trees
to the pitte banke to be sawn ... ... v]d.
It'm paid for the kariage of ij greate somers, the one
xx\]d. and the other vs. ... ... ... v]s. xd.
It'm paide to Grono ap Ieuan for the kariage of the sawen
bordes of iij trees from the wood to Harlegh ... xxd.
It'm paide to Morgan ap Janlcyn for ij grete somers ... iiijj.
It'm paide to Ll' ap Ieuan ap D'd for viij oks v\\]s. vu]d.
to Merick ap Yeuan for iiij oks \\\]s, to Grifi" ap Ll'
for iij oks \\]s., to Meredith ap D'd iiij oks \\\]s., to
Lewes ap Ric' for iij oks \\]s. ... ... xxijí. v\\]d.
It'm paide to Edwarde goz [goch], Griffìth ap Yeuan and
others for falling downe of the same trees ... iiijí. v\\]d.
It'm paide to Morris ap Yeuan ap Eden' and Gittayn ap
John carpinters for twoo dais in chosing of the said
tymbre ... ... ... ... x\]d.
It'm paide to the said Morrys for ij dais working uppon
the said tymbre ... ... ... xiiijrf.
It'm paid to R. ap D'd for ij dais working upon the said
tymbre ... ... ... ... xijrf.
It'm paid to Gittyn John for ij dais worldng ... x\]d.
It'm paid to Ieuan ap Tudder for Iike ... ... xd.
It'm paid to Hoell goch for like ... ... xd.
It'm paide for cariage of twoo greate trees from Dolgelle
by water to the Ab[er]mo ... ... ijí. v\\]d.
Summa ... ... ... 1xxìxí.
Abbey
and Bançor and Beaumaris Friaries. 97
[m. 9.]
Ebdomada in ffesto translacionis S'ci Ffrancisci [24th May].
It'm paid to Morgan ap Jenkyn and Will'm ap Yeuan
for v greate trees, every tree xijrf. ... ... vs.
It'm paide to Morgan ap Jenkyn for x trees, price of every
tree viij^.
Item paide for cariage of ix of the abovenamyd x trees
to Harlegh thre myles of [off], to Will'm ap Yeuan ...
It'm paide for the kariage of iij trees for the Barrell and
other necessaries
It'm paide for the cariage of ij greate gyeists to Harlegh
to Will'm ap Ieuan
It'm paide for the karyage of the fforke to the wynlasse
[windlass]
It'm paide for the cariage of iii greate roopis and ij brason
pullis from Caern' to Harlegh
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xxxj.y. xd.
Ebdomada post ffestum translacionis S'ci Ffrancisci.
It'm paid to Thomas Hervy carpynter forvj daislaboring
on the castell, taking by the daye vijr/. ... iijs. v]d.
It'm paid to Richarde Browne, carpinter, for vj days work
on the Castell, taking by the day v]d. ... ... \\}S.
It'm paid to Gruffith ap John carpinter for vj dais labor-
ing on the Castell, taking by the daye v]d. ... ii]s.
It'm paid to Tuddre ap Hoell withe and to Gruff ap
Hoeil for the sawing of ij roods of boordes, after the
rate of vs. the roode ... ... ... xs.
v]s.
vi\]d.
xs.
v]d.
\]s.
iiij^.
vs.
\xd.
vi]d.
x\]d.
i]s.
x]d.
i]s.
v]d.
i]s.
v]d.
v]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xìxí. v]d.
Ebdomada in ffesto Translacionis S'ci Edmundi [ath June].
It'm paid to Thomas Harvy, carpintor for v dais work,
taking by the day viid.
It'm paid to Ric. Browne, carpinter, for v days laboring
on the Castell, taking by the daye v]d.
It'm paide to Griff. ap John, carpinter, for v dais laboryng
on the Castell, takyng by the daye v]d.
It'm paide D'd ap Yeuan smyth for iij iron pynnes
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... viijj. vd.
Ebdomada prox" post ffestum Translacionis S'ci Edmundi.
It'm paid to Thomas Harvy carpinter for vj dais laboring
on the Eastell, taking by the daye vi]d. ... iijí. v]d.
It'm paid to Robert ap Will'm, carpinter, for vi dais
laboryng on the Castell, taking by the daye v]d. ... ii]s.
It'm paide to Ric. Browne, carpinter, for yj dais laboring
on the Castell, taking by the daye v]d. ... ii\s.
It'm paide to Gruffith ap John, carpinter, for vj dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the day v]d. ... ii]s.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xi\s. v]d.
H
98 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
Ebdomada in Ffesto Translacionis S'ci Edwardi [20th June].
It'm paid to Thomas Hervy, carpynter, for vj dais vvoork
on the Castell, taking by the daye v\\d. ... \\}s. v)d.
It'm paid to Ric. Browne, carpinter, for vj dais woork,
taking by the day v)d. ... ... ... ü)s.
It'm paide to Robert ap Will'm, carpynter, for yj dais
laboring on the Castell, taking v)d. le day ... iijs.
It'm paid to Ieuan ap Gruff', carpinter, for iiij dais labor-
ing on the Castell, taking iinW. le daye ... *v)d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xs. xd.
It'm paid to Thomas Hervy, carpynter, for vj dais labor-
ing 011 the Castell, taking by the daye v\\)d. ... iüií.
It'mpaid to Robert ap Will'm, carpynter, for vj dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the day v)d. ... \\)s.
It'm paide to Rouland ap Will'm, carpinter, for yj dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the day v)d. ... iijí.
It'm paide to Richarde ap Browne, carpinter, for vj dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the daye v)d. ... \\)s.
It'm paide to D'd ap Will'm, carpinter, for vj dais laboring
on the Castell, taking by the day v)d. ... ... u)s.
It'm paid for one gable [cable] roope of vj stone and a
half, after the rate of \\s. \)d. le stone ... ... xiiijí.
[m. 9d.]
It'm paid to Tuddr' ap Hoell for the sawing of iij roods
of boordes, taking for every roode vs ... xvs.
It'm paide to Will'm ap Yeuan for the cariage of iij greate
giysts from the wood to Harlegh iij myles of[f] ... vijs. v)d.
Summa eiusdem ebdomade ... lij^. v)d.
Ebdomada in ffesto translacionis S'ci Thome [7th July].
It'm paide to Thomas Harvy, carpinter, for v dais laboring
011 the Castell, taking by the daye viijc/. ... \'\)s. ü\)d.
It'm paide to Robert ap Will'm, carpinter, for v dais
laboryng on the Castell, taking by the daye v)d. ... \)s. v)d.
ít'm paid to Rouland ap Will'm for v dais laboring 011
the Kastell, taking by the daye v)d. ... \)s. v)d.
It'm paide to David ap Will'm, carpinter, for vdais labor-
ing on the Castell, taking by the day v)d. ... \)s. v)d.
It'm paid to Richarde Browne, carpinter, for v dais labor-
ing on the Castell, taking v)d. a day ... ... \)s. v)d.
It'm paid to Tuddr' ap Hoel! with, forthe sawing of one
roode of Boordes, taking for the roode vs. ... vs.
It'm paid to D'd ap Yeuan, laborer, for ij dais laboring
011 the Rastell, taking by the day iiij^. ... v'\\)d.
It'm paid to Yeuan ap Griffith, laborer, for one dai's
work on the Kastell, taking by the daye \n)d. ... \\\)d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xìxj. \\\)d.
Aòbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 99
Ebdomada prox' post ffestum Translacionis S'ci Thome.
It'm paid to Thomas Harvy for vj dais laboring on the
Kastell, taking by the daye vii]d. ... ... iiijs.
It'm paid to Robert ap Will'm, carpinter, for vj dais
laboring on the castell, taking by the daye v]d. ... \\\s.
It'm paid to Rouland ap Will'm, carpinter, for vj dais
laboring on the castell, taldng by the daye v]d. ... \\]s.
It'm paid to David ap Will'm, carpinter, for vj dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the day v]d. ... \\]s.
It'm paid to Richard Browne, carpinter, for vj dais
laboring on the Castle, taking by the day v]d. ... \\]s.
It'm paide for the cariage of the boordes from the grene
to the castell ... ... ... \]d.
It'm paid to Ieuan ap Tuddr' for iiij horse loode of
woodes to wynde the whele ... ... \ii]d.
It'm paid to Tuddre ap Hoell for one dai's worke on the
castell, taking by the daye \ii]d. ... ... u\]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xv]s. xd.
Ebdomada in ffesto S'ce Marie Magdalene [22nd July].
It'm paide to Thomas Hervy, carpinter, for yj dais labor-
ing on the castell, taking by the day v'\i]d. ... \\\]s.
It'm paide to Robert ap Will'm, carpinter, for yj dais
laboring of [011] the Castell, taldng by the daye v]d. \\\s.
It'm paide to Rouland ap Will'm, carpinter, for vj dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the day v\d. ... ü\s.
It'm paide to D'd ap Will'm, carpinter, for yj dais labor-
ing on the Castell, tahing by the day v]d. ... \\]s.
It'm paid to Ric. Browne, carpinter, for vj dais laboring
on the Castell, taking by the daye v]d. ... \\]s.
It'm paide to Yeuan ap D'd for ij dais worke, taking by
the daye \\\]d. ... ... ... v\\]d.
It'm paide ior one horse loode of roddes ... ... \]d.
It'm Ric. Bangor for one dai's woork and a half for
working on the Castell, taldng v]d. le day ... \xd.
It'm paide to Yeuan ap Gruffìth, laborer, for halfe a dai's
labour on the Castell, taking \\\]d. le day ... \]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xvijí. ix«'.
Ebdomada in ffesto Jacobi ap' li [25th July].
It'm paide to Thomas Hervy, carpinter, for v dais labor-
ing on the Castell, taking by the day viij^.
It'm paide to Robert ap Will'm, carpinter, for v dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the daye v]d.
It'm paid to Roulland ap Will'm for v dais work on the
Castell, taking by the daye v\d.
It'm paide to D'd ap Will'm, carpinter, for v dais laboring
on the Castell, taking v\d. le daye
It'm paid to Ric. Browne, carpinter, for v dais laboring
on the Castell, taking v\d. le daye
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade
iijí.
Üijrt'.
\]s.
v]d.
\]s.
v\d.
i]s.
v]d.
\]s.
v]d.
x\\\s.
ji2
\\\]d.
ioo The Fate qf ' the Structures of Conway
[m. 10.]
Ebdomada prox' post ffestum S'ci Jacobi ap'li.
It'm paide to Thomas Hervy, carpinter, for iiij dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the daye \ii\d. ... i\s. \ii]d.
It'm paide to Robert ap Will'm, carpinter, for iiij dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the daye \]d. ... \]s.
It'm paid to Rouland ap Will'm, carpinter, for iiij dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the day \\d. ... \]s.
It'm paide to Ric. Browne, carpinter, for ìiij dais laboring
on the Castell, taking by the daye \]d. ... \]s.
It'm paide to Ric. Ffyvion for the carege of ij brason
pullis from Harlegh to Bangor ... ... iiijrt'.
It'm paide to the Constable of Harlogh for the kariage
of xxviij bordes to Harlogh iij miles of[l] ... xvj<^.
It'm paid to the said Constable for the kariageof iij trees
to Harlogh iij miles of ... ... ... iijj.
It'm paide to Robert ap Will'm for vij dais laboring on
tlie Castell, taking by the daye \]d. ... ... i\]s. \\d.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomade ... xvjí. xd.
Ebdomada in ffesto S'ci Laurentii [ioth August].
It'm paide to Rauffe Johnson, carpinter, for vj dais labor-
ing on the Castell, taking by the daye \]d. ... i\\s.
It'm paide to David ap Yeuan, carpinter, for \\\ dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the daye \\d. ... \i\s. \\d.
It'm paide to Morris ap Hewe, carpinter, for vj dais
laboring on the Castell, taking by the day \]d. ... ii]s.
It'm paide to Gruff' ap Hoell, carpinter, for yj dais labor-
ing on the Castell, taking by the daye \]d. ... ii]s.
It'm paid for the cariage of ij pecks of lyme to Harlegh
from Caern' to John ap S'r Gruff. ... ... xd.
It'm paide to John ap Yeuan, mason, for vij dais laboring
on the Eastell, taking by the daye \]d. ob. ... iiij. ixd.
It'm paide to Lewes ap R., mason, for vij dais laboring
on the Castell, taking by the daye \]d. ob ... iiií. ixd.
It'm paide to D'd ap Yeuan, laborer, for v dais laboring
to serve the masons, taking by the daye iii\d. ... xxd.
It'm paide to Ric. Ffivion, laborer, for v dais in serving
the masons, taking by the daye ii\]d. ... ... xxd.
It'm paide to John ap Madock for v dais laboring to
serve the masons, takmg i\i\d. by the daye ... xxd.
It'm paide to Ric. Ffyvion for one dai's laboring to ridde
the leds, talcing by the day iiijrt'. ... ... iiijtf'.
It'm paide to Tuddr' ap Yeuan for the sawing of a
cviij foote of burdes [boards] ... ... xxí£
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xxvijí. xd.
Ebdomada prox' post ffestum S'ci Laurentii.
It'm paide to Robert ap Will'm, carpynter, for one dai's
work, taking by the daye \]d. ... ... \]d.
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 101
It'm paid to David ap Yeuan, carpinter, for one dai's
work, taking by the daye v]d. ... ... v]d.
It'm paide to Moris ap Hewe, carpinter, for one dai's
vvork, taking by the day v\d. ... ... v]d.
It'm paid to Raffe Jonson, carpinter, for one dai's worke
on the Castell, taking v]d. by the day ... ... v]d.
It'm paide to Gruff' ap Hoell, carpinter, for one dai's
work on the Castell, taking by the day v]d. ... v]d.
It'm paide to John ap Yeuan, mason, for one dai's vvork
on the Castell, taking by the day v]d. ob. ... v\d. ob.
It'm paide to Lewes ap R. f mason, for one dai's work on
the Castell, taking by the daye v]d. ob. ... v\d. ob.
It'm paide to Hugh Smyth for a m 1 [1,000] single spikins
at iijj iii]d. le thousand ... ... ... ü]s. ii'\]d.
It'm paide to the said Hugh íor a m 1 of double spyldngs,
aftertherateofvjj.viijV.lem 1 ... ... v]s. vi'\]d.
It'm paide to John a Lee and ij piummers for iij dais in
taking downe a rouff and leede [Iead], that ís to sey
every day xviij<r/. ... ... ... h^s. v]d.
It'm paide to Rouland Thickyns for cc [2 cwt.] of Iron
every c. vih>. ... ... ... X v]s.
It'm paid to Hugh Plumer of Worcèster for casting and
leing [laying] the leed uppon the castell of Harlegh iiij 11
It'm paide for iiij lb of souder ... ... ... xv\d.
It'm paide for nailes ... ... ... i'\i\d.
Summa istius Ebdomade ... cxvs. ixd.
[m. iod. vacant.]
[m. 11.]
THE TÜWNE WALLIS AND SHIRE HALL OF BEWMARYS.
Ebdomoda p'x post ffestum Nat. S'ci Johannis Baptiste [24th June].
In primis paied to Thomas Res, carpenter, tor cuttyng
wodde to the lyme kylle the space of iiij dayes,
talíyng by the day vid. .. ... ... \\s.
It'm paied to Hugh Hampson, carpenter, for ij days
laboryng to cutt wodde to burne the lyme' kylle,
takyng every day v]d. ... ... ... xij^.
It'm paied to Gruff' Andrew for thre[e] dayes workyng
to cutt wodde to the lyme kill, takyng every day i\i]d. x\]d.
It'm paied to John ap Will'm for ffawlyng [felling] two
tres ... ... ... ... ü]d.
It'm paied to John Taberner, laborer, the space of two
days cuttyng wodde to the lyme kyll, takyng every
day iiij^. ... ... ... ... v iij</.
It'm paied to Thnmas ap Ithell, mason, for two days
worlce to take downe stones from the Ffrer House of
Bewmarys, takyng by the day vj^. ... ... x\\d.
It'm paied to D'd ap Ll'n, mason, for ij dayes worke to
take downe stones ffrom the Ffryers of Bewmarys,
taking by the day v]d. ... ... ... xi]d.
102 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm paid to Hoell ap D'd laboryng two days to take
stones ffrom the seid masons, takyng by the day
\'û]d. ... ... ... ... vii)d.
It'm paied to Roland Abrettell for ij botte lodes of stones
from the Ffriers to the key ... ... xvj^.
It'm paied to John Inggr'm [Ingram] for vj bott lods of
stones from the seid Ffriers unto the key ... ijí.
It m paied to Gilb't Roby[n]son for certen wodde to
brane [burn] the lyme kyll, in grose ... ... xxs.
It'm paied to John Tabernar tbe space of ij dayes, takyng
by the day iii)d. ... ... ... viijd.
It'm paied for ij seves to sift the lyme ... ... iii)d.
It'm paied to Ieuan ap D'd íor the cariage of xij tres
ffrom the seid Ffryers to the lyme kyll, in grose ... ii')s. ijd.
It'm paied to D'd ap Ll'n, laborer, for iiij days worke,
takyng by the day \i\jd. ... ... ... xvjd.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xxxvjí. vd.
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli [29th June].
It'm paied to Gruff' ap Hoell, mason, for vj days workyng
on the walles, takyng vi]d. le day ... ... ii]s. v\d.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, for vj days workyng
on the walls, takyng by the day vjd. ob. ... iijj. újd.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days workyng
on the walls, takyng every day vjd. ob. ... iijí. iijd.
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth, laborer, the space of
iiij dayes, takyng every day 'úijd. ... ... xvjd.
It'm paied to Hugh ap Richard for vj days laboryng on
the key, takyng by day iujd. ... ... ijs.
It'm paied to Richard ap Thomas for iij days laboryng
on the key, takyng every day iiij^. ... ... xij</.
It'm paied to Morgan ap Will'm for thre days laboryng
on the Towne Walls, takyng le day iiijflf. ... xijí^.
It'm paied to Harry Tarboke, smyth, for one mattok ... vjd.
It'm paied to John ap Ris, laborer, the space of v days,
takyng every day iiijd. ... ... ... xxd.
It'm paied to John Phivion [? Vivian] the space of vj dayes
to cutt wodde to brane the lyme kyll, takyng by the
day iiij^/. ... ... ... ... ij^.
It'm paied to John Taberner the space of vj days to cutt
wodde to brane the lyme kyll, takyng by the day iiije/. i\s.
It'm paied to Richard ap Will'm the space of vj dayes to
cut woode to brane under the lyme kyll, takyng by
the day iiijí^. ... ... ... ... i j-v.
It'm paied to Harry Hova, laborer, the space of vj dayes
workyng on the keys, takyng every day iii)d. ... ijí.
It'm paied to John Alye. carpenter, the s|)ace of vj days
worke, tafcyng every day vjd. in makyng the house
ior the masons to worke ... ... ... iiji'.
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 103
It'm paied to D'd ap Ll'n, mason, the spaoe of vj days
vvork in takyng downe stones ffrom the Ffryers of
Bewmaris, talcyng by the day \\d. ... ... iijí.
It'm paied to Will'm ap Ieuan for hym and his vj oxen
and ij horses the spase of thre days to cary wodde
to the lyme kylle ... ... ... iiij. \\\\d.
It'm paied to Gylbert Robynson for the cariage of stones
to the lyme kyll and brekyng of the same stones, in
grose ... ... ... ... xv]S. v\\]d.
It'm paied to Ric' ap Grono for vj days worke in settyng
the lyme kyll, takyng every day v]d. ... ... iijí.
[m. 1 id.]
It'm paied to John Ingram for the cariage of vi botte lods
of stones from the Ffryers of Bewmaries to the key xxd.
It'm paied to John ap Tud' for hym and his horse the
space of ij days, takyng every day v]d., to cary stones
from the water syde to the key ... ... x\\d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... lvij^. v]d.
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum Translacionis S'ci Martini [_4th July].
It'm paied to Gruff. ap Hoell, mason, the space of vj days
worke on the key, takyng every day v\]d. ... \\]s. v]d.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, the space of 6 days
workying on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... iijí. \\]d.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days worltyng
on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... iii.y. \\]d.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for vj days workyng
on the key, takyng every day v]d. ... ... \\]s.
It'm paied to D'd ap Ll'n, mason, for iij days in pollyng
downe stones from the Ffriers of Bangor, takyng
every day v]d. ... ... ... xv\\]d.
It'm paied to Thomas ap Ieuan, laborer, for iij days
worke to take downe stones from the seid masons,
takyng every day \\\]d. ... ... ... xi]d.
It'm paied to Hugh Hampson and Roland Abretell, for
the cariage ofone botte lode with stones from Ban-
gor to Bewmarries ... ... ... xx\\d.
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth and John Mansman [? Manx-
man] for the cariage of xvj bott lods of stones ffrom
the Ffryers of Bewmarries to the key ... ... vs. \\\]d.
It'm paied to Gruff Andrew, laborer, for iiij days worke
on the key, takyng every day iiijä?. ... ... xvj<£
It'm paied to D'd ap Ric' for v days worke in branyng
[burning] of lyme, takyng every day v\d. ... \]s. v]d.
It'm paied to the seid D'd ap Ric' for watchyng the lyme
kyll the space of iij nyghts, takyng for every nyght
vjc/. ... ... ... ... xviijrt'.
It'm paied to Harry Holl's for iij nyghts watchyng the
lyme kyll, takyng iüj^. every nyght ... ... x\\d.
It'm paied to Hugh ap Res for the carriage of tangs [?]
to the lyme kyll, m grose... ... ... iiijí.
I ò4 The Fate of tke Structures of Conway
It'm paied to John Ingram for the carriage of ix botts
lade with stones ffrom the Ffryers of Bewmaries to
the key ... ... ... ... üjs.
It'm paied to Richard Johnson for one barrell of polls
[poles] to brane the lyme kyll ... ... \i\d.
It'm paied for rodds to bynde the house where the
masons dyd worke in ... ... ... \i]d.
It'm paied for naylls ... ... ... ii]d.
It'm paied to D'd ap Richard for hym and his man and
their ij horses the space of iij days to cary stones
from the Ffryers of Bewmarries to the key ... ü\s.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan for hym and hys man and
their ij horses the space of iiij days to carie stones
from the Fíryers of Bangor to the water side, taking
by the day every of them \]d. ... ... \\i\s.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomode ... xliiijí. \d.
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum S'ci P'nati m'ris [sic\
It'm paied to Gruff' ap Hoell, mason, for vj days workyng
on the key, takyng \i]d. every day ... ... iijs. \\d.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days workyng
on the key, takyng \\d. ob. every day ... ... i\\s. ii]d.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, for vj days workyng
on the key, takyng every day \]d. ob. ... ... ii\s. h]d.
It'm paied to Richard Englefeild, mason, for vj days
workyng on the key, takyng every day \]d. ob. ... iijí. H\d.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for vj days workyng
on the key, takyng for every day \]d. ... ... H]s.
It'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for yj dais
workyng on the key, takyng \]d. ob. every day ... ii]s. ii]d.
It'm paied to Thomas ap Ithell, mason, for iij days worke
there, takyng \\d. le day ... ... ... xvihy.
It'm paied to D'd ap Ll'n, mason, the space of iij dayes
workyng on the key, takyng for every day \]d. ... x\ii]d.
It'm paied to vj laborers for v dayes to serve the masons,
takyng iiijrtf. le day every of them ... ... xs.
It'm paied to Roland Hyde for hym and hys horse the
space of iij days, takyng every day \]d. ... x\ii]d.
It'm paied to John Maketire, laborer, for v days workyng
at the key, takyng iii]d. every day ... ... xxd.
It'm paied to Thomas ap Grono for hym and hys horse
the space of iij daies to cary sande and morter,
takyng \]d. every day ... ... ... x\ii]d.
[m. 12.]
It'm paied for ij turnells to cary morter and sande ... xjj^.
It'm paied to Ric' Sparowe for the carriage of v bott lods
of stones irom Bangor to the key ... ... \s.
It'm paied to John Ingram for the cariage of x bott lode
of stones trom the Ffryers of Bewmarris to the key iij^. iii]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomode ... xlvj.y. \]d.
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 105
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum S'te Margaret Virginis [2oth July].
It'm paied to Gruff' mason for v days laboryng on the
key, takyng every day \\}d. ... ... ij-S'- *]d.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for v days laboryng
ther, takyng every day v]d. ob. .. ... ijí. v\\\d. ob.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, for v days Iabor on
the key, takyng ut supra ... ... ... ijj. v\\}d. ob.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for v days laboryng
ther, takyng every day v]d. ... ... i)S. v]d.
It'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for v days
laboryng on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... ijí. viijrt. ob.
It'm paied to Richard Englefeild, mason, for v days
laboryng on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... \]s. vû]d. ob.
It'm paied to Jamys ap Ithell for hym and hys horse the
space of iij days to cary stones ffrom the Ffryers of
Bewmarriës to the water syde, takyng by the day v]d. xv'ú]d.
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth for the carriage of viij bott
lods of stones from the Ffriers of Bewmarries to the
key ... ... ... ••• i.i-y- v'û]d.
It'm paied to Thomas ap Grono for hym and his horse
the space of v days to cary stones ffrom the Ffiiers
of Bewmarres to the water syde ... ... \]s. v\d.
It'm paied to D'd ap Ll'n, mason, the space of ij days in
takyng downe stones from the Ffriers of Bangor,
takyng by the day v]d. ... ... ■■■ x\]d.
It'm paied to Thomas ap Ieuan, mason, the space of
i] days in polyng downe of stones ffrom the Ffryers
of Bangor, takyng by the day v]d. ... ... x\]d.
It'm paied to Ll'n ap Ric' for one picarde lade with
stones of vj tons and di [6| tons] ffrom the Ffryers
of Bewmarries to the key... ... ... x\]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomode ... xxvs. x\d.
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum S'ci Jacobi apostoli [25th July].
It'm paied to Gruff ap Hoell, mason, for yj days laboryng
on the key, takyng every day v\]d. ... ... \\]s. v]d.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, the space of vj days
laboryng on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... iijs. \\]d.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days laboryug
on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... ... \\]s. \\]d.
It'm paied to Richard Inglefeild, mason. for vj days
labor on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... iijí. \\]d.
It'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for vj days
laboryng on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... \\]s. \\]d.
It'm paide to Rob't Roche, mason, the space of vj days
laboryng on the key, takyng every day v]d. ... \\]s.
It'm paied to vj laborars for vj days to serve the seid
masons, takyng every of them iiijí/. the day ... x\]s.
It'm paied to Will'm ap D'd for hym and hys horse for
iij days to cary sande and morter, takyng every day
v\d. ' ... ... ... ... xviij<£
i oó The Fate of the Strudures of Conway
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth for the cariage of ij bott lods
of stones ffrom tlie Ffryers of Bewmarries to the key vii]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomode ... xxxiijs. viijäf.
Ebdomod' prox' post ffestum S'ci Petri ad Vincula [ist August].
It'm paied to Gruff. ap Hoell, mason, the space of vj days
laboryng on the key, takyng every day v'\)d. ... i'\]s. v]d.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... ... ü]s. ü]d.
It'm paiedto Denys Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... ... i'\]s. i'\\d.
It'm paied to Ric' Englefeild, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the key, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... ü]s. ü\d.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for vj days labor on
the key, takyng every day v]d. ... ■ ■■ \\]s.
It'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for vj days
laboryng on the key, takyng every day v]d. ob. ... ii]s. ü]d.
It'm paied to Thomas Smyth for the carriage of xv bott
lods of stones ffrom the Ffriers of Bewmarries unto
the key ... ... ■•• ••• Ví -
Summa ejusdem Ebdomode ... xxiih>. v\d.
[m. i2d.]
The membrane commences with a number of items which are can-
celled because re-entered below.
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum S'ci Laurentii Martyris [ioth August].
It'm paied to Gruff' mason for vj days laboryng on the
towne walls, takyng by the day vijí^. ... ••• ü]s. vj<z.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... n]s. u]d.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, the space of vj daies
laboryng on the key, taking by the day v]d. ob. ... ü]s. û]d.
It'm paied to Thomas Rochdale, mason, for vj days
laboryng on the towne walls, talcyng vjd. ob. le day iijí. i'\]d.
It'm paied to Ric' Inglefeilde, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng v]d. ob. le day ... H]s. \'\)d.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng v]d. le day ... \'\}s.
It'm paied to |ohn Dauyson, laborer, for thre days
laboryng on the towne walls, takyng by the day \\'\]d. x'\]d.
It'm paied to Dauet ap Will'm, laborer, for ij days labor-
yng on the towne walls, takyng by the day üi]d. ... v\\)d.
It'm paied to D'd ap Ll'n, laborer, for iij days laboryng on
the towne walls, takyng by the day iiijrt'. ... x\)d.
It'm paied to Tliomas ap Ithell, mason, for two days
laboryng on tlie towne walls, takyng by the day vj<-/. xi]d.
It'm paied to John ap John Gruff for liym and his horse
the space of ij days to cary sande and morter, takyng
l>y the day v]d. ■■■ •■• ••• X1 J"-
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 107
It'm paied to John Taberner, laborer, for ij days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day \\\]d. ... v\\]d.
It*m paied to John ap Ieuan, laborer, for two days
laboryng on tlie towne walls, takyng by the day \\\]d. v\\]d.
Summa ejusdem Ebdomode ... xxvs. v\d.
Ebdomoda prox' ante ffestum S'ci Bartholomei apostoli [24th August].
It'm paied to Gruff' ap Hoell ap Gruff , mason, for v days
laboryng on the towne walls, takyng v\\d. le day ... \]s. x]d.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, for v days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng v]d. ob. le day ... ijí. v\\]d. ob.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for v days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng v]d. le day ... ijí. v]d.
It'm paied to Ric' Inglefeild, mason, for v days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng v]d. ob. le day ... ijí. viijrtf. ob.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for v days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... ijí. v\\]d. ob.
lt'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for v days
laboryng on the seid walls, takyng by the day
v\d. ob. ... ... ••• ••• ij.y. v\\]d. ob.
It'm paied to Lewis ap R', mason, for v days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... \]s. v\\]d. ob.
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth for the carryage of xiij bote
lods of stones from the Ffryers of Bewmarries to the
key ... ... ... ... iüjí. 'û\)d.
It'm paied to D'd ap Ll'n, raasoii, for ij days worke
takyng by the day v]d. in pullyng downe of stones
from the Ffryers of Bangor ... ... x\]d.
It'm paied to Thomas ap Ithell, mason, the space of
ij days worke in pullyng downe of stones ffrom the
seid Ffryers, takyng v]d. le day ... ... x\]d.
It'm paied to two laborers the space of ij days worke to
take the stones from the masons, takyng iìijíîf. every
ofthembyday ... ... ... xvj^.
It'm paied to John ap Tud', laborer, the space of ij days
to bryng stones fiom the water syde to the masons,
takyng \\\]d. le day ... ... ... viij«f.
[m. 13.]
It'm paied to John 1 aberner for ìj days to bryng stones
from the water syde to the masons, takyng \\\]d.
every day ... ... ... ... v\\]d.
It'm paied to David ap Thomas for hym and his horse
for thre dayes to cary stones and morter to serve the
masons, taícyng by the day yjd. ... ... xviìjí/.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomode ... xxix.y. \\\]d. ob,
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum S'ci Bartholomei apostoli.
It'm paied to Gruff' ap Hoell ap Gruff', mason, for vj days
laboryng on the towne wails, takyng by the day vnV. iijí. v]d.
It'm paied to Ric' Englefeild, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d ob. ... iijí. \\]d.
I o8 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for vj days
laboryng on the towne walls, takyng v]d. ob. le day iijj. \\\d.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the da'y v]d. ob. ... Y\]s. \\]d.
It'm paide to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the da'y v]d. ob. ... iijj. \\\d.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... \\\s. \\]d.
It'm paied to Lewis ap Res, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day, v]d. ob. ... iijí. \\]d.
It'm paied to John Taberner, laborer, for thre days worke
on the towne walls, takyng \\\]d. le day ... x\]d.
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth, laborer, for ij days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng every day iiijrtf. ... v\\\d.
It'm paied to Thomas ap Res for hym and hys horse the
space of iij days to cary stones from the Friers of
Bangor to t'he water syde, takyng by [the] day v]d. ... xv\\]d.
It'm paied to Jamys ap Ithell íor hym and hys horse the
space of iij days to cary stones from the Ffriers of
Bangor to the water syde, takyng le day v\d. ... xviijí/.
It'm paied to John ap Mad[oc] for hym and hys horse the
space of iij days to cary stones from the seid Ffriers
to the water side, takyng le day v]d. ... ... xv\\]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomade ... xxìxí. \]d.
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum Decolationis S'ci Johannis Baptiste
[2Qth August].
It'm paied to Gruff' Mason for vj [?v] days laboryng on
the towne wallis, takyng by the day vi]d.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for v days laboryng
on the towne wallis, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... \]s.
It'm paide to Denys Roche, mason, the space of v days
laboryng on the key, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... \]s.
It'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for v days
laboryng on the Towne Walles, takyng by the day
v]d. ob. ... ... ... ... \]s.
It'm paied to Ric' Inglefeild, mason, for v days Iaboryng
on the towne wallis, takyng by the day v\d. ob. ... \\s.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, the space of v days
laboryng on the towne wallis, takyng by the day v]d.
It'm paied to Lewis ap Res, mason, for v days labor on
the same wallis, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... \\s.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan ibr his costs in goyng into
Chesshire to bryng the masons
It'm paied to David goch, mason, the space of v days
laboryng on the key, takyng every day vd.
It'm paied tn Thomas ap Ithell, mason, for iij days laboryng
on the key, takyng by the day vjV/.
It'm paied to D'd ap Ll'n, mason, for thre days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day yja.
\]s. x]d.
v\\]d. ob.
viijrt'. ob.
v\i\d. ob.
viijrf. ob.
\]s. v]d.
v\\]d. ob.
xij^.
\]s. ]d.
xviijöT.
xviij</.
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 109
It'm paied to Thomas ap Grono í'or the hire of his horse
the space of vj days to carysande and morter, takyng
every day \}d. ... ... ... xi]d.
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth, laborer, the space of iiij days
laboryng on the towne walls, takyng every day iii)d. xv]d.
It'm paied to John Nicolson í'or iij days laboryng on the
towne wallis, takyng iii]d. by the day ... ... xi]d.
It'm paied to John Taberner, laborer, for vj days laboryng
on the towne wallis, takyng by the day i\i]d. ... i]s.
It'm paied to Gruff' ap Ll'n for one bott lode with stones
from Bangor to the key ... ... ... xxd.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, laborer, the space of iij days
laboryng on the towne wallis, takyng \i\jd. by the day x'\]d.
It'm paied to Thomas, laborer, the space of iij days
laboryng on the towne walls, takyng by the day iii]d. xi]d.
It'm paied to Ieuan ap Res, laborer, for iij days laboryng
on the towne walles, takyng by the day iiijtìf. ... xi]d.
It'm paied to Machyn [? Mathyw=Matthew] Smyth for
mendyng of the locke of the lyme house ... i]d.
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth for one bote lode of stones
from Bangor to the key ... ... ... xd.
It'm paied to Hugh Hampson for- one bote lode of stones
from Bangor to the key ... ... ... xxi]d.
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth for the cariage of xv botts
lode with stones from the Ffriers of Bewmarries to
the key ... ... ... ... vs.
It'm paied to Thomas ap Grono for the hire of his horse
the space of iij dayes, takyng every day i]d. ... v]d.
It'm paide to John ap Mad[oc], laborer, the space of one
day ... ... ... ... iiij^-
[m. i3d.]
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth, laborer, the space of one
day laboryng on the Towne Walls, takyng by tlie
day iiijöf. ... ... ... ... iüj^-
Summa eiusdem ebdomode ... xliiijí. ob.
Ebdomoda in festo Nativitate B'te Marie virginis [8th September].
It'm paied to Gruff, mason, for yj days labor on the
towne walls, takyng every day vijrt'. ... ... ii]s. v]d.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the same walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... i\]s. ii]d.
It'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for yj days
laboryng on the same walls, takyng by the day
v]d. ob. ... ... ... ... ü]s. H\d.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
011 the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ... ii]s.
It'm paied to Richard Englafeild, mason, for vj days
laboryng on the towne walls, taking by the day
v]d. ob. ... ... ... ... üjí- üj^-
It'm paied to Lewis ap Res, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... ii]s. ii]d.
Üjí.
\\]d.
Ìjí.
v]d.
xviìjd.
1 1 o The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for yj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v\d. ob.
It'm paied to D'd goch, mason, for vj days laboryng on
the same wallis, takyng by the day vd.
It'm paied to Ric' ap Will'm, sclatter, for iij dayslaboryng
in sclattyng of the shire halle, takyng every day v]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomode ... xxvjí. ixd.
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum Exaltationis S'ci Crucis [i4th September].
It'm paied to Gruff'ap Hoell, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne waîls, takyng every day vij</. ... n]s. v]d.
It'm paied to Ric' Englefeild, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... ii]s ii]d.
It'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for vj days
laboryng on the towne walls, takyng by the day
v]d. ob. ... ... ... ... ii]s. ii]d.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob. ... ii)s. \\]d.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ... \i\s.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob.
It'm paied to Lewis ap R , mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng le day v]d. ob.
It'm paied to D'd ap Hoell, mason, for vj days Iaboryng
on the towne walls, taltyng by the day v]d. ob.
It'm paied to D'd goch, mason, for vj days laboryng on
the towne walls, takyng by the day vd.
It'm paied to Hugh Holt, laborer, for vj days laboryng on
the towne walls to serve the masons, takyng by the
day iiijrt'. ... ... ... ... i]s.
It'm paied to John Taberner, laborer, for vj days laboryng
on tne key, takyng by the day iii]d. ... ... i]s.
It'm paied to Hugh ap John ap Will'm, laborer, for vj
days laboryng on the key to serve the masons,
takyng by the day iii]d. ... ... ... i]s.
It'm paied to John Maketire, laborer, foryi days laboryng
on the key, takyng by the day iii]d., to serve the
masons ... ... ... ... ij^.
It'm paied to Will'm Smyth, laborer, for vj days laboryng
on the key, takyng every day iiij^. ... ... i]s.
It'm paied to John Davyson, laborer, lor v days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day iii]d., to serve
the masons ... ... ... ... xxc/.
It'm paied to D'd ap D'd, laborer, for iiij days laboryng
on the key, takyng by the day iiijâT., to serve the said
masons ... ... ... ... xv]d.
It'm paied to Hugh Hampson for one bott lode of stones
from Bangor to the key ... ... ... xi]d.
Summa eiusdem Ebdomode ... x\i]s. v]d.
ii\s.
ii]d.
ii]s.
i\]d.
ii]s.
i\]d.
i]s.
v]d.
lljí.
V)(t.
Üjf.
\\]d.
iijj.
\\]d.
Üjí.
\\]d.
Üjí.
ü)d.
UjS.
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 1 1 1
Ebdomoda prox' post ffestum S'ci Mathei apostoli [2ist September].
It'm paied to Gruff' ap Hoell, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v\]d.
It'm paied to Ric' Englefeild, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v')d. ob.
It'm paied to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day vj«. ob.
It'm paied to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for vj days
laboryng on the towne walls, takyng by the day
v]d. ob.
It'm paied to Denys Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d. ob.
It'm paied to Rob't Roche, mason, for vj days laboryng
on the towne walls, takyng by the day v]d.
[m. 14.]
It'm payde to Lewes ap R., mason, for laboring on the
Towne Waüys the sp'ace of vj days, takyng by the
daye v]d. ob....
It'm payde to David Goch, mason, for vj days laboring
on the Towne Wallys, takyng by the day vd.
It'm payde to Thomas ap Ithell, mason, for iij days
laboring on the Towne Walls, takyng by tlie daye v]d.
It'm payde to David ap Ll'n, mason, for iij days laboryng
upon the Towne Wallys, takyng by the day v]d.
It'm payde to John Taberner. laborer, for vj days
laboring upon the Towne Wallys, takyng by the
daye \\\\d.
It'm payde to John Davyson, laborer, for yj days laboring
on the Towne Wallys, taking by the daye iiijrt'.
It'm payde to John Maketyre, laborer, for v days laboring
on the Towne Wallys, takyng by the daye iiij^. ... xxd.
It'm payde to Jamys of the Hey, laborer, for iij days
laboring on the Towne Wallys, takyng by the daye
\\\]d., to serve the masons ... ... x\]d.
It'm payde to Will'm Smyth, laborer, for one daye
laboryng 011 the Towne Wallys, taking by the daye
u\]d. ... ... ... ... \\\]d.
It'm payde to David ap Guttyn, laborer, for iij days
laboring on the Towne Wallys, takyng by the daye
\\\]d. ... ... ... ... x\]d.
It'm payde to John Nycholas for v days on the Towne
Wallys, takyng by the daye \\\]d.,to serve the masons xxd.
It'm payde to John ap Ithell, laborer, for vdays laboryng
on the Towne Wallys, takyng by the day \u]d., to
serve the masons ... ... ... xxd.
It'm payd to Thomas ap John for iiij days laboryng on
the Towne Wallys, takyng by the daye iiijrf.,to serve
the masons ... ... ... ... xv]d.
It'm payd to Ris Jhonson for coordes to bynde the
scaffold ... ... ... ... u]d.
It'm payd for Roodes [? rods] and [blank] to make the
scaffold ... ... ... ... v\\]d.
\\]s.
\\]d.
\]s,
v]d.
.wiijrt'.
xv\\\d.
\]s.
Ìjí.
lljí.
v]d.
Üjí.
\\]d.
Üjí.
\\]d.
1 1 2 The Fate of the Structures of Conway
It'm paid to Thomas Rychard, carpynter, for one day's
laboring to make the sayd scaffold ... ... v]d.
It'm payd to Rouland Moyle for the cariage of one boate
loode of stones from Bangor to the keye ... xx\\d.
It'm paid to Thomas ap Grono for hym and hys horse
the space of iij days and di [3! days], takyng by the
daye v]d. ... ... ... ... xx]d.
It'm payde to Will'm Smyth for ij botes lode of stones
from the Ffryers house at Bewmarres to the keye ... v\\]d.
Summa istius Ebdomade ... xlvjí. v\\\d.
Ebdomada in ffesto S'ci Michaelis archangeli [29Ü1 September].
It'm paide to Gruff' ap Hoell, mason, for vj days vvorke
on the Towne Walls, takyng by the day v\\d.
It'm payde to Ris. Englefeld, mason, for vj days laboring
on the Towne Walls, takyng by the daye v]d. ob. ...
It'm payd to John ap Ieuan, mason, for vj days laboring
uppon the Towne Walls, takyng by the daye v]d. ob.
It'm payde to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for vi days
laboring upon the Towne Walls, takyng by the daye
v]d. ob. ... ... ... ... iijí. \\]d.
It'm paid to David ap Hoell, mason, for v [vj] days
laboring 011 the Towne Walls, takyng by the daye
v]d. ob. ... ... ... ... iij.?. \'\]d.
It'm payd to Denys Roche, mason, for yj days laboring
on the Towne Walls, takyng by the daye v]d. ob. ... \\\s. \\\d.
It'm payd to Robert Roche, mason, for vj days laboring
uppon the Towne Walls, taking by the daye v]d. ... iij.s.
It'm payd to Will'm Smyth, laborer, for vj days laboring
uppon the Towne Walls, takyng by the daye iinW.,
to serve the masons ... ... ... \\s.
It'm paid to Jamys of the Haye for vj days laboring uppon
the Towne Walls, taking by the daye \\\]d., to serve
the masons ... ... ... ... \]s.
It'm paid to John Maketire for vj days laboring uppon
the Towr.e Walls, taking by the day \\\]d. to serve
the masons ... ... ... ... \\s.
It'm paid to John Tarberner for yj days work on the
Towne Walls, taking by the daye \'\\]d., to serve the
masons ... ... ... ... \]s.
It'm paid to David ap D'd, laborer, for vj days working
uppon the Towue Walls, taking by the day iiijrt'., to
serve the masons ... ... ... \]s.
It'm paid to Hugh ap John, laborer, for yj days laboring
uppon the Towne Walls, taking by the day \\\]d. ... \]s.
It'm paid to R. ap Hoell ap Griff' for vj days laboring
uppon the Towne Walls, taking iiijí^. by the daye ... \]s.
It'm paid to Hugh a lowe, laborer, working upon the
Towne Walls, taking by the space of vj days for
every day iii]V/. ... ... ... \]s.
Abbey, and Bangor and Beaumaris Friaries. 1 13
It'm paid to Hugh Hampson for vj bote lodes of stones
caried from the Ffriers house of Bewmares to the
kaye ... ... ... ... \)S. \\d.
Summa istius Ebdomade ... x\\s. \\]d.
[m. i4d.]
Ebdomada prox, post ffestum S'ci Michaelis archangeli.
It'm paid to Griff , mason. for iiij days work on the towne
walls, taking by the day v'\]d. ... ... \]s. \\\]d.
It'm paid to Denys Roche, mason, for iiij dais work on
the Town Walls, taking by the daye v]d. ob.
It'm paid to David ap Hoell, mason, for iiij days laboring
on the Towne Walls, taking by the day v\d. Gb.
It'm paid to Thomas Rochedale, mason, for foure days
laboring uppon the Towne Walls, taking by the daye
v]d. ob.
It'm paid to David Ris, mason, for iiij days work upon
the same walls, taking by the daye \d.
It'm paid to Ric' ap Ieuan, laborer, for iij days laboring
to serve the sayd masons, taking by the day \\\]d. ...
It'm paid to Will'm Smyth, laborer, for iij days laboring
to serve the masons, taking by the daye \\\]d.
It'm paid to Jamys of the Haye, laborer, for iij days
laboring to serve the masons, taking bythe daye W'ijd.
It'm paid to Hugh ap John, laborer, for iij days laboring
to serve the sayd masons, taking by the day \\\]d. ...
It'm paid to Thomas ap John, laborer, for iij days labor-
ing to serve the masons, taking by the daye \i\jd. ...
It'm paid to John Maketore [sic], laborer, for iij days
laboring to serve the said masons, taking by the day
\\\]d.
It'm paid to John Taberner, laborer, for iij dais laboring
on the Towne Walls, taícing by the daye \\\]d.
It'm paid to Gilbert Robyson for lxxj pecks of lyme, after
tlie rate of \]d. le peck
It'm paid to Nicholas Britell for viij pecks of lyme, after
the rate of \\\]d. le peck ...
It'm paid to John ap Ieuan ap Lewes, smyth, for the
sharping of the masons' toles [tools] ...
It'm paid to all the masons in rewarde towards theyre
charges in going home
It'm paid to Robert Burghill, surveyor and paymaster of
the sayd works, attending uppon the workemen there
and riding from place to place for p[ro]visions for the
same, for hymself and his horse, by the said space,
taking in grosse for one hoole yere, and for ingross-
ing the boke in p'cells [parcels] as weli in paper as
in p'chement... ... ... ... xli.
... x\\Ui. x]s. vd.
I
\]s.
\]d.
\')S.
\]d.
\]s.
\]d.
xxd.
x\\d.
x\]d.
x\]d.
xij</.
x\]d.
x\]d.
x\]d.
xxx\s.
v]d.
\]s.
v\\]d.
xs.
vd.
\s.
\\\]d.
1 1 4 The Fate ofthe Structures of Comuay Abbey, etc.
[Total expenditure at Beaumaris, £41 $s. yd.]
Sm'a total' istius 1
bundell' cont' l cxl//. xiíji-. íú]d. ob.
xiiij rotuli J
p' me Joh'em Pakyngton.
p' me Joh'em Arnold.
The total expenditure at the different places was
at Carnarvon for 18 weeks ... ... £4$ 4 7
,, Ouay for 17 weeks ... 32 1 =;£
Harlech, for 14 weeks
Beaumaris, for 16 weeks
^MO 13 IQ è
There is an error of 6d. somewhere in the account.
77
6
o±
22
2
3
4«
5
7
Çpímarffl (fíle. 11 8, fo*. 829=837.
Introduction, Transcript and Translation,
By HUGH OWEN, M.A.,
Exhibitioner at Liverpool Uhẁersity ; Felloio of the Royal Historical
Society.
^nírobucfíotu
The accompanying extract from the Peniarth MS. 118
(foolscap folio) was writtenby John David Rhys 1 — better
known as Sion Dafydd Rhys — about the year 1600. In
addition to writing parts of Peniarth MSS, 118, 252, 270,
316 ; Cardiff MS. 18, and Llanstephan MSS. 4Î, 55, 56,
79, 2 he published a Welsh Grammar in 1592 ; he died in
1617, aged 80 years. 3
Sion Dafydd Rhys's handwriting is fairly legible and
needs little comment : in the following transcript the
symbols 6 and h are written w and nn respectively. An
examination of the photographic reproduction of fo. 835
(facing p. 142), which is one quarter of the actual size,
^yerified by Mr. T. Gwynn Jones, who is familiar with John
David Rhys' handwriting.
2 Dr. Gwenogvryn Evans' Report on MSS. in the Welsh Lanyuage.
Peniarth MS. 118, fo. 297 contains an autograph letter of W.
Mydleton from Wilton, dated lst Feb., 1582, to Dr. Davies, i.e., Dr.
John Dd. Rhys. On fo. 300 of the same MS. are " Two para-
graphs in Latin enjoining Wm : ap Howell, Dd : ap Dd : ap Morgan,
and Tho : Vaughan to hold their agreement with John David, Doctor
of Medicine, concerning a dwelling house, a barn and two gardens
' in burgo Brecon ' ".
3 Rowlands, Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry, p. 63, but Rowlands does not
give his sources for the date of J. D. R's death.
i2
iió Peniarth Ms. nS,fos. 829-837.
gives an adequate idea of the characteristics of his script.
Apparently most of this extract refers to the pre-Norman
period in Welsh history — when perhaps it was thought
that every caiw 1 had his stronghold or caer.
To the archseologist one of the most interesting pass-
ages is to be found on fo. 836, line 26, where it is stated
that a caer was made for the milting of cows within it,
a statement that strengthens the idea entertained by
some scholars that most, if not all, of the caers (and one
might add din or dinas), of very small area, throughout
Wales, served no military purpose but were used as
enclosures for cattle or sheep.
The commonest place-names in Wales suggesting fpr-
tifications of some kind are din or dinas, caer, llys (?),
tommen, and castellS It is as difficult to distinguish
between these terms as it is between the Irish dün, rath,
lis, cathair, and caisel, 3 because they are often used in-
differently 1 in the literature of Wales and of Ireland
respectively, to designate a simiìar object — a stronghold.
1 " On the etymology of Welsh cawr, see Julius Pokorny's article
in the Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung, neue Folge, 45
Bd. 1 Heft." — Comniunicated by Mr. J. Glyn Davies, Liverpool
University.
2 The names din (both as prefix and suffix) or dinas, caer, llys and
tommen seem to be more frequent in North than in South Wales.
The castle — and with it the word castell — was introduced earlier, and
to a greater extent, in South Wales ; and as it superseded the pre-
viously constructed forts, the original name — din or dinas, caer, llys,
tommen — would inevitably in many places become obsolete.
3 O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, vol. I.,
pp. ccxxxviii, cccv-cccvii, cccix, vol. III., p. 3 ; vol. I., pp. ccciv-
cccv; vol. I., p. ccciv; vol. I., pp. cccvi-cccvii ; vol. IV., p. 4; vol. I.,
pp. cccv, cccix.
4 Compare the hopeless manner in which the nomenclature of
mediieval military engines is confused by the chroniclers : for
examples of this see Oman, A History of the Art of War in the
Middle Ages, p. 545.
Peniarth Ms. nS,/os. 829-837. 117
From the descriptions available of din or dinas sites in
Wales we find that most of them are strongholds 011
hill-tops, and appear by nature to be much stronger for
defence than the caerau. Evidently the din or dinas was
the more primitive type of fort ; its area varied consider-
ably — from half an acre (e.g. Dinas near Dolbadarn in
Carnarvonshire) to sixty-nine acres (e.g. Dinas Mawr in
Denbighshire).
The term din means " a fort " (Irish dün). Dinas in
Welsh has long come to mean " a city ", and the con-
fusion of meanings between the old and the new is found
in the inconsequential place-name Dinas Dinlle. 1 In
literary Welsh dinas is now feminine, but in place-names
the old masculine gender . is frequently preserved, e.g.,
Dinas Mawr, Braich y Dinas, Craig y Dinas (near Clynnog
in Carnarvonshire) ; however, the spoken form is liable
to follow the modern feminine gender, e.g., Braich y
Ddinas.
Caer — particularly common in Snowdonia — is generally
applied to at least two geographical types of forts which
may be roughly distinguished as the hill-caer and the
plain-caer.
(1) The hUl-caer appears to have been a strong fort on
a comparatively high hill — " a contour-f ort ", with arti-
ficial defences following the natural line of the hill, and
often consisting of a huge wall of loose stones to
encircle completely the summit, and necessitating hard
and long labour in its construction. It was generally
circular in shape and enclosed an area of from one to
two acres. Sometimes this stronghold, though usually on
1 Dinas is clearly a late super-imposition in this name, ancl coulcl
only have been appliecl at a time when the meaning of Dinlle hacl
been forgotten. Compare Llyn Strellyn (Ystracl-Ilyn) and Llyn
Cicellyn (Cawell-lyn) — clear instances of tautology.
n8 Peniarth Ms. \\%, fos. 829-837.
high ground, was not entirely dependent 011 natural slopes
for protection. 1
(2) The plain-caer is represented by a rectangular or
other enclosure of simple plan on fairly level ground. 2
This type of fort, if not actually constructed by the
Romans, may be attributed to their influence, for the
Eomans rarely, if ever, adapted British camps to their
own use. 3 The Romanized Britons may have modified the
Roman camps to suit their own methods of warfare, but
it is more likely that when attacked, they retreated to
their hills ; Roman tactics were only suitable for a B-oman
drilled army.
At present the data available are not sufficient 4 to
answer conclusively the following questions (which occur
to us) in connection with the caerau : —
(1) Are there plain-caerau with which the Eomans
were unlihely to be connected ?
(2) Can the plain-caerau be sub-divided into marsh-
caerau 5 and hard-ground caerau ?
1 " By our valuable MSS. and by traditional evidence, of which
much remains correctly retained amongst our mountaineers, we learn
that the caeran upon the summit of our hills, were outposts of the
ancient inhabitants ; here they lodged their wives and children ; to
these places they drove their cattle." — Caerwys MS. x. p. 3, ' An
Historical Account of the Ancient Castles in the Counties of Mont-
yomery and Uenbiyh', by Angharad Llwyd.
2 The plain-caer will not, of course, be confused with the moated
homestead of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. See Allcroft,
Earthworjc of Enyland, ch. xiv.
1 British camps for the protection of the tribe — men, women and
children — were generally in isolated positions suitable for natural
defence ; Roman camps were usually on a particular line of march
and mostly intended for temporary occupation only, and that by
trained soldiers.
4 Only when thc ' Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in
Walcs and Monmouthshire ' has completed its admirable Inrentories
of thc Welsh Counties can these prol)lems be adeíjuately considered.
5 Some earthworlis may have been enclosures for cattle as a pro-
Peniarth Ms. nS,/os. 829-837. 119
(3) Are the hill-caer and the plain-caer to be found
close together ? If so, could they have been constructed
by the same race at the same period ?
(4) Were any of these caerau isolated forts, or were
they units in a general system of defence ? '
(5) Why are some caerau surrounded by a ditch, others
by stones ? Was this difference due to the nature of the
material available or to the nature of the ground, to
different builders, or to some other cause ?
(6) Was the hill-caer the British imitation of a
possibly Roman plain-caer? Was the hill-caer in general
use in Wales in post-Roman times and until the intro-
duction of the motte-castle ?
(7) If both the hill-caer and plain-caer were post-
Rouian, was the plain-caer used for domestic purposes, and
the hill-caer as a watch-post and theref ore made smaller ?
The etymology of the word caer (pl. caerau, caeroedd,
and caerydd) cannot help us at the present time because it
is not established ; it cannot be phonetically derived f rom
the Latin castra according to the established processes of
Latin phonology in Welsh — that is, the Latin of the
Roman occupation — because no instance is known of the
passing of Latin str into Welsh diphthong + r. 2 (See n.
pp. 148-9.)
tection from wild animals, such aswolves; awolf could cross a marsh
but heavy quadrupeds would never succeed in doing so, hence a
marsh stockade suggests its use for military purposes only.
Mr. Higgins, Liverpool University, suggests in a letter to me that
Gaencen means ' a fort on, or in close proximity to, wide marshlands'.
In this connectiön compare Gaerwen ddu, showing that -icen cannot
mean ' white ' : is -wen the modern Welsh term -iceun ?
1 See Professor Haverfield's ' Military Aspects of Roman Brítain',
Y Cymmrodor (1910) p. 67. Elaborate fortifications would suggest
permanent occupation.
2 (a) Professor J. E. Lloyd, Bangor, in ' Y Cymmrodor,' 1 vol. xi.,
pp. 26, 27, states : "In some parts of Cardiganshire caerau is occa-
sionally used for caeau 'fields'". W. O. Pughe in his Dictionary
120 Peniarth Ms. i\S,/os. 829-837.
In the course of time these caer-enclosures fell into
disuse as forts, but coulcl still be used by the natives for
herding cattle, 1 and the word caer might subsequently be
gi-adually applied to cattle enclosures. As a matter of
fact, in the accoinpanying transcript of Peniarth MS. 118,
fo. 836, an instance is given of a caer being built for
the purpose of niilking cows within it :
"Drewyn Gawr a wnaeth Gaer Drewyn" 2 yn y Deyrnion,
am yr abhon a Chorwen. Ac yw gariad y gwnaeth y Gaer
honno, er godro ei gicarthec yndi".
(Drewyn Gawr made Caer Drewyn in Deyrnion, the
other side of the river from Corwen. And to his sweetheart
he made that Caer, to milk her cows in.)
The language no doubt distinguished at some time
between dinas and caer, but in what way cannot be ascer-
tained unless by archseological surveys and scientific
excavation. Was the dinas an enclosure bounded by a
(1832) gives 'caer y fynwent', the churchyard wall. In the Welsh
Bible caer is used almost invariably for 'a wall'.
(b) Compare Thurneysen, Handbuch des Alt-Irischen, p. 517, for
the derivation of caer from castra.— Communicated by Mr. Ifor
Williams, Bangor.
1 Compare the following :
(a) " Probably the Romanized Britons occupied the older British
fort and modified its size to suit their own requirements." — Allcroft,
Earthworh of England, ch. xi.
(b) " The Normans often adapted British and Roman works, but
these were mostly post-Norman, and used for domestic, not military
purposes."' — Ibid.
(c) " Long after the lisses and raths were abandoned as dwellings,
many of them were turned to different uses ; some of the high dûns
and mounds were crowned with modern buildings. The superstitious
peasantry always felt the greatest reluctance to putting them under
tillage ; but they were often used as pens for cattle, for which some
were admirably adapted." — Joyce, The Origin and History of lrish
Names of Places, vol i, p. 284.
2 " Kaer Drewin, a round stone wall about an acre of ground
where they kept their cattel in war time." — Ed. Lhwyd's Parochialia,
Arch. Camb. (Supplement, April 1910), part ii, p 44.
Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837. 121
wall of earth, and the caer originally surrounded by a wall
of stone ? Was the dinas oriefinallv intended to shelter
the whole tribe and their belongings ? Was the plain-caer
the fort of the Romans, and the hill-caer the watch-post
of the Britons in post-Roman times ?
Of the name Uys 1 (Irish lis= í a fort ') sufficient ex-
amples are not as yet forthcoming to warrant any state-
ment as to the particular type of the military enclosure
indicated. In later times llys certainly came to mean
' court', whether of the judiciary or of the Crown.
Another place-name suggesting a fortification of some
kind is tommen — derived from Low Latin tumba — tomm -f-
the Welsh femine singulative suffix -en : tomm is also
applied to ' dung-heap ', e.g., tommen dail (English
' midden '), probably from the fact of its having been
earthed up for preservation. By the term tommen? is gener-
ally meant an artifìcial mount, with encircling ditch or
1 («) Mr. Ifor Williams, Bangor, in a letter notes that in
' Culhwch ' cadlys is used for ' the bailey of a castle ', and he quotes
the Myvyrian Archaiology (Denbigh, 1870), p. 226:
'Nyseuis na thwr na bwr (=burgh) bu krein' (=prostrate).
' Nac argoed na choed na chadlys drein (=a stockade of thorns) ;
also the White Book Mabinogion (J. Gwenogvryn Evans, 1907), p. 244b,
'mynet dros y teir catlys awnaethant hyt
pan dyuuant y myón ygaer'.
With cadlys compare cadlas — used in Carnarvonshire to-day to
denote an enclosure for the haystack.
(6) Llys : Indo-Germanìc plt-su, Pedersen, § 413, i;ognate with
English ' field '. — Communicated by Mr. J. Glyn Davies, Liverpool
University.
2 Was the tommen type of fort originally a round barrow of the
pre-historic age, bnt subsequently adapted for military purposes ?
See B. C. A. Windle, Remains of the Pre-historic Aye in Enyland
(Methuen, 1904), pp. 140-143 ; also compare the names Tommen
Gastelh (Gwydhelwern), Tommen Gastelh (Lhanvor) and Castelh
Tommen y mur(Lhandekwyn) referred to in Ed. Lhwyd's Parochialia
(Arch. Camb., Supplement Apr. 1910. Part ii, pp. 49, 62 and 104
respectively).
122 Peniarth Ms. nS,/os. 829-S37.
fosse, the area so enclosed being usually less than half an
acre, e.g., Tommen Fawr (Carnarvonshire), Tommen y
Faerdre and Tommen y Rhodwydd (Denbighshire), Tom-
men y Bala (Merionethshire), Tommen Llanio (Cardigan-
shire). The tommen site is often found on a river bank or
on the edge of a lake.
The frequency with which proper names are attached
to the word castell in place-names suggests
(1) The personal element, and possibly indicates the
original builder, e.g., Castell Madoc (Brecknockshire) ;
castell-íorts bearing personal names are yrima facie com-
paratively modern ;
(2) The proximity of a town, and suggests that the
fort either protected the town or held it in subjection, e.g.,
Castell y Wyddgrug.
Most of the castell-n&mes, even where the proper
names are absent, are applied to fortiíied mounts, wholly
or partly artificial, and probably of the mount-and-bailey
type. 1
The type, as well as the name, shows castell to be a fort
of later date than dinas or caer ; 2 it is also evident that
castell was a different kind of stronghold from the caer. 3
1 The descrii)tions as yet available of these eastell- forts are not in
theniselves sufliciently conclusive on this point.
2 Castell occurs in the Booh of Llandaf only about six tinies ; it
does not appear once in the Gododin, which contains dinas six, and
caer four times. In this connection it may be observed that the
military references in the Pedeir Kainc of the Mabinogion suggest a
period in Wales prior to a.d. 1100; the descriptions of the castles in
the other tales of the so-called Mabinoyion clearly refer to some time
at least subsequent to a.d. 1250. [It is stated that the Peniarth MS.
containing the Whitc Book Mabinogion was written about a.d. li^82 ;
see lntroduction to White Book Mabinogion (J. Gwenogvryn Evans),
p. xiii].
3 (a) "Ni savei racdun ruych pell
Nac aer na chaerna chastell".— Myv. Arch. (Denbigh)p. 175.
(Nor battle nor caor nor castle would stand before
them.)
Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837. 123
The word castell is generally assumed to be derived
from the Latin castellum (Irish caisel). 1
In the "Extract" that follows the writer names, but
does not attempt to disting-uish between, various sites of
strong-holds. He appears to be more concerned with
deriving- nearly all the place-names from the names of
g-iants who once dwelt there. Some of these, so he writes,
dwelt on a moel (Yscydion, Ophrom, Ysbryn) ; others in a
caer (Gwedros, Hedoc, Dinas or Dynas, Chwilcin, Celgan,
Odwyn, Clidha, Phili, Gwrle, Drewyn) ; two in a bwlch
(Radyr, Aedhan) ; one in a llwyn (Chwermon), a cwrt
(Mibhod), a garth (Cribwr), an ynys (Cedwyn) ; but most
of them are stated to have been dwelling- in a castell
(Howel, Lhyphan, Pyscoc, Chwil, Didhannel, Moel,
Moythyn, Mabon, Ourbryd, Cymryd, Maylor, Cornippin,
Crygyn, Bwba, Bwch, Ernalht, Buga, Trog-i, Crou, Gerd-
han). The absence of the name din or dinas for a strong-
hold is signifìcant.
(b) The feature that distinguishes the castell from its prede-
cessors — dinas and caer — is the tower, whether the motte of the
mount-and-bailey type or the keep of the later stone castle. This
type of stronghold for permanent occupation suited a man with only
a few trusted followers, and would be quite unsuitable to a tribe —
with women and children. See Geoffrey de Mandeville, by J. H.
Round (Longmans, 1892), p. 328, who adds that "the Latin castellum
(corresponding to the Welsh caer), continued to be regularly used as
descriptive of a fortified enclosure, whether surrounded by walls or
earthworks, being even applied by Giraldus Cambrensis to a turf
entrenchment at Pembroke". Probably in many cases it was found
suitable to build a tower in a former din or caer, and then utilize the
latter as a ' bailey ' : compare note x (b), page 120.
1 " Caiseal is very common in Irish and always used to signify a
circular stone fort, and is either cognate with, or derived from, Latin
casteüum ; it is found in the most ancient Irish MSS. : the modern
form is cashel." — Joyce, The Orujin and History of Irish Names of
Places, vol. i., p. 286.
124 Peniarth Ms. 1 18 : fos. 829-837.
fo.829 ẅdwicf from tytetttoft (^0. 118.
Yghwlad Meirionydh ymhlwybh Dol Gelhe y yghymwt
Tal y Bont y mae rnynydh neu bhann neu bhoel 1
bhawr uchel
a elwir Cadeir Idris. 2 Ac yghhylch godreon y brynn mawr
hwnn
y mae amrybhaelon lhycheu neu lynnodh 3 o dhwbhr.
mawr ac
uchel (mal y dywedais) yw'r mynydh ; ac er i uched, ac er
an-
hawdhed myned drostaw ; eissioes os bwrir (medhant)
phonn
neu brenn aralh ir nebun a bhynnoch or dybhroedh
hynny, chwi
a gephwch y prenn hwnnw yn y lhynn aralh yn y tu
gwrthwy-
neb ir mynydh hw.nn. Ac am na elhir credu yn hawdh
alhu o'r prenn bhyned dros draws penn mynydh cyn ucheled
10. ar hwnn hynn yma ; ydh ydis yn tybieid bhod rhyw ogobh
neu geudawd o'r nailh lynn ir lhalh dann y mynydh yma,
mal y galhei y peth a bhei yn y nailh lynn gael ei symud
ar y lhalh. Ac ar y coryn uchabh ir mynydh hwnn
y mae megis lhun dulh ryw wely, mawr ei hyd a'i led, wedy
15. ei bheiliaw o bhain neu gerric ossodedic oe gylch. a hwnn
a elwir Grwely Idris, cyd boed bhod yn debygolach
y bhod yn bhedh y cledhyssid Idris yndaw gynt. Ac ebh
a dhywe-
dir taw pwy bynnac i dhyn a orwedho ac a gysco ar y
gwely hwnnw, un
o'r dheu beth a dhamchweina idhaw, nailh ai bod yn
Brydydh
20. or bhath oreu, ai ynteu myned yn lhwyr ynbhyd 4 o honaw.
Ac
1 moel is a ' round ' beight — bare.
2 Marginal Note :— Cewri Cymru | Idris Gawr | Cymwd Ystym-
. . | mer. Ac Artliur | ai lhadhodh. ac | wrth hyny ydh oedhynt |
cewri yma yn deyrnasu | yn hir wedy Brutus | Crychan gawr yn |
trigo yn Moel Cry- | chan yn gymodawc | Idris gawr. |
3 Ihycheu neu lynnodh — both terms are vague in denoting the size
of sheets of water. The writer may have meant to give alternative
forms meaning precisely the same thing.
4 ynbhyd — O.E. ungewittige=unreasonable.
Peniarth Ms. ii$:fos. 829837. 125
&x<x\\&t<xûo\\ of tfyt <&\txacL f .829
In the land of Merioneth in the parish of Dolgelly in
the commote of Talybont is a mountain or peak or high
large mount that is called Cader Idris. 1 And about the
foot of this large hill are several lochs or lakes of water.
Large and high (as I have said) is the mountain ; and
though so high, and though so difficult to cross over, yet
(so they say) if a stick or other piece of wood be thrown
into any you may choose of those waters, you will get that
wood in the other lake 2 on the opposite side of this moun-
tain. And as it is not easy to believe that the wood can
go over the top of a mountain as high as this one here, it
is supposed that there is some cave 3 or hollow from the
one lake to the other under this mountain, so that a thing
that is in one lake can be moved to the other. And on
the highest crown of this mountain is a bed-shaped form as
it were, great in length a.nd width, built of slabs or stones
fixed around it. And this is called The Bed of Idris,
though it is more likely that it is the grave in which
Idris was buried in ages past. And it is said thatwhoever
lies and sleeps on that bed, one of two things will happen
to him, either he will be a poet of the best kind, or go
entirely demented. And
1 Marginal Note :— The Giants of Wales | Giant Idris | The Com-
niot of | Ystymmer. And Arthur | killed him. And | by that there
were | giants ruling here long after Brutus | Giant Crychan |
dwelling in Moel | Crychan | a neighbour | of Giant Idris.
2 Llyn Gafr and Llyn y Gader on the north side of Cader Idris ;
Llyn Can on the other side.
3 Twll yr Ogof on the west flank of Cader Idris.
126 Peniarth Ms. nS,fos. 829-837.
fo. 829 odhiwrth un or lhynnoedh yssydh dan y mynydh uchel y
rhed
abhon bhawr. Ac er hynny hagen pryd y damweina habh
trassych
y bydh eissieu dwbhr wrth bhalu ar y melineu adeili-
edic ar lann yr abhon honno. Ac or ethryb hynny y gor-
2g bhuwyd yn bhynych rydhhau dwbhr or lhynn hwnnw er
achub diphyc
dwbhr y melineu. Ac (medhant) ny elhyggwyd dwbhr
eirmoed or lhynn hwnnw, heb na bei yn dhiannod ryw
dymhestl a dygybhor o law, atharaneu, a melht neu
lyched, yn damchweinaw yn y bhann honno. Ac yn y
30. mynydh uchel hwnn y preswylei gynt anbhad aruthr 1
o gawr, heb dhim lhai meintiolaeth ei gorph no phwy un
bynnac o'r cewri uchod, a hwnn a elwid Idris gawr.
Ac yn yr un plwybh (Dol Gelhe) y mae mynydh a elwir
Moel Yecydion. Ac yn y mynydh hwnn ydh oedh
preswyl-
35. bhan y cawr mawr a elwid Yscydion gawr ac oe
36. enw ebh yr henwid y bhoel honno yn bhoel Yscydion.
fo. 830 ^c y m mhlwybh Lhan Bhachreth y mae bryn neu bhyn-
nydh
a elwir Moel Ophrom ; yn y lhe y preswylei gynt Ophrom
gawr, ac oe enw ebh hebhyd y cabhas y brynn hwnnw ei
enw, ac
nyd pelh y bhoel honno odhiwrth Bhoel Yscydion, a lhai
yw no
5. Moel Yscydion, ac yn yr un wlad a'r un cymwt.
Ac yghwlad Meirionydh hebhyd jmi mhlwybh lhanylhtyd
a chymwt Ardudwy, ac ychydic odhiwrth y moelydh erailh
ac or tu aralh i'r abhon a ranna y cymydoedh, y mae
brynn
aralh a elwir Moel Ysbryn, am bhod Ysbryn gawr ai
10. Dricbhan yno; o enw yr hwnn, y cabhas y brynn ei enw.
A'r cewri hynn olh a oedhynt yn anbherth o bheint, ac yn
amser Idris gawr, yr hwnn Idris oedh yn deyrn ac
yn Bennaeth arnadhunt.
Ac yghwlad Meirionydh hebhyd, ac yn agos at Penn
15 Aran ym Mhenlhyn, a thann y lhe a elwir Bwlch y
Groes, y mae bedh mawr ei gyhydedh 2 yn y lhe y dy-
wedant dharbhod cladhu'Lytta neu Ritta neu Ricca neu
1 anbhad aruthr ffawr=liter. "an unholy terror of a giant".
2 Cyhydedh = ' equality ', ' parity '.
Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837. 127
froin one of the lakes that is under the high mountain fo. 829
runs a large riyer. 1 And in spite of that when a very dry
summer happens there is lack of water to grind in the
mills built 011 the bank of that river. And for that reason
it was frequently necessary to release the water from that
lake to save the shortage of water of the mills. And (so
they say) no water was ever released from that lake, that
there was not at once some storm and downpour of rain,
and thunder, and lightning, happening in that spot. And
in this high mountain formerly lived a big giant, not less
in size of body than any of the above giants, and he was
called Idris Gawr. And in the same parish (Dolgelly) is
a mountain called Moel Yscydion. And in this mountain
was the abode of a great giant called Yscydion Gawr and
from his name that hill was called Moel Yscydion. 2
And in the parish of Llanfachreth is a hill or mountain fo.830
called Moel Ophrom, 3 where formerly lived Ophrom Gawr,
and it is from his name that that hill derived its name,
and that hill is not far from Moel Yscydion, and it is
smaller than Moel Yscydion, and in the same country and
the same commote.
And in the land of Merioneth also, in the parish of
Llanelltyd and the commote of Ardudwy, and a little from
the other hills and on the other side of the river that
divides the commotes, is another hill called Moel Ysbryn,
because Ysbryn Gawr had his dwelling there ; from whose
name the hill received its name. And all these giants
were of enormous size, and in the time of Idris Gawr,
which Idris was king and chief over them. And in the
land of Merioneth also, and close to Pen Aran in Penllyn, 1
and under the place called Bwlch y Groes, is a grave of
great dimensions where they say Lytta or Ritta 01* Ricca or
1 i.e., Dysynni River.
2 Moel Esgidion or Moel Caer Ynwch (' Cantref Meirionydd ', gan
R. Prys Morris, Dolgellan, 1890, pp. 69, 70): for 'Caerynwch' see
Owen Jones's ' Cymru ', i., 440, and Cambro-Briton, vol. ii, p. 364
(London, 1821).
3 ' Now called Moel Offrwm, 1| miles South of Llanfachraeth '. —
Owen Jones's ' Cymru ', ii, 258.
4 In N.-E. Merionethshire and containing Llandderfel and four
other parishes.
128 Peniarth Ms. 1 1 8, fos. 829-837.
Rithonwy neu Itto gawr ; corph yr hwnn a dharoedh y
rei o genedl y
cewri ei symud o Eryri, hyd yn agos i bhynydh yr Aran
20 - bhawr yni Mhenlhyn. Y Ehicca gawr hwnn, a ymladh-
assei Arthur ac ebh, ac a ladhassei yn Eryri. A'r
cawr hwnn hynn a wnaethodh idhaw ehun pilis o
bharbheu brenhinedh, a ryladlryssei ebh. Ac anbhon a
oruc at Arthur i erchi idhaw ynteu bhlighaw 1 ei bharbh
ehu-
25. nan a'e hanbhon idhaw/ Ac megis ydh oedh Arthur yn
bennabh ar y brenhinedh ; ynteu a dhodei ei bharbh ebhyn
uchabh ar y pilis 3 o'r barbheu ereilh olh er enrhydedh i
Arthur. Ac ony wnelei ebh hynny ; erchi i Arthur dhy-
bhod i ymladh ac ebli ; ar trechabh o nadhunt cymered
30 - bilis o bharbh y lhalh. A' gwedy eu mjmed i ymladh
y cabhas Arthur y bhudhugoliaeth ac y cymerth bharbh
y cawr a'e' bilis,' — Itto gawr
na chy-
bhyrdhyssei ac ebh eirioed yr
cawr hwnnw. A' gwedy caph
35. aeth honno, yn yr eil wylbha
yn galw . . . ., a dhywedei
eilgwr cyn dhewi-ed a'r
el o Arthur y bhudhugoli-
o'r nos wynt a dhoethant 5
1 ' blingo ' means to take the skin off, as well as to ' scalp ' his
beard.
2 This demand of Rhitta Gawr is detailed in ' Morte Arthur', I.
c. xxvii. See also ' The Mabinogùm', translated by Lady Charlotte
Guest, ed. by Ernest Rhys (J. M. Dent & Co.), notes pp. 326-7.
3 pilis. M.E. pilche = a furred garment ; O.E. pylce ; L. pellicea
= made of skins.
4 Marginal Note (Roman numerals denote the number of each five
lines) : —
Ac erailh a adrodhant yr hystoria bhal hynn, nyd amgen :
Itto gawr yn galw ehunan (v) bhrehin gwynedh yn amser Arthur
a dhanbhones at Arthur i obhyn ei bharbh ef . Ac Arthur ai gom-
edhei idho. Ac ar hynny (x) ymgybharbhod a orugant ar benn
brynn ai enw bwlch y groes rhwgh mowdhwy a phenlhyn yghwlad
meirionydh. Ac yn yr yuigy- (xv) bharbhod drwy dheisybhiad Itto,
y bwriassant eu harbheu odhiwrthunt, er probhi eu crybhder. Ac
or diwedh wrth ymdrech, a thann (xx) ymdreiglo, y daethant i'r
gwastad, y lhe a elwir Blaen Cynlhwyd, wedy tynnu barbheu eu
gilydh. ac er cobhiadigaeth am (xxv) hynny, y gelwir y bryn hwnnw,
Rhiw y Barbheu, A'gwedy hynny, ymladh a wnaethant aicledhybheu,
yn y lhe y lhadhodh Arthur y (xxx) cawr; yn yr hwnn lhe y mae
bedh Itto oe weled hyd hedhiw yn nhroed y rhiw.
Iwni gawr.
(xxxv) Iwni gawr yn trigo ygghhymwd Penlhyn yn lhe a elwir etto
Cebhn Caer Iwni, ar lhe y mae etto (xxxix) ol ei hen gastelh ebh.
6 Vertical line drawn (as indicated) through the last four lines
(32-35).
Peniarth Ms. i iS, /os. 829-837. 129
Rithonwy or Itto Gawr was buried ; whose body some ío - 830
of the tribe of the giants removed from Eryri to some-
where near Mynydd Aran Fawr in Penllyn. This Ricca
Gawr was the one with whom Arthur had fought and had
ldlled in Eryri. And this giant made this for himself, a
robe of the beards of the kings he had lnlled. And he
sent to Arthur to order him to cut off his own (i.e.,
Arthur's) beard and send it to him. And as Arthur was
the chief of the Kings, he would place his beard above the
other beards as an honour to Arthur. And if he would
not do that, he begged Arthur to come and fight him ;
and the victorious of them to make a robe from the
other's beard. And after they went to fight Arthur had
the victory and he took the
Itto Gawr said he never m
as that giant. And when A
in the second watch of the n
giant's beard and his robe.
et a second man as brave
rthur had got that victory,
ight they caine
Marginal Note : —
And others relate the story thus, namely :
Itto Gawr, callinghimself king of Gwynedd in the time of Arthur,
sent to Arthur to ask for his beard. And Arthur refused it to him.
And on this they met on the top of a hill called Bwlch y Groes between
Mowddwy and Penllyn in the land of Merioneth. And in the meet-
ing at Itto's wish, they cast their weapons away from them, to prove
their strength. And at last by a struggle, and by rolling, they came to
the plain, to the place calJed Blaen Cynllwyd, 1 after plucking each
other's beards. And in remembrance of that, that hill is called
Rhiw y Barfau. 2 And after that, they fought with their swords, in
the place where Arthur killed the giant : in which place is Itto's
grave to be seen to this day at the foot of the slope.
Iwni gawr,
Iwni Gawr lived in the commote of Penllyn in a place still called
Cefn Caer Iwni, 3 and the place where still is a trace of his old
castle.
1 i.e., Cwm Cynllwyd, in which a stream runs from Bwlch y Groes
to Bala Lake.
2 Cp. Pfynonau'r Barfau in Bardsey Island. The tradition there
is that these small wells were used by the monks for shaving pur-
poses.
3 Cefn Caereini or Y Gaer, O. Jones's Cymru, ii, 64 ; Caer Creini
or Crwyni, Caer Crwyn, O. Jones's Cymru, ii, 657 (and map); Caerau
Crwyni, Pennant's Tours, ii, 205, Arch. Camb., II, ii, 54 ill ; IV, xii,
307 ill. ; V, i, 343. Cp. Llyn Creini.
K
130 Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837.
fo. 831 Yghwlad Aber Teibhi ac ym mhlwybh Lhan Dyssiliaw y
mae lhe a elwir Caer Wedros. Ar caer hwnnw a elwid
bhelhy ac a elwir etto
o achaws bod Gwedros gawr yn trigiaw yno gynt.
Ac yghwlad Aber Teibhi ac ym mhlwybh Lhan Dyssul yr
5 oedh cawr yn trigiaw ai enw Howel gawr ; a'r lhe yr
oedh yn aros yndaw a elwir etto Castelh Howel gawr.
Ac yghwlad Aber Teibhi ac ym mhlwybh Lhan Bhair or
Lhwyn
ydh oedh cawr a elwid Lhyphan gawr, a'r lhe ydh oedh
« ebh yn tri
giaw yndaw, a elwir etto Castelh Lhyphan gawr.
10 Ac yghwlad Aber Teibhi ac yn plwybh Bangor ydh oedh
Pyscoc
gawr yn preswyl ; a'r lhe ydh oedh ebh yn trigaw yndaw
a el-
wir etto Castelh Pyscoc gawr.
Tair gwidhones 1 oedh yn wragedh i'r tri chawr dwethabh,
nyd amgen,
i Howel gawr, a Lhyphan gawr, a Pyscoc gawr ; a'r tair
widhones
15 hynny a ladhwyd (medhant) gan Walchmei nai Arthur ;
drwy dhichelhon, herwydh na elhid ei dibha wy mywn
modh
amgenach nac yn dhichelhgar, gan bhaint eu crybhder a'i
grym.
a thair chwiorydh oedhynt y tair gwidhones hynn ; ac
obhywn y
tri chastelh y lhadwyd, nyd amgen, castelh Howel, castelh
Lhy-
•20 phan, a chastelh Pyscoc, herwydh a dhywedir am danunt.
Yghwlad Aber Teibhi ac jm mhlwybh lhan D} r ssul y pre-
swyliei gynt Hedoc gawr ; a'r lhe ydh oedh el»h yn
preswyl
yndaw, a elwir etto caer Hedoc gawr.
» ' gwi.ìdon ' (/). See Rhys's Celtic Folh Lore.
Peniarth Ms. nS,/os. 829-837. 131
In the land of Aberteiü and in the parish ot' Llan Dyssil- fo.831
iaw 1 is a place called Caer Wedros." And that caer was
called thus, and is still so called because Gwedros Gawr
formerly lived there.
And in the land of Aberteifì and in the parish of Llan
Dyssul 3 lived a giant and his name was Howel Gawr ; and
the place he lived in is still called Castell Howel Gawr. 4
And in the land of Aberteifi and in the parish of Llan-
fair or Llwyn 5 was a g-iant called Llyphan Gawr, and the
place he lived in is still called Castell Llyphan Gawr.
And in the land of Aberteifì and in the parish of
Bangor' lived Pyscoc Gawr ; and the place he dwelt in is
still called Castell Pyscoc Gawr. 7
Three witches were wives to the last three g-iants,
namely, to Howel Gawr, and Llyphan Gawr, and Pyscoc
Gawr ; and those three giantesses were killed (they say)
by Gwalchmar the nephew of Arthur by trickery,
because they could not be destroyed except by cunning,
011 account of their strength and power. And three
sisters were these three witches ; and within the three
castles they were killed, namely, Castell Howell, Castell
Llyphan, and Castell Pyscoc, according to what is
related of them.
In the land of Aberteifi and in the parish of Llan
Dyssul formerly lived Hedoc Gawr; and the place he lived
in is still called Caer Hedoc Gawr. 9
1 Llandyssilio-gogo, or Gogofau, 18 miles W.N.W. of Lampeter and
7\ miles from Aberaeron.
2 Castell Llwyn Dafydd or Castell Mabwynion (0. Jones's Cymru,
ii, 61), or Meib Wnion (or Castell Caerwaredros— 0. Jones's Gymru, i,
77, 315).
3 Llandyssul, on River Teivi on the Carmarthen border, and 8£
miles E. of Newcastle Emlyn.
4 Castell Howel or Humphrey. See O. Jones's Cymru, i, 78, 280 ;
ii, 62 (bis) ; Arch. Camb., I, i, 44 ; III, vi, 172 ; Y Geninen, xxx, p. 144
(1912).
3 Llanfair-Orllwyn on the River Teivi on the Carmarthen border,
and 4 miles E. of Newcastle Emlyn.
6 Bangor — 5^ miles E. of Newcastle Emlyn.
7 Castell Pistog. See O. Jones's Cymru, i, 78, 107.
8 Is this Gwalchmai ab Gwyar, nephew son of Arthur's sister, by
Gwyar, her second husband ? O. Jones's Cymru i, 602 ; see also
Lady C. Guest's Mabinogion, i, 122.
9 Moel Hebog (Carnarvonshire) is called Moel Hedog or Moli
hedog about Criccieth.
k2
132 Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837.
fo. 831 Ac yghwlad Aber Teibhi ac ym mhlw} r bh lharm Drenoc 1
25 y trigiei gynt Chwîl gawr ; a'r Ihe ydh oedh ebh yn aros
yndaw, a elwir etto Castelh Chwîl gawr. 2
Yghwlad Aber Teibhi yn ystrad ydh oedh gynt Didhan-
nel gawr, a'r lhe ydh oedh yn aros yndaw oe enw ebh
a elwid, ac a elwir etto Castelh Didhannel.
30 Ac yghwlad Aber Teibhi yn Ystrad uchod y preswyliei
Moel gawr, a'r lhe ydh oedh yn trigiaw yndaw, a elwir
etto, Castelh Moel.
Ac yghwlad Aber Teibhi, yn lhann Arth ydh oedli Moy-
34 thyn gawr, a'e breswylbhod a elwir etto Castelh Moythyn.
fo. 832 Yghwlad Aber Teibhi ydh oedh cawr a elwid
Mibhod gawr, a'r lhe ydh oedh yn aros yndaw a elwir etto
Cwrt
Mibhod.
Ac yghwlad Caer Bhyrdhin jn lhann Sawel ydh oedh
5 pedwar o gewri, a'r rhai hynny yn bedwar brodyr ; nyd
amgen Mabon gawr ; ar lhe a gybhanhedhei y cawr hwnn,
a elwir hedhiw a henw Castelh Bhabon ; a'r ail a elwid
Dinas gawr ; a'r lhe y preswyliei yndaw a elwir etto Caer
Dhinas gawr. a'r ferydydh a elwir Chwilcin neu Wilcin
10 gawr ; a'r bhan yr arhossei yndaw a elwir etwa Caer Wilc-
cin. A'r pedwerydh a elwir Celgan gawr, a'r lhe y
trigiei yndaw a elwir etto Caer Celgan.
1 ' Wenog ' written in ink above ' Drenoc ' by later writer.
2 ' Crug y hwil ' written in margin by later writer.
Peniarth Ms. 118,/os. 829-837. 133
And in the land of Aberteifì and in the parish of Llan fo. 831
Drenoc' formerly lived Chwîl Gawr : and the place he
abode in is still called Castell Chwîl Gawr. 2
In the land of Aberteifi in Ystrad 3 was formerly
Diddanel Gawr, and the place he lived in was named
after him, and is still called Castell Diddanel.
And in the land of Aberteifì in the above Ystrad there
dwelt Moel Gawr, and the place he lived in is still called
Castell Moel. 4
And in the land of Aberteifi in Llan Arth' was
Moythyn Gawr, and his abode is still called Castell
Moythyn. 6
In the land of Aberteifi was a giant called Meifod Gawr, 7 fo - 832
and the place he dwelt in is still called Cwrt Meifod. 8
And in the land of Caerfyrddin in Llan Sawel 9
were four giants, and these were four brothers, namely
Mabon Gawr, and the place in which this giant dwelt is
called to-day by the name Castell Fabon ; and the second
was called Dinas Gawr, and the place he dwelt in is still
called Caer Dinas Gawr. And the third is called Chwilcin
or Wilcin Gawr, and the place he dwelt in is still called
Caer Wilcin. And the fourth is called Celgan Gawr, and
the place he lived in is still called Caer Celgan.
1 Llanwennog— 6 miles W.S.W. Lampeter Railway Station.—
O. Jones's Cymru, i, 78 ; ii, 179.
2 Is it identical with Castell Moyddin ? — O. Jones's Cym.ru ii, 179.
Cf . Castell Moyddyn infra.
3 I ^strad (a) in Caron îs Clawdd parish near Tregaron. — O.Jones's
Cymru, ii, 647.
(b) in Llanddewi Brefi parish 3^ miles S.W.S. of Tre-
garon. — O. Jones's Cymru, ii, 647.
Ystrad Fflur—òh miles N.E. Tregaron.— O. Jones's Cym.ru,
i, 274-5.
Llanfihangel Ystrad— 6| miles S E. Aberaeron. — O. Jones's
Cymru, ii, 114.
4 Castell Yspytty Ystrad Meurig. — O. Jones's Cymru, i, 78 ; ii, 646.
5 Llánarth.
6 Castell Moeddyn.— O. Jones's Cymru, i, 77 ; II, ii, 298; Arch.
Camb., VI, x, 374.
7 ? Meifod— 6 miles N.W. of Welshpool in Montgomeryshire. —
O. Jones's Cymru, ii, 252. (Other ' Meifods ' in Brecknockshire,
Radnorshire and Carmarthenshire.)
8 ? Cwrt Newydd — 5 miles W. of Lampeter. — (O. Jones's Cymru —
map).
? Cwrt Earthwork — Arch. Camb., IV, ix, 344.
,J Llan sawel or Llan sawyl— 8 miles N.W. Llangadoclc.
134
Peniarth Ms. nS,/os. 829-837.
fo. 832 Yghwlad Caer Bhyrdhin ac yn lhann y Crwys ydh oedh
cawr
a elwid Chwermon gawr, a'r lhe yr oedh yn trigiaw yndo,
15 a elwir etto lhwyn Chwermon.
Ac yghwlad Caer Bhyrdhin yn mhlwybh Cynwil ydh oedh
cawr a elwid Ladyr neu Radyr gawr ; ar lhe ydh oedh
yn aros yndaw a elwir etto Bwlch Rhiw Radyr.
Ac yghwlad Caer Bhyrdhin yn Cynwil Gayo ydh oedh
20 cawr a elwid Cynwil gawr, a dyna yr achaws, agatbhydh
paham y gelwir y lhe etto Cynwil, a gwr dwywawl ydoedh
hwnnw,
Ac yghwlad Caer Bhyrdhin 3^11 lhann lhony ydh oedh
Oerbryd neu Eurbryd gawr, a'r lhe ydh oedh ebh yn
ei gybhanhedhu, a elwir etto Castelh Ourbryd.
25 Ac yn yr un plwybh a'r lhe ydh oedh Cymryd gawr, a'r
lhe ydh oedh yn trigaw yndaw, a elwir etto Castelh
Cymryd.
/Gogbhran gawr a oedh yn trigo yn Aber
Ysgyr yn y
caer uch yr abhon.
Mwghmawr drebhi 1 a oebh yn trigo yn
caereu yssydh dir yr awr hon i Rosser
Howel o'r gaer.
Crystil gawr yn nghwlad y Cruc wrth bont
wilim
Crwcast gawr yn trigo ym mhen Crwcast.
eraill 2 a
1 dhywedant Crow castell, Castell y brain.
30 ygwlad Bry-
cheinawc yn-
agos i drebh
32 Aber Hodni.
1 Mwngmaicr Arefî—' Mug mawr drewydd '— Blach BooJt of Car-
marthen, J. Gwenogvryn Evans (Pwllheli, 1906), 93-1, 93-6, 108-5.
2 From this word to the end of the following line is written in a
different hand— probably a later note.
Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837. 135
In the land of Caerfyrddin and in Llan y Crwys' was a f o. 832
giant called Chwermon Gawr, and the place he dwelt in
is still called Llwyn Chwermon.
And in the land of Caerfyrddin in the parish of
Cynwil 2 was a giant called Ladyr or Radyr Gawr 3 , and tlie
place he lived in is still called Bwlch Rhiw Radyr. 4
And in the land of Caerfyrddin in Cynwil Gayo° was a
giant called Cynwil Gawr, and that is the reason, perhaps,
why the place is still called Cynwil, and he was a godly
man.
And in the land of Caerfyrddin in Llan llony was
Oerbryd or Eurbryd Gawr, and the place he dwelt in is
still called Castell Ourbryd.
And in the same parish and place was Cymryd Gawr,
and the pìace he dwelt in is still called Casteìl Cymryd.
'Gogfran Gawr G lived in Aber Ysgyr 7 in the
caer above the river.
Mwnsrmawr drefì lived in the caerau which
In the land of
Brycheiniog
near to the
town of Aber
Hodni.
land now belongs to Rosser Howel of
the gaer.
Crystil Gawr in the land of the Cruc by
Bont wilim.
Crwcast Gawr dwelling in the top of Crw-
cast. Others say Castell Crow, s Castell
y brain.
1 Llanycrwys — on Roman road, 4 miles E. by S. of Lampeter
Railway Station, and near the Cardiganshire boundary. — O. Jones's
Cymru, ii, 183.
2 St. Cynwyl in the sixth century founded
(i) Cynwyl Gaio Church — 8 miles N.W. by N. of Llanymddyfri
and Caer Caio there situated. — O. Jones's Cymru, i, 260.
(ii) Cymvyl Elfed Church — 6 miles N.N.W. Carmarthen — in
Carmarthenshire. — 0. Jones's Cymru, i, 367.
3 Is Radyr— Rhaiadr ?
4 Bwlch y rhiw — 5 miles N.W. Conwil Cayo. — O. Jones's Cymru
(map).
5 Caer Caio — O. Jones's Cymru i, 260.
6 Gogyrfan Gawr, father of Gwenhwyfar — Caer Ogyrfan (Old
Oswestry). — O. Jones's Cymru, i, 585.
7 Aberyscir or Aber-esgair — 3imiles W.N.W. Aberhonddu. There
is ' Y Gaer ' or Gaer Bannau (on the East bank of Yscir opposite to
the village), also an artificial hillocli. — O. Jones's Cymru, i, 82.
8 Crowcastle.
136 Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837.
fo. 833 Ac yghwlad Aber Teiblii ydh oedh gynt cyn 110 dybhod
Brutus
ir ynys honn, Maylor gawr, a'r lhe y preswylei yndaw, a
elwir
etto Castelh Maylor adeiliedic ar bhrynn uchel neu drum
lann uchel a enwir y Dinas ar y nailh ystlys i'r abhon
5 ystwyth o bhywn rhydhdir trebh Aber Ystwyth. Ac i'r
May-
lor gawr hwnn ydh oedh tri meib, nyd amgen, Cornippin
gawr,
a Crygyn gawr, a Bwba gawr. Cornippin gawr a gy-
bhanhedhei gastelh a elwir etto o'i enw ebh ehun, nyd
amgen
Castelh Cornippin yn gybharwyneb a Chastelh Maylor or
10 ystlys aralh i'r abhon Ystwyth ym mhlwybh Lhan Ychay-
arn obhywn cymwd Mebhonydh. Ac ebh a dhamchwei-
anawdh i Bhaylor gawr gael ei dhala yn gaeth yn lhe a
elwid Cybheiloc yghhylch deudhec milhtir odhiwrth ei
gastelh ehun ; ac yn barawd cael ei dhodi i agheu, ebh
15 a dheiss} r bhawdh ar ei elynion gael cennad i chwythu yn ei
gorn deirgweith cyn godhebh i agheu. yr hynn beth a
genhatawyd
idhaw. Ac yna y chwythei ebh yn ei gorn y chwythiad
cyntabh hyd yny gwympei gwalht ei benn a blew ei
bharbh.
Ac ar ei eil chwythiad yn ei gorn, cymeint oedh o nerth ac
20 angerdh yn y chwyth ac y cwympei yn lhwyr holh ewinedh
byssedh ei dhwylo a'e draed. Ac ar y trydydh chwythiad
yn ei gorn y parei angerdh grymm y chwyth ir corn
dorri yn gandrylheu mân. Ac yna pan ytoedh ei bhab
ebh Cornippin yn hely wrth bharchogaeth ar bharch mawr
abhribhed gan
25 arwein ei bhytheiad yn ei law, ac yn clywed lais corn
ei dad, ebh a dristaawdh } r n dhirbhawr, ac yn bhwy no
meint yr hiraethodh am ei dad; a'r lhe hwnnw h} r d
hedhiw, a
elwir Cebhn Hiraethoc. Ac yna y dechreawdh ebh
ymchue-
lud tu ac at ei dad wrth geissiaw ei helpu ; ac wrth
Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837. 137
And in the country of Aberfceifi, before the coming of f o. 833
Brutus to this island, there formerly lived Maylor Gawr,
and the place in which he lived is still called Castell
Majdor which was built on a high hill or high ridge called
Y Dinas 1 011 the one side of the river Ystwyth within the
boundary of the town of Aber Ystwyth.
To this Maylor Gawr were three sons, namely, Cor-
nippin Gawr, and Crygyn Gawr, and Bwba Gawr.
Cornippin Gawr dwelt in a castle which is still called
after his own name, namely, Castell Cornippin opposite
Castell Maylor on the other side of the river Ystwyth in
the parish of Llan Ychaiarir within the commote of
Meifienydd. 3 And it came to pass that Maylor Gawr was
taken prisoner in a place called Cyfeilog, about twelve
miles from his own castle ; and when on the point of
being put to death, he begged of his enemies to permit
him to blow his horn three times before suffering death,
which thing was allowed to him. And then he blew his
horn the first time until the hair of his head and beard
fell. And on the second blast of his horn, so great was
the strength and force of the sounding that all his finger
and toe-nails fell off completely. And on the third blast
of his horn the intensity of the force of the sound caused
the horn to be broken into small pieces. 1 And then when
his son Cornippin was hunting, as he rode on his huge
horse and leading his hound by hand, and hearing the
sound of his father's horn, he saddened greatly, 5 and he
longed beyond measure for his father ; and that place, to
the present day, is called Cefn Hiraethog. And then he
began to return towards his father in seeking to help him;
and in
1 Dinas Maclor — the old name for ' Y Dinas' — to the S. of Aberyst-
wyth. For a rìescription of it see O. Jones's Cymru, i, 84, 85.
"Arìnaborì, nirì anobaith
Dinas Maelor o'r môr maith ;
Cael o'r brairìrì, rìiwlarìairìrì lwyth,
O bu rwystr, Aberystwyth.''— Cywyrìrì y Morrìwyo at Ynys
Enlli gan Rhys Llwyrì ap Rhys.
2 Llanychaiarn — village anrì parish in Carrìiganshire, on Ystwyth
river, two miles E. of Aberystwyth Railway Station : the Castell
stoorì on the E. bank of the Ystwyth. — 0. Jones's Cymru, ii, 182.
3 Mefenyrìrì — a township in Llanrhystyrì, Carrìiganshire, 8^ miles
N.E. Aberaeron.
4 or ' shattererì into fragments ' 5 or ' sorrowerì gfeatly.'
138 Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837.
fo. 833 bharcho-
30 gaeth drwy gymeint o phrwst a buander, ebh a dorres penn
ei bhytheiad odhi wrth ei gorph, hyd yn y lynei yn unic
J n J
gynlhybhan pen a sabhn y ci. A'r lhe hwnnw a elwir etto
hyd y dydh hedhiw, Bwlch Sabhn y ci, a phan weles ebh
hynny,
ebh a yspardynei ei bharch, hyd yny lamhei y march ar
35 un naid dros yr abhon ystwyth i hyd yn gymeint a bod
enrhy-
bhedhawd mawr weled amled hyd y gambha. a'r lhe y dis-
cynodh y march ar ei naid, a elwir yr awr honn 01 carn
y march. Ac bhelhy y daeth Cornippin hyd at ei dad, yn
y lhe
drwy ymladh y las ynteu hebh} r d.
40 A'r Grygyn gawr a oedh yn trigaw yn Castelh Crygyn
obhywn
plwybh Lhan Hilar ac yn yr un cymwd.
fo. 834 Bwba 1 gawr a oedh yn trigiaw yn y castelh yssydh a'i enw
ebh arnaw
etto, nyd amgen Castelh Bwba, ym mhlwybh Lhan Badarn
Bhawr yghhymwd perbhedh
Ydh oedhynt y cewri hynn yn buchedhocau yghhymry cyn
no dybhod
Brutus i'r ynys honn, a'i cynnebhawd oedh hyd tra bhuant
bhyw ladh y sawl dhynion bynnac a dhelynt i lettya
obhywn eu
ceyrydh wy, hyd yn y diwedh dhybhod 'r un dyn 2 ai lhadh
wynt
eilh-deu yn un nosweith drwy dhichelh.
Odwyn gawr a oedh yn trigaw yn ei caer a elwir etto Caer
10 Odwyn neu Castelh Edwin obhywn plwybh Lhan Badarn
Odwyn, y gelwir lhan Badarn Odyn, gan golhi y lhythyr
(w) o'r canol.
Rhai a dybiynt bhod Garwed yn gawr, eithr nyd cawr
oedh ebh
namyn meudwy yn trigiaw obhywn pedeir milhtir i Ystrad
lô F'hlur, mywn lhe a elwir etto Rhiw Garwed ; ac yna y
cabhas ei ladh gan Gwaith Bhoed, er ys yghhylch pym
cant
o bhlwydhyneu.
1 Cp. 'bwbaeh' a bogey, goblin, scarecrow; is ' bwba', a local
name for ' ^host ' 'r 2 V un dyn=' the same man '.
Penìarth Ms. nS,/os. 829-837. 139
riding with such haste and swiftness, he tore the head fo. 833
of his houncl from off its body, until there only remained
in the leash the head and mouth of the dog. And
that place is still called to tfiis day, The Pass of the
Dog's Muzzle. And when he saw that, he spurred his
steed until the horse leapt at one bound over the Ystwyth
Eiver so that it was a great wonder to see such a length
of leap, and the sput on which the horse alighted on his
leap, is called to this hour 01 Carn y March. 1 And in
that manner Cornippin came up to his father, where after
fighting he also was killed.
And Crygyn Gawr dwelt in Castell Crygyn within the
parish of Llan Hilar, 2 and in the same commote. fo g34
Bwba Gawr lived in the castle which still bears his
name, namely, Castell Bwba, iri the parish of Llan Badarn
Fawr 3 in the middle comrnote.
These giants lived in Wales before Brutus came to
this islancl, and their custom while they lived was to kill
whatever men should come to lodge within their strong-
holds until at last the same man came and killed them
both the same night by cunning.
Odwyn Gawr lived in his stronghold which is still
called Caer Odw'yn or Castell Eclwin within the parish of
Llan Badarn Oclyn, which is called Llan Badarn Odyn, 4
the letter (w) being lost from the middle. Some con-
sider Garwed 5 a giant, but he was not a giant but a hermit
living within four miles of Ystrad Fflur, 6 in a place still
called Rhiw Garwed ; and then he was killed by Gwaith
Bhoed, about five hundred years ago.
1 There is a Glan Olmarch near Cardigan—at Llechryd.
2 Llanilar—h\ miles S.E. Aberystwyth : ' Castle Hill' is one of its
chief mansions (O. Jones's Cymru, ii, 147).
Ilar (Hilary) was a Saint that flourished at the beginning of
the sixth century and was sometimes called Ilar
Bysgotwr (O. Jones's Cymru, i, 676).
3 Llanbadarn Fawr — a large parish including Aberystwyth —
O. Jones's Cymru, ii, 14, 15.
4 Llanbadarn Odwyn—S miles W. of Tregaron Railway Station. —
O. Jones's Cymru, ii, 18.
5 Cp. Carwed Fynydd.
6 Ystrad Fflur or Strata Florida or Caron-uwch-clawdd— 5£ miles
N.E. Tregaron.
140 Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837.
fo. 83-t Yghwlad Morgannw ydh oedh Cribwr gawr y yghhastelh
Cebhn Cribwr wrtli Lami Gewydh. Arthur a ladhawdh
dair
20 chwaer i Gribwr wrth dhichelh. Canys Arthur a lysenwei
ebh
yn Gawl Twym wrth y chwaer gy ntabh ; ac yn Uwd twym
wrth yr ail chwaer (mal y cerdha'r chwedl), ac wrth y
drydedh yn Tameid Bara
a phany y galwei y chwaer gyntabh am help yn erbyn
Cawl
Twym, yr attebei Cribwr : mursen gad idho oeri, ac
25 yn yr un modh yr attebei irail chwaer, pan geissiei help
yn erbyn Uwd twym. A'r drydedh chwaer a lebhei bhod
y Tameid Bara yn ei thagu ; ac ir attebei ynteu, Mursen
cymer dameid a bho lhai. A phan yr ymliwiei
Cribwr ac Arthur am ladh ei chwiorydh, yr attebei Arthur
30 drwy eghlyn milwr 1 yn y lhun hynn.
Cribwr cymer dy gribeu
A phaid ath gostoc lidieu
daw i mi gynyg — dieu
A gawsant wy, a gey ditheu
35 nyalhei neb ladh y tair chwaer yghhyd, rac maint eu grym
eithr o'r neilhtu drwy dhichelh y lhadhodh Arthur wy.
fo. 835 Ar lhe oi enw ebh a elwir etto Cribarth i.e. garth Cribwr
Ö*
gawr
Ac yn gybheir wyneb ac ynteu ydh oedh cawr a elwid Oyle
gawr,
ai dricbhan etto a elwir Penn Oyle.
Ac mywn lhe yn yr un plwybh a elwir etto ynys Cedwyn
5 ydh oedh cawr aralh a elwid Cedwyn gawr, a'r tri hynn a
oedhynt
yn amser Arthur. A'r dhau gyntabh a gawsant eu lhadh
gan Arthur.
Ac ym mhlwybh Penn Ederyn, Dynas gawr a gabhas y
ladh
1 See Yr Y.«;<>/ Farddol, gan Dafydd Morganwg (Caerdydd) 1904—
'Englyn Milwr' (p. 133); also 'Triban Milwr' (pp. 125-127) and
'Triban Morganwg' (pp. 127-8)— both of which have been confused
with ' Englyn Milwr '.
Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837. 141
In the country o£ Morgannwg was Cribwr Grawr in fo. 834
Castell Cefn Cribwr' by Llan Gewydd . J Artliur killed three
sisters of Cribwr by treachery. Because Arthur nick-
named him(self) Hot Pottage to the first sister, and Warm
Porridge to the second sister (so the tale runs), and a
Morsel of Bread to the third, and when the fìrst sister
called for help against Hot Pottage Cribwr answered :
Wench, let him cool ; and in the same manner he
answered the second sister, when she sought assistance
against Warm Porridge. And the third sister called out
that the Morsel of Bread was choking her ; and to this
he answered, Wench, take a smaller piece. And when
Cribwr reproached Arthur for killing his sisters Arthur
replied by an englyn milwr in this manner ;
Cribwr take thy combs
And cease with currish anger
If I get a real chance — surely
What they have had, thou shalt have too.
No one could kill the three sisters together, so great
was their strength, but singly by stealth Arthur lnlled
them.
And the place is still called after his name Cribarth, 3 fo - 835
namely, Garth Cribwr Gawr. And opposite to him was
another giant called Oyle Gawr, and his dwelling place is
still called Pen Oyle.
And in the same parish in a place still called Ynys
Cedwyn 4 there was another giant called Cedwyn Gawr,
and these three lived in Arthur's time. And the fìrst two
were killed by Arthur.
And in the parish of Pen Ederyn, 3 Dynas Gawr was
killed
1 Cefn Cribwr — 4 miles N.W. Bridgend.
2 Llangewydd — or Trelalys or Laleston — 2 mües W. by N.
Bridgend. Llangewydd was the original name and founded by Caw,
lord of Cwm Cowlyd ; the present name is from Lales, the builder of
Neath monastery and Margam Abbey. — O. Jones's Cymru, ii, 2.
3 Cribarth — a mountain on the S. border of Brecknockshire, near
Tawe River, 12 miles N. by E. of Neath.
4 Ynys Cedwyn — a township in N. Glamorgan, near the junction
of the Tawe and Twrch, and 13 miles N.E. Swansea.
5 Penderyn or Pen y daren, near S. border of Brecknockshire and
7 miles W. by N. of Merthyr Tydvil : a strong old British fort called
Craig y Dinas (O. Jones's Cymru ii. 661) in the parish (0. J.'s Cymru
ii, 405).
142 Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837.
fo. 835 gan Arthur. A'r lhe y trigyei yndaw a elwir etto Caer
Craic Dynas gawr, alias Craic y lhyn.
]0 Bwch gawr a breswylei yn lhe a elwir etto Castelh Bwch
rhwgh Caer lhion ar Wysc a lhan Ternan, ac yn y
Castelh Bwch aralh rhwgh y pentre Bach ar Henlhys
yggwlad Gwent y cybhanhedhei ebh hebhyd, Ac i'r Bwch
hwnn y bu bheibion, nyd
amgen Ernalht gawr, a'i dricbhan yn lhe a elwir etto
15 Castelh Ernalht yn lhan Gattwc dhyphryn W} r sc. Clidha
gawr ym mhlwybh y Bettws newydh, ai dricbha yn y lhe a
elwir Clodheu Caer Clidha, ar tir hwnnw a elwir hedhiw
Tir
Clibha ym mhlwybh Lhan Arth. Buga gawr, a'i dr-
igbha yn y lhe a elwir etto Castelh Brynn Buga,
-° Trogi gawr a breswylei yn y Castelh a elwir etto Castelh
Trogi wrth Coed Gwent. Cybi gawr, ai gartrebh
yn y castelh a elwir etto Castelh Cybi. Crou gawr, a'i
arosbha yn y lhe a elwir etto Castelh tir Crou ym mhlwybh
y Bettws newydh, Yr hain olh oedhynt bheibion i Bhwch
gawr
25 o bhywn gwlad Gwent. A rhai o dhywedant bhod Phili
yn gawr ac yn bhab i'r Bwch uchod, a'i dricbha yn . ,
tj. ,r r -~*-~ j » ■ ■■*■• ' . ■■■■■ » . f
^; V V- — ^J^'r^^l i3t ^??P*
*&Vl ^ 7-/- ^ŴŴÎ A -J
^
/?£ ^ * ' ^~^^/-h»V-
Ju ^ r ^ -^-^. v^^ v-'"">-^ ^ Ç v*' : í
fef^ -~V^-r ^>~ -* 5^ ŵ <^* f ^ 9* r - :
O ^^-7»^ r i r Xy ^ ' J *-f»~ ŵ r~r / r:U k
»" r.'-í»
^ -V-
r
n — ■■
7o /<íí"t? ^. 142.
PENIARTH MS. 118, FO. 835.
Peniarth Ms. 1 1 8, fos. 829-837. 143
by Arthur. And the place where he dwelt is still called fo - 83i >
Caer Craig Dj'iias Gawr, at other times Craig* y Llyn. 1
Bwch Gawr lived in a place still called Castell Bwch
between Caerleon on Usk and Llan Ternan, 2 and he also
lived in the other Castell Bwch between Pentref Bach and
the Henllys 3 in the country of Gwent. And there were
sons to this Bwch, namely, Ernallt Gawr, whose dwelling
was in the place still called Castell Ernallt in Llan
Gattwg* in the Usk valley. Clidda Gawr in the parish of
Bettws Newydd, 5 and his abode in the place called Cloddeu
Caer Clidda, and that land to-day is called Tir Clidda 6 in
the parish of Llan arth. 7 Buga Gawr, and his abode in
the place still called Castell Bryn Buga/ Trogi Gawr
dwelt in the castle still called Castell Trogi by Coed
Gwent. 9 Cybi Gawr, whose home was in the castle still
called Castell Cybi. Crou Gawr, his abode in the place
still called Castell Tir Crou 10 in the parish of Bettws
Newydd. All these were sons of Bwch Gawr within the
country of Gwent. And some say that Phili was a giant
and a son to the above Bwch, and his abode in
1 Craig y llyn — the highest peak in Glamorganshire, 5 miles W. by
N. of Aberdare, and 4 miles S.W. of Penderyn.
2 Llanfihangel-llantarnam or Llantorfaen — 2^ rniles N.W. Caer-
leon-on-Usk (O. J.'s Cymru, ii, 109). (On O. Jones's map of Monmouth
an encampment is indicated almost midwaybetween Caerleon on Usk
and Llan-llantarnam.)
3 Henllys — a parish on the Usk 3^ miles N.W. Newport.
4 Llangattwg (i) in S.W. Brecknockshire, near the Usk opposite
Crughowel. — O. J.'s Cymru, ii, 125.
(h) neartheUskinMonmouth, andincludes Caerleon-
on-Usk ; it is two miles N.E. Newport Railway
Station. — O. J.'s Cymru, ii, 126.
(iii) near the Usk in Monmouth, and 3^ miles S.S.E.
Abergavenny — O. J.'s Cymru, ii, 126.
6 Bettius Newydä — 10 miles S.W. Monmouth and 4 miles N. by W.
of the Usk.
6 Clytha—Hh miles S.E. Abergavenny.— O. J.'s Cymru, ii, 660.
(Clytha Castle is indicated on O. Jones's map of Monmouth.)
7 Llanarth—ò miles S.E. Abergavenny. (There is a 'Llanarth'
also in Cardigansliire.— O. J.'s Cymru, ii, 11, 12.)
s Bryn Biga or Usk— 13 miles S.W. Monmouth. Thereareseveral
old forts in the neighbourhood — Craig y Gaercyd or Craig y Gaerwyd,
Coed y Gwersyll, Coed y Bonedd (O. J.'s Cymru, ii, 660).— 0. Jones's
Cymru, i, 200-202.
9 Coed Gioent—\\ miles S.S-E. of Bryn Buga or Usk.
10 Cantref Cron Nedd in Glamorganshire ; see under Baglan.—
O. J.'s Cymru, i, 104.
144 Peniarth Ms. 1 1 8, fos. 829-837.
fo. 835 caer phili yghwlad Morgannwc, a'i tad hwy (medhant)
a ladhwyd ei benn yghwlad Morgannwc uchlaw
Lhan Trissant yn y lhe a elwir etto Pen Bwch.
30 Erdhan neu Gerdhan gawr oedh yn trigo yn Castelh
Erdhan ac mywn Ogobh a elwir etto Gogobh Erdhan
gawr, ac yn bhyrr Gogerdhan, ac ar bhrynn a elwir Brynn
33 Bronn Gastelhann yghwlad Aber Teibhi.
fo. 836 Ac yghwlad Morgannwc y mae lhe a elwir Celh ....
walhawn gawr, a hynny yw Gors bhawr obhywn Coed
phranc
rhwgh Castelh Nedh ac Abertawi.
Ac y mae lhe a elwir Rhyd Penn y Cawr rhwgh Lhann
5 Sawel a' Chwrt y Betws, yghwlad Bhorgannwc, yn y
lhe y torrwyd penn Lhoches Gawr.
Ac yghwlad Bhorgannwc y mae mann a elwir Bedh
Dilic 1 Gawr, rhwgh Lhan Sawel a Baglann
a'r Bedh hwnn hynn yssydh yn chwanec i dec ar ugeint
troedbhedh
10 o hyyd.
Tarnoc Gawr ym mhlwybh Merthyr yn nyphryn Hodni
yghwlad Bhrycheinoc.
Medhgyrn Gawr ym mhlwybh Aber Ysgyr yn yr un wlad
Bhrycheinawc.
15 Dyrnhhwch gawr yghwlad Euas.
Gwrle gawr, a'r lhe y trigiei yndaw a elwid Caer Gwrle 2
nyd pelh odhiwrth Caer lheon Gawr a'r Dhybhrdwy.
Iestyn Gawr ai dricbha yn lhann Iestyn, wrth Garth
Beibio.
1 ' Dilyc' in margin.
2 " Y garles o gaer Gwrlai.
I garu y gwr o Gaer Gai— Ieu. Br. Hir. (Elis o Ddyífryn Alun)
— LÌan St., 133, p. 320.
Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 129-837. 145
Caer Phili 1 in the country of Morgannwg, and their ro -835
father (they say) was killed in the country of Morgannwg
above Llantrissant in the place still called Pen Bwch.
Erddan or Gerddan Gawr was living in Castell Erddan
and in a cave still called Gog-of Gerddan Gawr, and
briefiy Gogerddan, and 011 a hill called Bryn Bron Gas-
tellan 2 in the country of Aberteifi.
And in the country of Morgannwg is a place called fo - 836
Cell .... Wallawn 3 Gawr, and that is a big marsh in
Coed Ffranc between Neath Castle and Swansea. And
there is a place called Rhyd Pen y Cawr between Llan
Sawel and Cwrt y Betws 4 in the country of Morgannwg,
where Lloches Gawr had his head cut off.
And in the country of Morgannwg is a spot called
Bedd Dilic Gawr, between Llan Sawel and Baglair 5 and
this grave is over thirty feet in length.
Tarnoc Gawr in the parish of Merthyr 6 in the valley of
Hodni 7 in the country of Brecknock.
Meddgyrn Gawr in the parish of Aber Ysgyr in the
same country of Brecknock.
Dyrnhwch Gawr in the country of Euas.
Gwrle Gawr, and the place he dwelt in was called Caer
Gwrle not far from Caerlleon Gawr and the Dee.
Iestyn Gawr" and his dwelling in Llaniestyn, by Garth
Beibio. 9
1 Caer Phili. — O. Jones's Cymru, i, 235-241.
2 Bron Castellan — township in Llanbadam Fawr near E. border
of Cardiganshire, on the Aberystwyth-Llanidloes high road, 11 miles
E. Aberystwyth. — O. J.'s Cymru, i, 83.
3 ? Cellywion or Celliwyn village in Llantrisant parish, in Miscyn
hundred, N.W. Cardiff.
4 Bettws — 4 miles N. Bridgend.
5 Baglan— 3 miles S. of Neath.
6 Merthyr Cynog— a parish 8 miles N.N-W. Aberhonddu ; there
are traces of the remains of a British Camp on a hill named Allfarnog
in this parish. — O. J.'s Cymru, ii, 266-7.
7 Dyffryn Honddu — in Merthyr Cynog, Brecknockshire.
8 (i) Iestyn ab Cadfan— a Saint of the fourth century.— O. J.'s
Cymru, i, 672.
(ii) Iestyn ab Geraint ab Erbin — founded churches in Llaniestyn
(Anglesey and Carnarvon).— O. J.'s Cymru, i. 672.
(iii) Iestyn ab Gwrgant — a traitor to the Welsh. — O. J.'s Cymru,
i, 672.
9 Garth Beibio — a parish 8 miles N.W. Llanfaircaereinion.
L
146 Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837.
fo. 836
20 Cornbwch Gawr yn trigiaw yn y Graic donn, rhwgh
Trebhyclawdh a'r Cnwclas.
Bedh Gnerys Gawr y sydh obhywn plwybh lhan ym
Mow-
dhwy, yn agos at le a elwir Bwlch Sabhn âst, yghwlad
__ Bheirionnydh.
-° Drewyn 1 Gawr a wnaeth Caer Drewyn yn y Deyrnion, am
yr abhon a
Chorwen. Ac yw gariad y gwnaeth y Gaer honno, er
godro ei gwarthec yndi,
Ac ar gybher Caer Dhrewyn y mae Cebhn Heini, a lhynn
Heini 3 Gawr
y dhau le hynn a gawsant eu henwi gan y cawr Heini.
Ac yn ymyl parc Glocaenawc y mae lhe a elwir Sarn y
Trichawr yr hwnn
30 a wnaed gan dri chawr mywn gwayn, er galhi sebhylh yn
gadarn o rann dau
erailh i alhu ymladh ae gilydh; a phan ledhid un o
honunt, bod i'r dhau erailh
gybhymladh, ac i'r neb or dhau a orbhydhei o'r dhau
hynny, cael o hwnnw
y peth a ardhelid am danaw, oblegyd y chweryl hwnnw.
Mywn lhe a elwir Glascoed yghwlad Trebhaldwyn y mae
bedh tri chawr sebh
35 Meichiad Gawr yr hwnn a oedh yn cadw moch ; ac oi enw
ebh y gelwid nant
a diphryn Meichiad a Cwm glann Meichiad ; yn y lhe y
caphad ei gylhelh ebh a'i bibelh. Ac Aedh-
an Gawr ; ac oi enw ebh y cabhas Bwlch Aedhan ei enw.
Ac ym mhlwybh
Meibhod y maent y dhau le hynny sef y nant a'r bwlch.
fo. 837 Ceimiad gawr y sydh a bedh idhaw ar lawr dyphryn
Mochnant
yn lhe a elwir lhwyn y meini hirion ar bhin nant Ceimiad,
ym mhlwybh Pennant Mylaghelh, lhe y cawssei ei ladh
(medhant)
gan Arthur, a'r dhau bhain hirion yn terbhynu hyyd y
bedh,
5 un ym mhob penn idhaw.
1 From line 2ö to bottom of the page appears in the same ink as
the preceding lines, lmt lines 25-38 are crowded into the page.
- Caer Enni, now Llyn Creini (see Iwni Gawr, pp. 128-129 notes).
Peniarth Ms. nS,fos. 829-837. 147
Cornbwch Gawr dwelling in the Graig' clon, between fo. 836
Tref yclawdd and Kmicklas. 1
The grave of Gnerys Gawr is within the parish of Llan
yn Mawddwy near a place called the Pass of the Bitch's
Mouth, in the country of Merioneth.
Drewyn Gawr made Caer Drewyn 2 in Deyrnion, 3 the
other side of the river from Corwen. And to his sweetheart
he made that Caer,to milk her cows within it. And opposite
Caer Drewyn is Cefn Heini, and the lake of Heini Gawr.
These two places were named by the Cawr Heini. And
near the park of Glocaenawg 4 is a place called Sarn y
Trichawr which was made by three giants in a marsh to
be able to stand firmly in respect of two others in order
to fìght one another ; and when one of them was killed,
for the other two to fig-ht each other, and whichever of
the two triumphed, he was to receive the thing that was
claimed, because of that qúarrel.
In a place called Glascoed 5 in the country of Mont-
g-omery is the grave of three giants, namely, Meichiad
Gawr who kept pigs ; and after his name was called Nant
and Dyffryn Meichiad and Cwm Glan Meichiad ; where
his knife and flute were found. And Aeddan Gawr 6 : and
after him Bwlch Aeddan was called. And in the parish
of Meifod are those two places, namely, the Nant and the
Bwlch.
Ceimiad Gawr has a grave in the soil of Dyffryn fo. 837
Mochnant in a place called Llwyn y Meini Hirion near
Nant Ceimiad, in the parish of Pennant Mylang-ell, 7
where he was killed (so they say) by Arthur, and two
long stones mark the leng-th of the g-rave, one at each end.
1 Cnwclas— 2^ miles N.W. Rnighton (Trefyclawdd), Radnorshire.
Garth Hill and Race Course are situated between Trefyclawdd and
Cnwclas. — O. J.'s Cymru, ii, map of Radnor.
2 Caer Drewyn — 1 mile N.E. Corwen in Merionethshire.
3 Edeyrnion — a valley and cantref between Bala and Corwen by
the bank of the Dee.
4 Clocaenog— a parish 3| miles S.W. Ruthin.
5 Glascoed— one mile S.W. Meifod in Montgomeryshire.
G Aeddan, son of Blegwryd, killed in 1015.
7 Pennant or Pennant Melangell— a parish 9| miles N.W. by W.
of Llanfyllin, Montgomeryshire.
L —
148 Peniarth Ms. 11&, fos. 829-837.
fo. 837 Ydh oedh lhe ym mlaeneu gwlad yr Amwythyc, a
elwid Bronn Wrgan, a phreswylbhod cewri ydoedh y
bhann honno
Ac yn y lhe hwnn yr adrodhid bod rhyw bhro-
dyr i Wenhwybhar bherch Gogbhran . .
10 gawr, mywn ceithiwed carchar gan rai o'r
cewri hynn. A drwc anianawl oedh gantei
y bod wy yn geith. Eithr Arthur au gwaredawdh
wy cymeint ar un, 1 gan ladh y cewri, a
chymrud penn y mwyabh o honunt ai bhyrw
15 i berbhedh yr abhon yn lhe maen, wrth
lamhu dros yr abhon, er myned
i gastelh y Cnwclas. Ac wrth dhodi ei
droed ar iad y cawr wrth lamhu dros
yr abhon, y d} 7 wawd 2 Arthur tybhed yr iad
20 yu yr abhon yn lhe maen. Ac o
hynny alhan y gelwid yr abhon honno yn
Abhon Tybhediad, megis tybhed ymliad
23 y cawr.
one' — an idiom long since dead : see
Cymaint un j Ed. Prys' Salrns for example.
}
2 dywawd (dywod)=said.
Note on the word Caer (see p. 119). After the foregoing pages
were set the following note was received from Mr. J. Glyn Davies, of
the University of Liverpool : —
"The word Caer cannot be traced back before the Roman occupa-
tion, nor does it occur in the British place-names recorded by the
early geographers. That Caer, which subsequently became so wide-
spread a term, should be missing in the earliest sources, shews pretty
elearly that it must be a loan word, and from its vogue both in
Brittany (Ker) and in Wales, a Latin loan word. The Latin castra,
castrum, would give a satisfactory meaning, but by no ascertained
phonetic process can the st be got rid of. There is another Latin
word, liowever, which was more probably the origin of caer, and that
is r/uadrum, in its modified form cadrum (see Maigne D'arnis), a word
that would precisely hit off the rectangular form of the Roman fort.
Phonologically the fit is perfect. The d in combination with r drops
Peniarth Ms. nS, fos. 829-837. 149
There was a place 011 the f rontier of the land of Shrop- f o. 837
shire, called Bron Wrgan, and it was the abode of giants.
And in this place it is related that there were some
brothers to Gwenhwyfar, 1 the daughter of Gogyrfan
Gawr, 2 who were imprisoned by some of these giants.
And she grieved greatly they were in captivity. But
Arthur saved them each one, killing the giants, and
taking the head of the biggest of them and throwing it
into the middle of the river instead of a stone, in stepping
across the river, to go to Castell y Cnwclas. And as he
placed his foot on the head of the giant in stepping across
the river Arthur said, Let the head grow in the river
instead of a stone. And henceforth that river was called
Afon Tyfed-iad, as the side of the giant's head grew.
1 " Gwenhwyfar, ferch Gogyrfan Gawr,
Drwg yn fechan, gwaeth yn fawr."
2 Gogyrf an was the chief of a part of Powys in the sixth century. —
O. Jones's Cymru, i, 585.
out and leaves a dipthong behind, as in cadeir (cathedra), Eirion
(Hadrianus), chwaerfan (quadrimanus). How caer came to be applied
to older British forts is a question for archseologists to decide" — V. E.
ERRATA.
Page 124, line 18, for gyd read hyd.
„ 126, ,, 34, for Yecydion read Yscydion.
„ 128, „ 32, delete Itto Gawr yn galw .... (as an inter-
lineation for " a marginal note ") and insert
A gwedy hwnnw (?) ebh.
„ 129, „ 15, delete Itto Gawr, and read, And after that he.
„ 134, note 1, for Mungmawr Arcfi read Mungmawr drefi.
„ 139, line 16, for middle commote read commote of Perfedd. '
„ 139, ,, 24, for Llan Badarn Odyn which is called read Llan
Badarn Odwyn, which i< called.
„ 139, „ 28-29, for Gwaith Bhoed read Gweithfoed.
1 so
Peuiarth Ms. nS,fos. 829-837
INDEX OF NAMES.
(Nos. refer to folios of Peniarth Ms., and m to the marginal note.) %
Aber Hodni, 832 m
Abertawi, 836
Aber Teìbhi, 831, 832, 833, 835
Aber Ysgyr, 832
Aber Ystwyth, 833
Ablion Tybhediad, 837
Aedhan, Bwlch, 836
Aedhan, Gawr, 836
Amwythyc, 837
Aran bhawr, mynydh, S30
Aran, Penn, 830
Ardudwy, 830
Arthur, 829111, 830, 830111, 831, 834,
§35. 837
B.
Baglann, 836
Bangor, 831
Barbheu, Rhiw y, 830 m
Bedh Dilyc Gawr, 836
Bettws newydh, 835
Betws, Cwrt y, 836
Bhoed, Gwaith, 834
Blaen Cynlhwyd, 830 m
Bronn Gastelhann, Brynn, 835
Bronn Wrgan, 837
Brutus, 829 m, 833, 834
Brycheinawc, 832
Brycheinoc, 836
Brynn Bronn Gastelhann, 835
Brynn Buga, Castelh, 835
Buga Gawr, 835
Bwba Gawr, S33, 834
Bwch Gawr, 835
Bwch, Pen, 83=;
Bwlch Aedlian". 836
Bwlch Rhiw Radyr, 832
Bwlch Sabhn Ast, 836
Bwlch Sabhn y Ci, 833
Bwlch y Groes, 830, 830 m
Cadeir Idris, 829
Caer Bhyrdhin, 831
Caer Celgan, S32
Caer Clidlia, Clodheu, 835
Caer Craic Dynas Gawr, 835
Caer Dliinas Gawr, 832
Caer Drewyn, 836
Caer Gwrle, S36
'Caer Hcdoc Gawr, 831
Caer llieon Gawr, 836
Caer lhion ar Wysc, 835 .
Caer Odwyn, 834
Caer Phili, 835
Caer Wedros, 831
Caer Wilcin, S32
(Carwed ?), Garwed, 834
Castelh Bhabon, 832
Castelh Brynn Buga, 835
Castelh Bwba, 834
Castelh Bwch, 835
Castelh Ceblm Cribwr, S34
Castelh Chwil Gawr, 831
Castelh Cornippin, 833
Castelii Crow, 832
Castelli Crygyn, 833
Castelh Cybi, 835
Castelh Cymryd, 832
Castelh Didhannel, 831
Castelh Edwin, 834
Castelh Erdhan, S35
Castelh Ernalht, 835
Castelh Howel Gawr, 831
Castelh Lhyphan Gawr, 831
Castelh Maylor, S33
Castelh Moel, 831
Castelh Moythyn, 831
Castelh Nedh, 836
Castelh Oerbryd, S32
Castelh Pyscoc Gawr, 831
Caslelh tir Crou, 835
Castelh Trogi, 835
Castelh y brain, 832
Castelh y Cnwclas, 837
Cawl Twym, 834
Cebhn Caer [wni, 830 m
Cebhn Cribwr, Càstelh, 834
Cebhn Heini, 836
Cebhn Hiraethoc, 833
Cedwyn Gawr, S35
Cedwyn, Ynys, 835
Ceimiad Gawr, 837
Ceimiad, nant, 837
Celgan, Caer, 832
Celgan Gawr, 832
Celhwalhawn Gawr, 836
Chwermon Gawr, 832
Chwermon, Lhwyn, 832
Chwilcin Gawr, 832
Chwîl Gawr, 831
Clidha, Clodheu Caer, 835
Clidha Gawr, 835
Clidha, Tir, 835
Clodheu Caer Clidha, 835
Cnwclas, 836
Cnwclas, castelh y, 837
Penìarth Ms. i 1 8, fos. S29-S37.
151
Coed Gwent, S35
Coed phranc, 836
Cornbwch Gawr, 836
Cornippin Gawr, 833
Corwen, 836
Craic Dynas Gawr, Caer, 835
Craic y lhyn, 835
Craic Dynas Gawr, Caer, 835
Cribarth, 835
Cribwr Gawr, 834
Crow Castelh, 832
Cron Gawr, 835
Cruc, 832
Crug y Hwil, 831 m
Crwcast Gawr, 832
Crwcast, pen, 832
Crychan Gawr, 829 m
Crygyn Gawr, 833
Crystil Gawr, 832
Cwm Glann Meichiad, 836
Cwrt Mibhod, 832
Cwrt y Betws, 836
Cybheiloc, 833
Cybi Gawr, 835
Cymry, 834
Cymryd Gawr, 832
Cynlhwyd, Blaen, 830111
Cynwil, 832
Cynwil Gawr, 832
Cynwil Gayo, 832
D.
Deyrnion, y, 836
Didhannel Gawr, 831
Dilyc Gawr, Bedh, 836
Dinas, 833
Dinas Gawr, 832
diphryn Meichiad, 836
Dol Gelhe, 829
Drewyn Gawr, 836
Dybhrdwy, 836
Dynas Gawr, 835
Dynas Gawr, Caer Craic, 835
dyphryn Mochnant, 837
Dyrnhhwch Gawr, 836
E.
Ederyn, Penn, 835
Edwin, Castelh, 834
Erdhan, Gawr, 835
Ernalht Gawr, 835
Eryri, 830
Euas, 836
Eurbryd Gawr, 832
Gartli Beibio, 836
Garth Cribwr Gawr, 835
Garwed (Carwed ?), 834
Garwed, Rhiw, 834
Gastelhann, Brynn Bronn, 835
Gerdhan Gawr, 835
Glascoed, 836
Glocaenawc, Parc, 836
Gnerys Gawr, 836
Gogbhran Gawr, 832, 837
Gogerdhan, 835
Gogobh Erdhan Gawr, 835
Gros bhawr, 836
Graic donn, 836
Gwaith Bhoed, 834
Gwalchmei, 831
Gwedros Gawr, 831
Gwely Idris, 829
Gwenhwybhar, 837
Gwent, 835
Gwent Coed, 835
Gwrle Gawr, 836
H.
Hedoc Gawr, 831
Heini, Cebhn, 836
Heini Gawr, 836
Henlhys, 835
Hiraethoc, Cebhn, 833
Hodni, dyphryn, 836
Howel Gawr, 831
Howel, Rosser, 832
I.
Idris, Cader, 829
Idris, Caer,
Idris, Gwely, 829
Idris Gawr, 829, 829111, 830
Iestyu Gawr, 836
Itto Gawr, 830, 830 m
Iwni Gawr, 830 m
L.
Ladyr Gawr, 832
Lhan Arth, 831, 835
Lhan Badarn Bhawr, 834
„ Odwyn (Odyn), 834
Lhan Bhachreth, 830
Lhan Bhair or Lhwyn, 831
Lhan Drenoc, 831
Lhan Dyssiliaw, 831
Lhan Dyssul, 831
Lhan Gattwc dhyphryn Wysc, 835
Lhan Gewydh, 834
Lhan Hilar, 833
Lhan Iestyn, 836
Lhanlhony, 832
Lhan Sawel, 832, 836
Lhan Ternan, 835
Lhan Trissant, 835
*5-
Peniarth Ms. 118, fos. 829-837.
Lhan Wenog, 831
Lhan Ychayarn, S33
Lhan y Crwys, 832
Lhanylhtyd, 830
Lhan ym Mowdhwy, 836
Lhoches Gawr, 836
Lhwyn Chwermon, 832
Lhwyni y meini hirion, 837
Lhyphan Gawr, 831
Lhynn Heini Gawr, 836
Lytta Gawr, 830
M.
Mabon Gawr, 832
Maylor Gawr, 833
Mebhonydh, S33
Medhgyrn Gawr. S^6
Meibhod, 836
Meichiad, Cwm Glann, 836
Meichiad, diphryn, 836
Meichiad Gawr, 836
Meichiad, nant, 836
Meirionydh, 829, 830, 830111, 836
Merthyr, 836
Mibhod, Cwrt, S32
Mochnant, dyphryn, S37
Moel Crychan, 829 m
Moel Gawr, 831
Moel Ophrom, 830
Moel Ysbryn, 830
Moel Yscydion, 829, 830
Morgannwc, 834, 835, 836
Mowdhwy, 830111
Moythyn Gawr, 83 1
Mwghmawr drebhi, 832
Mylaghelh, Pennant, 837
N.
Nant Ceimiad, S37
Nant Meichiad, S37
O.
Odwyn, Caer (Odyn), S34
Odwyn Gawr, S34
Oerbryd Gawr, 832
Ol carn y march, 833
Ophrom Gawr, 830
Ophrom, Moel, S30
Oyle Gawr, 835
Oyle, Penn, S35
Parc Glocaenawc, S36
Pennant Mylaghelh, S37
Penn Aran, S30
Penn Bwch, 835
Penn Ederyn, S35
Penn lliyn, 830, 830 m
Penn Oyk-, S35
Penn y Gawr, Rhyd, S36
Pentre Bach, S35
Perbhedh, 834
Phili Gawr, 835
Phranc, Coed. S36
Pont Wilim, S32
Pyscoc Gawr, 831
R.
Radyr, Bwlch Rhiw, 832
Radyr Gawr, S32
Rhiw Garwed, 834
Rhiw Radyr, Bwlch, 832
Rhiw y Barbheu, S30111
Ricca, 830
Rithonwy, S30
Ritta, 830
Rosser Howel, 832
Rhyd Penn y Gawr, 836
Sarn y Trichawr, 836
T.
Talybont, 829
Tameid bara, 834
Tarnoc Gawr, 836
Tir Clidha, 835
Tir Crou, Castelh, S35
Trebhaldwyn, 836
Trebh y clawdh, S36
Trogi, Castelh, S35
Trogi Gawr, 835
Twym, Cawl, S34
Twym, Uwd, S34
Tybhediad, Abhon, S37
U.
Uwd Twym, 834
W.
Wedros, Caer. 831
Wilcin, Caer, 832
Wilcin Gawr, 832
Wilim, Pont, 832
Wrgan, Bronn, 837
Wysc, caer lhion ar, 835
Wysc, dhyphryn, 835
Ynys Cedwyn, S35
Ysbryn Gawr, S30
Ysbryn, Moel, 830
Yscydion Gawr, 829
Yscydion, Moel, 829, 830
Ysgyr, Aber, 832
Ystrad F'hlur, 834
Ystwyth, Abhon, 833
Ystymmer, Cymwd, S29111.
Örotn (Bfgnöwr cmò t§t TlDtfafy
C0urc0.
By J. Aethur Price, M.A.
It is well known that Owen Glyndwr, with the advice of the
ecclesiastics who supported him, transferred the spiritual
allegiance of Wales from Gregory XII of Eome, the Pope,
recognised in the days of the great schism by England, to
Benedict XIII of Avignon, the Pope recognised by France
and Scotland. John Trevor, the Bishop of St. Asaph,
who had passed from the English to the Welsh side in the
revolution, must have supported this move, and about
the same time Llewelyn, or Lewis, Bifort was, apparently
with the sanction of the Avignonese Pope, elected on
Glyndwr's nomination to the See of Bangor in place of the
exiled owner of the dignity, Bichard Young. Bishop
Stubbs (Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, p. 178) says that
Bifort was never recognised by the English Church.
However this may have been, he subsequently put in an
appearance at the Council of Constance as " Ludovicus
Bangorensis ". At any rate from 1404 to 1408 Glyndwr's
party were supreme in the North Wales dioceses, and had
much infìuence in South Wales. It was during these
years that the Welsh clerics (whose names occur in the
list extracted from the Avignonese Register), visited the
Papal Court in the hopes of obtaining ecclesiastical pro-
motion. The journey must have been expensive, the fees
high, and the risk of being hung as traitors if they fell
into English hands considerable. The fact that so many
Welsh clerics, bore the trouble and expense and took
the risk, which in the end led to no result, proves that they
must have entertained a reasonable expectation that
154 Owen Glyndiür and the Welsh Church.
Glyndwr would triumph and that Wales would shortly
become an independent state.
RoLL OF THE WeLSH.
(Galenclar of Papal Register, i, pp. 623, 624.)
1406.
John Roughton, of noble birth, for a benefice in the
gift of the Bishop of St. Davids.
Matthew ap Ievan Lloyt, of noble birth, for the like.
Griffin ap Ievan, of noble birth, for the like, notwith-
standing- that he is dispensed on account of illeg-itimacy,
and has the perpetual vicarage of St. Teilaus, in the
diocese of Llandaff, which he is ready to resign.
Granted for all. 8avona 13, Kal. July, anno 12.
Matthew ap Ievan Loyt. That the Pope would expedite
letters for a canonry and prebend of St. Davids, inasmuch
as he is not a g-raduate althoug-h he is of noble birth,
and cannot have the former letters expedited.
Granted. Finale, in the diocese of 8avona. 5 Non.,
July, anno 12.
Philip ap Ll, of the diocese of Llandaff, f or the beneflce
in the g-ift of the Bishop and Chapter- of St. David.
Granted. Dated as above.
Gregory ap Ivan, efferiat, of the diocese of St. Asaph,
for a benefice in the gift of the Bishop and Chapter
of St. Davids, notwithstanding that he is dispensed as the
son of a priest.
Granted. Marseilles. 18 th Kal. Feb., anno 13.
1407.
Iorwedith ap David ap Iorwerth. For a benefice in the
gift of the Bishop and Chapter of St. Davids.
Roger ap Ieuan. For the like.
Mereduth ap David ap Gruffuth, for the like.
Granted for all. Marseilles. 6 Id. Jan., anno 13.
Z%t TMefl (Ttafíonaf 6m6fem :
&tá or ©affobíf.
A Note by ARTHUR HUGHES, B.A.
The lines quoted in the last volume of Y Cymmroclor
(xxvi, 155) froinWynkyn de Worde's Chronicles of England
are, in the text, erroneously attributed to Caxton. This
was done in reliance upon a note in Sir Henry Ellis's
edition of Brand's Popular Antiguities (ed. 1813, p. 89)
where he states that the lines referring to the Leek are
from " Caxton's Description of Wales at the end of The
Scholemaster of St. Alban's Chroiiicle ". This Description
of Wales has, however, a very much earlier origin and is
John Trevisa's translation of the Description of Wales in
rhymed Latin verse contained in Higden's Polychronicon.
Hisrden died in 1363, and Trevisa informs us that he
finished his translation of Higden's Chronicles in 1387.
Ralph Higden, monk of Chester, was, however, only a
compiler of Chronicles, and the real author of the Latin
verse Description of Wales in his Polychronicon is assumed
to be Walter Map, the Welshman, and intimate friend of
Giraldus Cambrensis. The poem is attributed to Map in
an old list of his works, and, as he died c. 1210, we may
claim that the Welshman's great affection for leeks was
recognised by a Welsh writer more than 250 years before
Caxton printed his first book at Westminster.
The Latin lines referring to the Leek are these : —
His pnltis ad legumina
Pro epulis acrumina
Ad mensam et post prandium
Sal, porri sunt solatium.
156 The Welsh National Emblem :
Trevisa's translation is : —
They have gruel to potage
And lekes kynde to companage
Atte mete and after eke
Her solace is salt and leke.
The last two lines are seen to be translated quite
literally ; but the word acrumina (acrumen) translated as
' lekes kynde ' is not to be found in any standard Latin
dictionary, and it apparently puzzled the scribes because
one MS. reads Pepulis acrimonia. There was, however, a
Low-Latin word, agrumen (agrumina) signifying ' the leek
species ', " olerum genus acrimoniam aliquam habens ut
porri, allia, etc." (Vide, a quotation from the Acta Sanct-
orum, a Bollando edita, given in Maigne D'Arnis' Lexicon
of Mediseval and Low Latin, Paris, 1866, sub agrumen).
The acrumina of the Polychronicon is, therfore, in all
probability, a scribe's mistake for agrumina and thus
correctly translated as ' lekes kynde ' by Trevisa. (For
the full texts of the Latin and English verse see Chronicles
of Greai Britain and Ireland, Rolls Series, vol. i (1865)
and Laiin Poems, by Walter Map, Camden Society's pub-
lications.)
There are several other references to the leek in Eliza-
bethan and Stuart literature in addition to those given in
volume xxvi of Y Cymmrodor. Incidentally they show
how very common the practice of wearing the leek on St.
David's Day must have been; otherwise the casual refer-
ences found would not have been appreciated by theatre
audiences. An interesting one is found in the old play
Northward Hoe, by Dekker and Webster, published 1607,
but probably written in 1601, where Captain Jenldns,
the Welshman swears : " By all the leekes that are worn
on St. Davies day ". There is also a curious tract among-
the Commonwealth Tracts in the British Museum, attri-
Leek or Daffodil. 157
buted to the year 1642, dealing with the leek custom. It
is entitled, " The Welchman's Jubilee : To the Honour
of St. David : Showing the manner of that Solemn Cele-
bration which the Welshmen annually hold in honour of
St. David. Describing likewise the True and rea (sic)
Cause why they wear that day a Leek on their Hats.
With an excellent merry sonnet, annexed unto it. Com-
posed by T. Morgan, Gent." lt shows that the orig-in of
the custom was no less a puzzle then than it is now. The
author states : " Some report that they wear this leek
because of their general affection unto it : Others affìrm
the cause to be, because of the numerous multitude of
Leekes that grow in their : (sic) but either of these are
fallible : for it is more credibly declared, that S. David
when hee always went into the field, in Martiall exercise
he carried a Leek with him ; and once being almost faint
to death, he immediately remembered himself of the Leek
and by that means not onely preserved his life but also
became victorious : hence is the Mythologie of the Leek
derived". Although Morgan's explanation of the origin
of the leek custom is not convincing, his doggerel verses —
in no way a sonnet — most convincingly prove him to have
been an ardent Royalist and no Cromwellian.
The leek in literature throws a curious side light upon
the determination of Welshmen to make S. David a fight-
ing patron saint whose achievements are by no means
eclipsed by those of S. George.
Qj3é<m Qtae0 : Z$t We# ©ani>p +
By w. llewelyn williams, k.c., m.p.
Recorder of the City of Cardiff.
" Born in an obscure village and from mean ancestors " —
to quote from his Latin epitaph — he refused a knighthood
at the hands of two sovereigns before he was 30 ; living
during a prolonged life like a Prince and yet with no
visible means of subsistence ; without looks, for " his per-
son was clumsy and his features harsh and peculiarly
irregular ", he was noted for his gallantry and he was the
undisputed King of English Fashion for over half a
century, the arbiter elegantiarum in the days of the
Dandies, " the glass of fashion and the mould of form " ;
lampooned by Lord Chesterfield and snarled at by Pope,
he was great or fortunate enough to have 01iver Goldsmith
for his biographer, and in our own days George Meredith
for his subtle and slightly mocking eulogist, and so severe
a moralist as Lecky for his admirer ; without wit, he was
the most quoted tallcer of his day ; without learning — for
he left Oxford without a degree and having eaten his
dinners was never called to the Bar — he had more books
dedicated to him than almost any patron of his time ;
without family, he was the friend of Princes, he exchanged
snuff-boxes and compliments with the Prince of Orange
and Frederick, Prince of Wales, he was rude with im-
punity to great ladies, and saved Dukes and Earls from
the consequences of their folly ; he refused flatly the
petition of Princess Amelia for an extra dance, and he
tore her white apron from her Grace the Duchess of
Queensberry and threw it, in a public room, to her ladies-
Beau Nash: The Welsh Dandy. 159
in-waiting ; a gambler, a speudthrift, and a rake, he was
the confidential adviser in all matters of business of grim
old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, the shrewdest and
richest and most grasping woman of her age ; a graceless
adventurer, his death eclipsed the gaiety of the nation,
and his public funeral evoked as much attention and
eulogy as if he had indeed been a throned monarch : who
can deny the quality of romance to the amazing career of
Richard Nash, the Welsh Dandy, whom George Meredith
has described as the fìrst and perhaps the last of the
philosopher-beaus of England?
Richard Nash was born at Swansea on October 18th,
1674. The house where he was born still stands in Goat
Street, and a tablet distinguishes it from its meaner
fellows with the legend that it is Beau Nash's birthplace.
His father was a partner in a glass-house, and originally
came from Pembrokeshire — from Haverfordwest, if I
mistake not. His mother was the niece of that Colonel
Poyer, who, after fighting on the Parliament side, took
the field against Cromwell, and was shot for his pains in
London, after his defeat at the Battle of St. Fagan's.
In those days Swansea was a place of 110 great account.
In our estimation it was something more than " an obscure
village ", but it was insignificant as compared with towns
like Bath or Bristol, or even Carmarthen. The " glass-
house " in which the elder Nash was partner was not a
great affair, for our hero never seems to have been encum-
bered with much of this world's gear. Still, Richard
Nash, the elder, must have been a man of substance, for
he sent his son to school at Carmarthen under one
Maddocks, and thence to Jesus College, Oxford, where he
matriculated in March, 1691-2, at the mature age of 16i.
But the future Beau was a precocious youth. He soon
entered upon a love-passage with an adventurous damsel
ióo Beau Nash : The Welsh Dandy.
in or near Oxford. He received the blessing of the lady's
father, and proposed and was accepted by the fair
Amaryllis. The College authorities, ever ready to destroy
love's young dream, and in those days entirely composed
of vinous celibates, got wind of our hero's romantic
escapade and promptly sent the young gentleman down.
He shook the dust of Oxford from off his feet and never
returned.
Young Richard, having once tasted the joys of adven-
ture, soon took wing from the Goat Street nest. He
managed somehow to "purchase a pair of colours in the
army ", or, in other words, he bought a commission. His
biographer goes on to say that he " dressed the part to
the very edge of his finances ". Some admirers have
suggested that he was able to do all this by the help of
his father; but Goldsmitb, who knew Beau Nash and who
read through the papers which the old Beau had written
with a view to publishing his autobiography, will have
none of this. He thinks that Beau Nash, thus early,
began to live on his wits, and was even then a skilled
gamester. He relates indeed many tales, amusing but
unedifying, of the shifts to which our poor hero was
driven in order to maintain his position in the world. He
did not remain long in the army. The strictness of the
discipline appalled hini, and the pay was too small for a
young gentleman whose ambition it was to set the fashion
to the bucks about town. He sold out, therefore, and
with the price of his commission, he was able to enter his
name at the Inner Temple. There he met a society after
his own heart. He became distinguished for his fine
manners, his fashionable dress, and the gaiety of his wit.
No one knew where he got his money from, and no one
particularly cared. Indeed, it was commonly reported
that he rode out to Hounslow Heath and helcì up fat
Beau Nash : The Welsh Dandy. 1 6 1
graziers and pursy parsons : and no one seems ío have
thought the worse of him ! Let me hasten to adcl that
there is no tittle of evidence that our hero ever did any-
thing so crude. Had he done so, we may be sure that
in the garrulity of his old age, when he was fond of boast-
ing of his youthful prowess, he would not have refrained
from mentioning the fact. He did tell Goldsmith many
stories of the absurd wagers which he made in order to
raise the wind. Once he rode naked through a village on
the back of a cow ; another time he stood at the main
door of York Minster for an hour with only a sheet over
him, and he recalls his encounter with the Dean who
happened to know him. But the chief source of his
income was the gaming tables.
When he was a Templar, his Gracious Majesty King
William III paid a State visit to the Middle Temple. So
great by this time was the reputation of Nash that,
through a member of the Inner Temple, he was asked to
become the Superintendent of the Pageant with which it
was the custom in those days to entertain the monarch.
Nash accepted the task, and pleased King William so
much that he offered to knight the young spark of 24.
" An it please your Majesty to make me a Knight ", was
the reply, " let me be made a poor knight of Windsor, f or
then I shall have the means to support the title". But
the shrewd Dutchman did not take the hint, and the
needy Pageant-Director remained plain Richard Nash.
On another occasion — though of this we have no
details — Nash refused a knighthood. This time it was
Queen Anne who was snubbed by his refusal. Queen Anne
is dead, and we all know the rule, nil nisi bonum de mortuis.
But historic truth compels one to admit that her Gracious
Majesty was a weak, silly old dame. In those days there
were no music halls to amuse the tired brain of Royalty,
M
IÓ2 Bean Nash : The Wclsh Dandv.
110 Harry Lauders to entertain tliem. So they kept a
tame jester at Court, and Queen Anne's was a fool called
William or Billy Reid. I suppose the poor lady laughed
one day more heartily than usual at Billy's quips, and
forthwith got him on his knees, popped out a sword, and
smacked him 011 the shoulder, crying, "Rise, Sir William!"
And the Court laughed at the merry jest for nine days.
Shortly after — whether it was that our hero had super-
intended anotlier pageant or that one of his puns amused
Her Majesty — the poor Queen, who was ever kind, wanted
to knight Diclc Nash. " No, madam, an it please you ",
replied he, drawing back in alarm, " for if you knight me,
Billy Reid will call me brother ".
But it was through his connection of nearly sixty years
with the city of Bath that Nash attained perennial fame.
In 1703, Bath had become a fashionable resort because of
Queen Anne's visit to the Wells. The ruck of fine society
went thither, and as play was almost the only recreation
of the great in those days, it was no wonder that the fame
of Bath became second onlv to that of London for the
vastness of the sums that were staked. Thither therefore
went all the professional gamesters of England for the
season. The fìrst to try to exploit the virgin soil was one
Captain Webster, whose name would have been forgotten
but for Nash's reminiscences to Goldsmith. In 1705,
however, two years after the Queen's visit, Richard Nash
went to Bath, and for well nigh sixty years his name was
synonymous with that of the famous Wells. He became
the uncrowned King of Bath. Within its confines, he
was a more autocratic monarch than ever a Tudor was on
the English throne. None dared dispute his laws. He
reigned by ridicule, for an Englishman fears nothing so
much as being laughed at. He decreed that no cavalier
should come to the Assembly Rooms wearing a sword,
Beau Nash : The Welsh Danciy. 163
which hitherto had been looked upon as theunmistakeable
mark of a gentleman. • So arbitrary a rule, sinning against
all the conventions of a rude society, might be thought to
be certain of defeat, but, so great was the masterful
dominance of Beau Nash — as he now came to be called —
that the custom took deep root, not only in Bath, but
between the years 1720 and 1730 in London as well.
Even to-day in Franee and Germany the duel is regarded
as a proper method of settling disputes between gentle-
men. The decline of the duel in England may be dated
from the reign of Beau Nash, and were it only for this
advance in the amenities of social life, his name deserves
to be held in lasting esteem.
The squires of England in those rude days were little
better than clodhoppers. Fielding's " Squire Western ",
with his clownish talk and uncouth manners, was true to
type. They were the bane of Beau Nash's early reign.
They came to Bath in their riding gear, full of coarse
jests and vulgar oaths. This was more than the Welsh
Dandy could stand. He lampooned them in verse, he
ridiculed them on the stage, till at last not one of them
durst appear in the Assembly Rooms in his riding boots,
and ladies were freed from the vulgarities of their drunlcen
insolence. Bath, then, became the mirror of polite society
and for the first time, English manners became compar-
able with those of England's polite neighbour across the
Channel.
It would take too long to tell what Beau Nash did for
Bath. He built the Assembly Rooms, he gave a code of
manners and customs which were more strictly enjoined
than the laws of the Medes and Persians, he widened the
roads, he embellished the streets, he provided musical
bands, and he made Bath the capital of English Eashion.
He was generally known as the King of Bath, and his
m 2
1 64 Beau Nasli : The Welsh Dandy.
jurisdiction extended for miles without the city walls.
He had neither Crown nor Constitution, but for well nigh
sixty years he ruled as a despotic monarch. He had
the power to exile any offender from the circle, his smiles
were courted by princes and poets and peers. When he
rode to Tunbridge, which he did once a year, it was in a
great chariot drawn by six greys, with outriders, running
footmen, and French horns. He always wore a buckle
over his stock in front, the wonder of mankind, and till
the day of his death he was never seen wearing ought but
his white hat. He gave the laws to the young bloods of
England, and 110 one could hope to hold a place in society
on whom Beau Nash had frowned.
It was when he was at the zenith of his fame and
fortune that he encountered an adversary against whom
he was powerless. John Wesley came to Bath on June 5th,
1739, and met the uncrowned king. Let John Wesley
tell the tale himself as he has given it in his Journal —
" There was great expectation at Bath," he relates " of
what a noted man was to do to me there ; and I was
much entreated not to preach, because no one knew what
might happen. By this report I gained a much larger
audience, among whom were many of the rich and great.
.... Many of them .... were sinking into seriousness
when their champion appeared, and coming close to me,
asked by what authority I did these things. I replied,
' By the authority of Jesus Christ, conveyed to me by the
(now) Archbishop of Canterbury ', when he laid hands
upon me and said, ' Take thou authority to preach the
Gospel'. He said, 'This is contrary to Act of Parliament,
this is a conventicle'. I answered, ' Sir, the conventicles
mentioned in that Act (as the preamble shows) are sedi-
tious meetings, but this is not such ; here is no shadow of
sedition ; therefore it is not contrary to that Act '. He
Bean Nash: The Welsh Dandy. 165
replied, ' I say it is ; and besides, your preaching frightens
people out of their wits '. ' Sir, did you ever hear nie
preach ' ? ' No.' ' How then can you judge of what you
have never heard ? ' ' Sir, by coramon report.' ' Cominon
Report is not enough. Give me leave, sir, to ask, is not
your name Nash ? ' ' My name is Nash.' ' Sir, I dare
not judge of you by common report. I think it is not
enough to judge by.' Here he paused awhile, and having
recovered himself said, ' I desire to know what this people
comes here for ? ' On which one replied, ' Sir, leave him
to me ; let an old woman answer him. You, Mr. Nash,
take care of your body ; we take care of our souls ; and
for the food of our souls, we come here '. He replied not
a word, but walked away."-
There is something in the story that appeals to me.
It bears upon itself the impress of truth, as all John
Wesley's entries in his Journal do. There is no doubt
that the great Dissenting casuist got the better of our
poor Beau in dialectics. Dick Nash was no fit opponent
to the Rev. J. Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford,
either in theology, or law, or general debate. He was
repulsed at the first charge, and the " old woman " turned
the repulse into a rout. Yet, I like the conclusion. "He
replied not a word, but walked away." He felt he was
fighting forces greater than he could command, and a
spirit he could not quench. He did not rail or swear,
" He said nçt a word but walked away ". Perhaps he
had some dim perception — as what Welshman could not?
— of the meaning of the portent of Jolm Wesley. He
may have been conscious of the antagonism of two
elemental forces in the human world. On the one
side, tbere was the old Paganism, exemplified in the
eighteenth century by Beau Nash, with its delight in the
pursuit of pleasure, — which in the previous century made
i66 Beau Nash : The Welsh Dandy.
Huw Morus exclaim, when the Cromwellians were chang-
ing all things :
Pan oeddwn i'n fachgen,
Mi welais fyd Uawen,
Cyn codi o'r genfìgen flin fìlen yn fawr,
I ladd yr hên Lywydd,
A dilyn ffydd newydd
Ac Arglwydd afìonydd yn flaenawr.
On the other, was that spirit of Puritanism, which was
to transform and transfigure the whole conception of
social life in England, and our poor Beau, when suddenly
confronted with the blunt exposition of the "old woman ",
being a Welshman, could not have failed to have some
glimmering perception of the truth. At all events let it
be accounted unto him for grace that, " He replied not a
word, but walked away".
For this is the paradox of Beau Nash. He lived by
garaing, but he helped to save many a gamester from ruin.
A society parasite, he was capable of acts of supreme
generosity. He was often superbly insolent, — Pope once
described him as an " impudent dog" — but there never
was a ldnder heart. He was in many ways a snob, yet
when the Duchess of Marlborough taunted him with never
mentioning his father, he replied with spirit and fíne
feeling, " Madam, I seldom mention ray father in com-
pany, not because I have any reason to be ashamed of hira,
but because he has some reason to be asharaed of me ".
Two stories — how he saved a Duke, and how he befriended
a generous souled beauty, named Miss Braddock, the sister
of that ill-fated General Braddock, who fell at Ticon-
deroga — have been enshrined and intertwined in George
Meredith's fascinating story of Beau Bearaish, yclept
" A Tale of Chloe". Another true story of our Beau —
how he proposed to a lady, and was told that she loved
Beau Nash : The Welsh Dandy. 167
another, how he offered her the dowry which her indignant
father refused in his anger, and how the father relented
and consented to the marriage — was used by Vanbrugh in
the last Act of one of his plays. There is one well attested
story which I must tell. A certain young Earl came to
Bath intent on amusement. He knew nothing of garning,
and so Beau Nash became his instructor. They began to
play for small stakes ; the Beau won and won. Tlie young
Earl lost his temper, and challenged his opponent to play
for higher stakes. Nash refused ; the young fool became
insolent and insulting. Time after time the stakes were
increased ; time after time the Beau won. At last the
Earl rose from the table, a ruined man. All his paternal
acres had passed to the old gamester who ruled over Bath.
" My Lord ", said Nash, " I will not deprive you of your
inheritance. Go back to your home, and promise me to
play 110 more ". The Earl was astonished and over-
whelmed, and asked what return he could make. " Give
me £5,000", said the Beau, "if ever I ask it of you ".
The Earl consented, and forthwith departed, but as long
as he lived the Beau never exacted the penalty. Long
after tlie EarPs death, when the Beau was old and poor,
he sent a claim to the Earl's successor for the £5,000.
The claim was met and the £5,000 was paid.
It was little wonder, after all, that a man of this
character became the Monarch of Bath. His full length
statue was put up by the Corporation between the busts
of Newton and Pope. The great Lord Chesterfield
satirised it as follows : —
The statue placed the busts between
Adds to the satire strength,
Wisdom and wit are little seen,
But Folly at full length.
But the Corporation of Bath were no whit abashed. They
i68 Beau Nash : The Welsh Dandy.
revered the Creator of the fame and prosperity of theìr
city, and they allowed nothing to dini their gratitude.
When in his old age in 1745 — when he was 71 — a law
was passed to forbid gaming in public places, and the
poor old Beau was deprived of the niain source of his
inconie, the Corporation bestowed on hini a pension of
£10 a month. He was ever a bountiful and compassionate
man. No one in distress ever approached him in vain.
He it was that was mainly instrumental in establishing
the Hospital at Bath for poor patients. The stories of his
kind heartedness are innumerable. He cared nothing for
money. He spent it lavishly as he made it easily. When
he died in 1761, at the venerable age of 87, £50 was voted
by the Corporation for a public funeral. Never was such
a spectacle seen before in Bath. The Capital of Fashion
went into mourning. Every house was shut, every blind
was drawn. The funeral cortege, as described in the
Gentlemaris Magazine was stately and impressive. First
came the charity boys and girls — the Beau's own protégés —
singing a hymn, then came the City Band, and then the
Beau's own Band from the Assembly Eooms, playing a
dirge. Then three clergymen walked in solemn procession,
in full canonicals, before the coffin which was bedecked
with sable plumes. The pall was supported by the six
senior aldermen of the City. Then followed the Beau's
own chosen retinue — the masters of the Assembly Eooms ;
after them the beadles of the Hospital. The picture is
striking and pathetic ; but I like best of all the little
touch which was added by Goldsmith, the supreme artist
in homely emotion, " Last of all ", wrote he, " the poor
patients themselves, the lame, the emaciated, and the
feeble folloẅed their old benefactor to his grave, shedding
unfeigned tears, and lamenting themselves in him ".
Kequiescat in pace.
QJ5afcẃ: y QÌ5remn <x f x £{>mrj> +
Gan W. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS (Llwydfryn), A.S.
Unde et Anglorum rege Henrico secundo in australem Walliam apud
Pencadeyr, quod capud Cathedrae sonat, nostris diehus (a.d. 1163) in
hanc gentem expeditionem agente, consultus ab eo senior quidam
populi ejusdem qui contra alios tamen vitio gentis eidem adhaeserat,
super exercitu regis, populoque rebelli si resistere posset, quid ei
declararet opinionem respondit : " Gravari quidem, plurimaque ex
parte destrui et debilitari vestris, rex, aliorumque viribus, nunc et
olim et pluries, meritorum exegentia, gens ista valebit. Ad plenum
autem, propter hominis iram, nisi et ira Dei concurrerit, non delebitur.
Nec alia, ut arbitror, gens quam haec Rambrica, aliave lingua, in die
districti examinis coram Judice Supremo, quicquid de ampliore con-
tingat, pro hoc terrarum angulo respondebit.
Giraldus Cambrensis : Desc. Cambriae : Lit. ii, cap. x.
Felly yn ein dyddiau ni (a.d. 1163) pan y bu i'r Brenin Harri'r
Eilfed ymosod ar y Deheubarth, efe a ofynnodd ym Mhencader i hen
wr o Gymro, yr hwn oedd yn glynu wrtho, beth oedd ei farn am ei
fyddin, ac am allu'r Cymry i wrthsefyll ei rym, ac ebe'r henwr : " O
Frenin, ti elli di ac ereill lethu, ac mewn rhan wanychu a difetha
llawer ar y genedl hon, fel y digwyddodd lawer gwaith o'r blaen, a
mynych hi a lwydda drwy rinwedd ei hynni, ond fyth ni ddileir hi'n
llwyr drwy lidiowgrwydd dyn, oddieithr iddi hefyd ennyn digofaint
Duw. Ac yn nydd mawr y Farn, pan y geilw Duw ni oll i gyfrif,
rwyf yn meddwl, doed a ddelo, mai Cymry fydd pia'r wlad, ac mai yn
Gymraeg yr atebant dros y cwr hwn o'r ddaear.
i.
" Barbariaid yw'r Cymry ! " yn groch llefai Harri :
Nid oes iddynt, druain, warineb na moes !
Ar hyn fe rof derfyn, fy nghyfraith gânt dderbyn,
Y Norddman gânt ddilyn, pen brigyn yr oes ;
170 Balad: Y Brenin dr Cymry.
Pam glynant yn ffyddlon i grefydd a defîon
A iaith sydd yn estron i gyimydd y byd ?
Paham nad ynt foddlon ar iaith eu cym'dogion?
Paham ar iaith anwar y rhoddant eu bryd ?
11.
" Mae gennyf fì fyddin ", bygythiai y Brenin,
Norddmyn a Fflemyn na threchwyd erioed ;
Myfi yw ei llywydd ; ac o Fôr y Werydd
Hyd eithaf y gwledydd, fe seinir fy ng-hlod !
A chwi, wael Frythoniaid, llwyth tlawd o anwariaid,
Gwybyddwch mai ofer g-wrthsefyll fy ngrym !
'Mostyng-wch i'm harfau, a phlygwch i'm deddfau,
Cewch freiniau fy neiliaid yn rhad ac am ddim " !
iii.
" Ein Duw " ebe'r Cymry " a roes ein gwlad ini, —
Ei chadw ai charu rhaid ini ei phlant :
Os cribog' ein bryniau, a gwael ein buddiannau,
Anwylwn o'n c'lonnau bob mynydd a phant.
Ti elli, o D'wysog, drwy rym dy wyr arfog 1 ,
Orthrymu'n flinderog ein cenedl ni,
Ond gwybydd na elli ein hysbryd orchfyg-u,
Na'n cariad at Gymru tra llosgo'r haul fry !
iv.
" Ac am ein hiaith dirion, er gwaetha'th fygythion,
Yn ddwfn yn ein calon caiff loches a nyth :
Tra ser y ffurfafen, tra llen, cân ac awen,
Coleddwn yn llawen ei cheinion hi byth.
Ei hacen hyfrydol ar wefus mam siriol,
A g-lywsom yn swynol wrth siglo'n y crud :
A drown yn anffyddlon, ar arch rhyw deyrn estron,
I'n mamiaith wen wiwlon a'n mag'odd ni cyd ?
Balad : Y Brenin ar Cymry. 1 7 1
v.
" Yn hon bu ein beirddion yn moli ein dewrion
A'n glew dywysogion, gwroniaid ein bro :
Os hon a anghofiwn, ein hanes a gollwn,
Mor ddiwerth a fydclwn ag adar y tô !
Os hyn yw gwareiddiad, gwell cyflwr barbariad
Sy'n meithrin ei gariad at bethau a fu !
A gasglodd ein tadau fwynheir gennym ninnau,
A drosir yn ddiau i'n plant bychain ni !
vi.
" Ein hiaith os enciliodd o blasau brenhinoedd,
wychder eu llysoedd os ciliodd hi draw, —
Os gwledig ei hagwedd, mae iddi ei gorsedd
Yng nghalon ei deiliaid, y sydd ac a ddaw !
Eheda i'r entrych i breswyl gwyn gorwych,
A neges f wy drudfawr na deiseb i ti, —
Can's hi sy'n cyfryngu rhwng tylwyth y Cymry
A'r Iesu a hoeliwyd ar bren erom ni !
vii.
" lychyn ymffrostgar ! nid wyt ond o'r ddaear,
Yn ebrwydd i'r ddaear disgynni yn ôl !
Nid yw dy ddoethineb ond ffug o warineb,
Doethineb nid yw, — ond clindarddach y ffol !
Duw roes yn ein genau briodiaith ein tadau,
A thrwy'r cenedlaethau hi erys yn bur :
A phan ddaw Dydd Cyfrif, 'nol oesau aneirif,
Yn honno yr etyb trigolion ein tir ! "
Zfy Itíng anb t$t TMefc
(A Translation of the foregoing.)
By SIE FRANCIS EDWARDS, Bart., M.P.
Tliose heathen, the Cymry, loud spake the King Henry,
Are wretches ill-mannered and gentleness scorn :
Amend this I vow to, my law they shall bow to,
The Norman shall rule them to leadership born.
Why do they thus fight for their faith and their right,
Their tongue that doth slight the world's progress for-
sooth ?
Why is our speech hated by these with us mated,
Why love they so fondly a language uncouth ?
ii.
My army doth muster, the Monarch did bluster,
Both Norman and Fleming who know not defeat :
Their leader undaunted, my praises are chaunted
O'er ocean to realms of remotest retreat.
Ye Celts of low station, poor barbarous nation,
Know that it avails not my might to withstand :
Submit to my legions, to my laws give obedience,
As subjects your rights you shall freely command.
iii.
The land to us given, said the Welshmen, by heaven
We must, as her children, both cherish and prize :
Our hills may seem frowning, our wealth not worth own-
But our mountains and valleys are dear to our eyes.
The King and the Welsh. 173
By the might of thy forces, Prince, and resources
Our nation thou canst both oppress and o'er-run ;
But know that thy power our pride cannot lower,
Nor the love of our country while shineth the sun.
IV.
Our language belo^éd, by threats all unmovéd,
A refuge and nest in our bosoms shall share :
While the stars gleam above and the muses we love,
Its charm we shall cherish with joyfulness e'er.
Its accents enthralling from mother lips falling
When rocked in our cradles we g'ladly did hear :
Shall our tongue be abhorred at a foreign king's word,
The sweet mother-tongùe for such ages our cheer ?
Our bards in this tongue of our stalwarts have sung,
And princes of valour, our heroes supreme :
If we fail this to cherish, our story will perish,
As worthless as sparrows ourselves we shall deem.
If culture this be then, far better the heathen,
Who foster affection for things that are past :
What our fathers have wrought for, by us shall be fought
for,
And faithfully left to our children at last.
VI.
Our tongue though 'tis banished from halls, and has
vanished
From the palaces splendid of kings f ar away :
Though rustic her dress is, a throne she possesses
In the hearts of her subjects for ever and aye.
174 The King and the Welsh.
To heaven she's ascended, to halls brig'ht and splendid,
With a prayer of raore price than petitions to thee :
For she intercedeth for Welshmen, and pleadeth
With Jesus who for our sakes died on the tree.
vii.
Oh dust and vaing*lory, the earth 'twas that bore thee,
And soon to the earth thou'lt descend when death rules :
Thy wisdom is naught but confusion of thought —
Thy wisdom is only the cackling- of fools.
God the Cymry iríspires with the speech of their sires,
And throuçfh o-enerations unsuìlied 'twill stand :
And when Time dies away, on the Last Judgment day
In its accents will answer the folk of our land.
Histcd.
ln face />. i;?-
SIR WILLIAM H. PREECE, K.C.B., F.R.S.,
A Vice-President of tlie Honourable Sociciy of üymmrodofion.
Born /j February, 1834; died 6 November, jçij-
£$c ($ppfícafíon of <£fecírtctí}> ío
Çpracftcaf (Uaea :
(# Tî7cf0Çman ŷ £onfrí6uftom
[The late SIR WILLIAM H. PEEECE, K.C.B., F.E.S.]
By LLEWELYN PEEECE, Mem, Inst, C.E.
William Henrt Preece was born at Carnarvon on Feb-
ruary loth, 1834. His parents were of Welsh descent,
the father being the son of a schoolmaster at Cowbridge,
Glamorgan, whilst the mother was of a Carnarvon family
named Hughes. Eichard Matthias Preece, who had been
several times Mayor of the Town of Carnarvon, left that
town with his family in 1844 and came to London, so that
his son obtained most of his education in the Metropolis.
He entered King's College School in 1845 and completed
his general education at the College. He in no way dis-
tinguished himself at school or college, nor showed any
particular propensity for a profession. At the time lie
studied at King's College, it was proposed that he should
join the Army. Fortunately, however, for many reasons,
his father had serious financial losses at the beginning of
1852, and it became apparent that his eldest son, William,
must take up work which would give him an immediate
income.
E. M. Preece had made the acquaintance of Edwin and
Latimer Clerk in earlier days when they were engaged in
constructing the Menai Bridge. These two engineers
were in 1852 both employed by the Electric Telegraph
Company, one as chief engineer and the other as chief
176 The Late Sir William H. Preece.
assistant engineer, and the latter had lately becoine a son-
in-law of E. M. Preece. Two other officers of this Com-
pany, Frederick and Frank Webb, were then, or were
shortly to become also sons-in-law, so that when R. M.
Preece loolced about to find work for his son, William, it
was only natural that the thoughts of both should turn to
the Electric Telegraph Company. The young man had
attended several of the lectures of the great Faraday at
the Royal Institution and had thus imbibed some of the
rudiments of the study of electricity. The result was that
011 May 14th, 1853, W. H. Preece obtained an appoint-
ment as assistant engineer in this Company.
Very soon after he joined. Preece had the good fortune
to be called in to assist Latimer Clerk in some special
experiments carried out for the Astronomer Royal,
Sir George Airey, which brought him into touch with
that scientist, and these were followed by still more
important experiments, in which Preece assisted Faraday
and Latimer Clerlc, on the fìow of electric currents in
underground wires.
All the rest of his life Preece loolced back with pride
to this occasion when he acted as Faraday's assistant,
and revered him as his professional father.
During his first year of work Preece took out his fìrst
patent, which was for a means of working "duplex",
that is of transmitting two electric messages in oppo-
site directions simultaneously over one wire. This idea
had originated in 1852 on the Continent, but it was
not until some twenty years later that the method
of working became practical. Preece's, like many
others, failed in practice. For three years Preece held
this staff appointment, and evidently spent his time
obtaining a thorough grasp of electric telegraphy, both
over land lines and through submarine cables. The only
The Late Sir William H. Preece. 177
record of his work, at this time, is contained in some
excellent technical articles written by him for a publica-
tion of the E.T.C. called Our Magazine, in which curiously
enough his are the only articles of technical value, all the
others being literary.
From these articles alone one obtains a very clear idea
of telegraph engineering in the " fifties ", the trouble en-
gineers had to contend with, and the means they employed
in overcoming them. These articles are truly historical.
On February 9th, 1856, when just 22 years of age,
Preece was appointed Superintendent of the Southern
Division, having under his charge all land lines and
telegraph oíîices from Kent to Cornwall and S. Wales.
In 1858 he was appointed, in addition, Engineer to the
Channel Islands Cable Company, a subsidiary company of
the E.T.C., and in 1860, when the London and South
Western Railway formed their own telegraph depart-
ment, he was permitted to hold a third appointment as
Telegraph Superintendent to this E-ailway Company. His
headquarters were, during these years, at Southampton.
For some time his administrative duties kept Preece
very fully enrployed. In 1860, however, he found time to
write his first paper for the Institution of Civil Engineers,
which was on " Submarine Cables in Shallow Waters ".
The basis of this paper was his experience with the
Channel Islands Cable. This paper earned for him the
Telford Gold Medal, presented by the Institution, and
placed him in the front rank of submarine cable engineers.
A somewhat instructive incident took place during the
discussion on this paper. Preece in the course of his
remarks mentioned that in his opinion it would, in the
future, be necessary to study the ocean bottoms as care-
fully and as closely as was already done with the land
surfaces. This suggestion gave rise to jeers on the part
N
178 The Late Sir William H. Preece.
of some of his audience, and one old man at the Council
table got up and in angry tones told Preece that he was
talking nonsense, that such an ideawas absolutely absurd !
Nevertheless Preece has been proved right.
Shortly afterwards Preece gave evidence before a
special joint committee, appointed by the Boarcl of Trade
and the Cable Companies, sitting to consider the many
causes of submarine cable failures, and this committee
stated in its recommendation thatthe bottom of the oceans
should be most carefully surveyed before cables were laid.
In 1862, Preece, in conjunction with a Lieutenant
Gilmore, took out a patent for an indicator to be used on
board ship between the bridge and the wheelhouse for
steering purposes. This was taken up by the Admiralty
and amongst the first ships fítted was the Royal Yacht
which brought the young Princess Alexandra to this
country. As Preece travelled on the ship for this voyage
he had the honour to be presented on this auspicious
occasion.
Soon after Preece took up the appointment of tele-
graph superintendent to the L. & S. W. Railway, he had
to turn his attention to an electric block signalling for use
on that railway,it being desired to equip a section of the line
at Exeter with such. Up to this time, though Cooke, who
with Wheatstone introduced the electric telegraphin 1837,
had in very early days pointed out the immense importance
of the electric telegraph to train control 011 railways, the
railway companies had been very slow indeed to take
advantage of it, and, practically speaking, only the long
tunnels in the country were, at this time, properly guarded.
Preece set out then to invent a system which would not
only render block working safe, but would be of such a
simple character that it could be handled and understood by
any signalman. For this purpose he made his switches mini-
The Late Sir William H. Preece. 179
ature signal levers, and liis indicators miniature signals.
The men had only to pull over the lever and watch the
the signal artn rise or fall. This system worked well, and
was in use for some years.
As his new system was successful, he promptly pre-
pared a second paper for the Institution of Civil Engineers
on " Railway Telegraphs " which was read at the begin-
ning of 1863. The discussion lastedover several evenings,
and the Author received from the Institution the Telford
premium.
Preece soon afterwards introduced an electric indicator
to show to the signalman the position of signal arms —
whether "on " or "off ", and a lamp indicator which
indicated whether the lamp was burning properly.
W. E. Langdon, in his book on " Electricity applied to
Railway Worhing ", stated that " to Mr. W. H. Preece is
due the credit of having done perhaps more to popularize
block signalling than any other Engineer".
Preece's next patent was for train intercommunication,
that is, a system to enable passengers to ring a bell in the
guard's van or on the locomotive. This was in 1864.
Preece had married this year, and spent his honeymoon
in Paris. Whilst there he made the acquaintance of the
electric trembler bell — a French invention — and found that
several hotels and houses were fitted up with this apparatus.
It was this type of bell he used for his inter-com-
munication system, placing a special type of contact
maker in each compartment, covered by a thin glass plate,
and an indicator outside to show from which compart-
ment the bell had been rung.
This sjstem was made the subject of a third paper at
the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1866, for which
Preece received the CounciPs premium.
Also by articles, pamphlets, etc, Preece introduced
n2
180 The Late Sir William H. Preece.
the idea of using electric bells for domestic purposes into
this country, and as he could get no firm to undertake the
installation, he, for a time, did this himself, the first
house to be fitted being that of the late Sir James Trus-
cott, late Lord Mayor of London. This took place in
1865.
During these years Preece was earning a great reputa-
tion as a lecturer and was in constant demand, not only at
Southampton, his headquarters, but at many towns in his
district. He often spolce of an amusing, though trying,
contretemps which took place at one of his Southampton
lectures about this time. The lecture was on " The
Electric Telegraph " and he had arranged for the Head
Office in London to connect a Southampton line to a Paris
line, and several messages passed to and fro, apparently
between Southampton and Paris. Unfortunatelj' one
man in the audience requested Preece to ask Paris
the titne there. A repty came, but unfortunately it was
forty minutes wrong. The man got up, denounced Preece
as an impostor, and electric telegraphy as a swindle,
then walked out shaking the dust off his shoes. Preece
was terribly dismayed, and on making enquiries he found
that the Paris wire was interrupted and the operator at
London, not wishing to disappoint Preece and his
audience, had personified Paris. When he was asked the
time he knew that there was a difference of twenty
minutes between London and Paris, but unfortunately
put it on instead of taking it off !
In 1869, began perhapsthe greatestundertaldngPreeee
ever had. For a few years there had been considerable agita-
tion and volumes of talk regarding the desirability of the
Government buying up all the electric telegraph com-
panies. The Bill sanctioning this was passed in 1869,
and Preece was set to work to re-organise the whole of
The Late Sir William H. Preece. 181
his large division for Government requirements. Itmeant
a considerable increase in the number of land lines, and
the equipment of a telegraph office in the post offices of
every town under his superintendence. This work took
two years and absorbed most of Preece's energies during
that time, though he succeeded in producing two excel-
lent reports for the Secretary of the G.P.O. on the educa-
tion of operators, and on methods of the daily testing of
electric lines.
At the transfer, Preece was appointed superintending
engineer of his old division, the Southern, and untiì 1874
his headquarters remained at Southampton. Thisdivision
was subdivided into four sectioiis, of which three of the
superintendents in charge were the afterwards well-known
telegraph engineers, Sir John Gavey, C.B., the late Sir
James Sivewright, K.C.M.G., and the late Mr. W. E.
Langdon. He had no sooner got this division into
working order than his enthusiasm was rekindled by the
advent of Mr. J. B. Stearns of America, and his successful
duplex system, a method of telegraphy, to which Preece,
as a budding engineer had turned his attention twenty
years before. Stearns' system was gradually applied
everywhere, and is still universally employed. Preece
was not only instrumental in assisting in the application
of this method to landlines, but also in applying it to
submarine cables.
In 1872, Preece had the honour of delivering a lecture
on Electric Telegraphy at the newly-opened Albert Hall
before the then Prince of Wales (afterwards King
Edward), and the Duke of Edinburgh, on which occasion
the Hall was connected with Persia and India, and real
messages passed between these countries and the Hall. At
the end of 1871, the Society of Telegraph Engineers was
r ounded (now the Institution of Electrical Engineers) of
182 The Late Sir William H. Pi'eece.
which Preece was one of tlie founders, and at the end of
1872 he was elected on the Council and remained an
honoured member at the Council table until the end of
his life.
In 1874 Preece had the terrible misfortune to lose his
wife, and shortly afterwards left Southampton and made
London his headquarters. Three years later, in May 1877,
Preece made his first trip to America, memorable for the
fact that on his return he brought with him the fìrst
practical telephone of Professor Graham Bell. He ex-
hibited two of these instruments at the British Association
meeting at Plymouth in August that year, on which
occasion Graham Bell himself appeared.
For the next f ew years Preece put in a great amount of
work on the advancement of telephony. He was the first
Engineer to insist on the use of metallic circuits for tele-
phones in place of the earth return which was the practice
in telegraphy. He was very early in the field in the use
of copper wire in place of iron wire for telephony, and
afterwards for telegraphy also, and he was the man to
whom David Hughes first demonstrated his great inven-
tion, the microphone, the apparatus to which the spread
of telephony is mainly due. Another result of his visit to
the States was the introduction into England of Edison's
plionograph. Edison sent to Preece one of his earliest
apparatus at the beginning of 1878.
During this year Culley, the Engineer-in-Chief of the
Post Office, retired. Edward Graves was appointed his
successor, and Preece was appointed Electrician to the
Post Office.
In 1878 Preece first turned his attention to Electric
Lighting. The great possibility of Arc Lighting for
streets and large buildings was at that time being realised,
and Preece was amongst the first to recognise this. In
The Late Sir William H. Preece. 183
o
May, 1879, he again lectured in the Albert Hall before
the same august personages, and this time on Electric
Liffhting. In 1880, W. H. Preece was elected President
of the Society of Telegraph Engineers, and this year saw
the advent of the incandescent lamp, invented indepen-
dently by J. W. Swa'n and by Edison.
The decade from 1880 to 1890 was certainly the busiest
time in Preece's life. He was still engaged in the
improvement of high speed telegraphy on the lines insti-
tuted by Charles Wheatstone. Wheatstone's instrument
in 1870 was able to transmit messages at the rate of 40 to
60 words per minute, but by 1887, thanlîs mainly to the
energetic endeavours of Preece, this speed was increased
to a maximum of 600 words per minute. The work
Preece did also in the advancement of the telephone was
sufficient to satisfy any ordinary man as a good life work.
But even this did not content Preece. He not only worked
just as hard at the advancement of Electric Lighting, but
also in 1884 commenced the work for which he was best
known by the public, namely, Wireless Telegraphy. He
was also largely concerned in the innumerable Exhibitions
for which this decade was noted.
He was elected Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 1881.
It is quite impossible to write a short lucid account of
a.il the work done by W. H. Preece during this decade.
It might be mentioned that he read no less than 170
papers alone, before the various societies and institutions
in this country, without mentioning other lectures and
addresses. It will probably be better to limit oneself to
an account of his wireless experiments, or as it was then
called, " signalling across space without wires."
The fìrst indication of the possibility of bridging space
without a metallic conductor arose in Gray's Inn Eoad, in
London, where there were soine telegraph wires running
184 The Late Sir William H. Preece.
underground and some telephone circuits overhead. It
was reported to Preece in 1884 that the Morse signals
passing through the telegraph wires were audible in tele-
phones attached to the telephone wires, 80 ft. above the
telegraph line. He immediately instituted experiments to
discover to what a distance such signals could be heard,
and whether this j)henomenon was due to induction or to
leakage. Preece came to the conclusion that it was due
to induction, though many scientists before and since
strongly hold that it is really due to leakage. After some
years of experimenting Preece found that he could bridge
any reasonable distance, so long as the transmitting and
receiving lines were parallel, and of more or less equal
length, these lengths being somewhat more than that
distance apart.
The first actual working system of this character
installed was in the British Channel between Lavernoch
Point, South Wales, and the island of Flatholm, and it was
a most curious coincidence that the first official message
to pass was one communicating to Preece the death of
E. Graves, the Engineer-in-Chief of the Post Office, and
Preece's immediate predecessor, for Preece therefrom
became the Engineer-in-Chief. This was in 1892. In
March, 1896, Signor Marconi, the young Italian, 22 years
of age, called on Preece at the G.P.O. and explained to
him his new wireless telegraph invention. Preece was
greatly interested, and placed at Marconi's seiwice the
Post Office experimental staff. For the next twelve
months or more Marconi and the Post Office engineers
made many experiments in various parts of the country,
and in June, 1897, Preece gave a lecture before the Eoyal
Institution, in which he described Marconi's successes.
Soon after this Marconi and the Post Office separated,
and Preece was no longer concerned in Marconi's progress,
The Late Sir William H. Preece. 185
and though until the end of his life he continued to take
the greatest interest in the advancement of wireless
telegraphy, he was no longer practically engaged in that
work.
Preece became President of the Institution of Civil
Engineers in 1898. He retired from his position as
Engineer-in-Chief to the Post Office in 1899, receiving the
honour of Knighthood of the Order of the Bath, and he
became the Consulting Engineer for the following five
years. In 1899 he, with Major Cardew, late Electrical
Adviser to the Board of Trade, and his two elder sons
formed the firm of Preece and Cardew, Consulting Elec-
trical Engineers. Preece's unrivalled knowledge of
telegraphy, telephony, wireless telegraphy, electric light-
ing and power, was in constant demand. From 1884 Preece
had acted as Consulting Engineer to many municipalities
in connection with electric lighting plant. In 1903 Preece
had his first serious illness, pneumonia. He recovered
from this, but in 1908 had to undergo a severe operation,
from which he never completely recovered. He went
finally to his home near Carnarvon in May, 1912, after a
trip to S. Africa, and gradually failing in strength he
passed away peacefully on November 6th, 1913, within
three months of his 80th birthday.
1 86 Some Recent Welsh Literatìire and
*èomt (Recenf TÛ7efeÇ Btíeraíute anò
f#e Bímtfafíona of (Reaftatm
By t. huws davies.
Secretary to the Welsh Church Commission.
The artist's calling- is a high ancl an honourable one.
There are many lcinds of men who use that dangerous
instrument, the pen, but of thein all the artist is the only
one who has, as it were, been put on his honour in its use.
All the others have been hedged round for their own and
the public safety with all manner of restrictions and
penalties. Over many of them, — the reporters, the critics
of affairs, and the controversialists, for instance — hangs
always the awful shadow of the law of libel ; in their case
injustice, malice, any perversion of fact, — may at any
moinent be visited with the dire penalties of the law.
Others, — the scientist and the historian, — whose pro-
fession it is to array facts and draw from them legitimate
and well-justified conclusions, lcnow from experience that
any disloyalty to truth, any contempt of dispassionate
scientific accuracy, means professional suieide. The first
conviction is always followed by the imposition of the
maximum penalty — the penalty of outlawry from their
clan and lcinsmen.
But the artist is in an entirely different position : he is
immune froin these disabling penalties, provided he be
single-minded in the practice of his profession. A Shaw
may (in peace times) pillory a British General, or a Gals-
worthy may depict all the ugliness of a colliery owner,
The Limitations of Realism. 187
without fear, provided he makes it clear that his interest
in the type is artistic aud not personal. The artist has
the great privilege and the consequent great obligation of
always being on his honour. He is only hampered by the
inherent limitations of art. He is free to do what he
wishes, but he must not degrade his calling or bring the
name of his chosen goddess into disrepute.
It is particularly important, in view of recent develop-
ments in literary methods, to reassert and to emphasize
this platitude at this moment. It seems as if, at last,
we were reaching the noonday of realism in literature,
and there are signs that some writers, posing as realists,
are in danger of losing this sense of the honour of their
profession, by ignoring the limitations which should be
placed upon them by an adequate realisation of the dignity
of art.
Realism, in the truest sense, is but an extension to
the field of literary creation of the application of the
eighteenth century revivalist's dictum, " the world is my
parish ". What George Russell (A.E.) said of the Irish
bards is to some extent true of all the classicists and
romanticists — they had " endeavoured to live in a palace
of art, in chambers hung with embroidered cloths and
made dim with pale lights and Druid twilights, and the
melodies they sought for were half soundless ". The
realist, however, is in revolt against this limitation of the
subject matter upon which he is to work, as well as
against the consequent limitation in the method of treat-
ment which it implies. " Nihil humanum a me alienum
puto " is the cry of the realists. They would like, as
Professor Gilbert Murrry said of some of them, " to
make no difference between good and bad, but to welcome
every experience that will lead to knowledge or even cause
a thrill Their faith is that anything truly felt
1 88 Some Recent Welsh Literature and
and expressed has a ldnd of absolute and indestructible
value ". This is the creed for instance, of the great
Russian realists, Dostoievsky, Gorki, Tchekov, and others,
the rnasters of tbe craft in our generation, who have
justified themselves in their revolt by demonstrating that
the artist, even when he flings himself into the midst of
the ugliness of life, need not lose any of his divinity.
They have cast from themselves all the old traditions and
conventions of their craft ; cloistered, precious, well-
selected beauty is no concern of theirs ; they often dwell
in horrible detail on the degradation and the ugliness of
human life ; they have made the pettiness, the meanness
and the dishouesty which they find so universal in human
relations cry to heaven for sudden vengeance ; they have
covered their pages with terrible revelations of the depths
into whicb men and women have fallen — but they have
never committed the crime of suggesting that the subject
was beneath them. They have never worked at their
ugly task for their own amusement or for the amusement
of their readers — they are driven by a vision in it all.
The least thing that concerns that strange animal Man —
always a mixta persona, some beast and some God — is of
infinite import to them. When they roar their curses
against the individual, or cast a bright light on his disease
and his filth, they are really singing a great hytnn of
devotion to Man in the abstract ; they are saying what
Dostoievsky in "Crime and Punishment " made Raskolni-
koff say to Sonia "I do not bow to to you personally,
but to suffering humanity in your person ".
The most abandoned realist of them all is Anton
Tchekov, "the murderer of human hopes", and even he
can always plead that he has never sacrificed his honour
as an artist. A great Russian critic, Leon Shestov, said
of him that the description which Tchekov gives of one
The Limitations of Reaiism. 189
of his heroes applies to them all : " A man cannot
reconcile himself to the accomplished fact ; neither can
he refuse so to reconcile himself ; and there is no third
course. Under such conditions action is impossible. He
can only fall and weep and "beat his head against the
floor ". It is a pitiable position enough, but Tchekov's
men even in that position are all men. It can be said
of all the Russian realists that they have honestly ob-
served the inherent conditions of their art, — it is charac-
terized by an unbending devotion to strict truth ; it is
animated by a high purpose ; it is throughout illuminated
by a wonderful chaiúty; it is the vehicle of devotion, and
as such sacred and holy. Realism is only justified if it
bears these marks.
This is true of the masters — from whose work we can
derive some standards of measurement for those who
follow them. What of the appreutices ? The question is
of peculiar interest to Celts and especially to Welshmen at
the present moment, for the gale of realism has begun to
blow over our lands too with very considerable force.
During the last generation or two " the Celtic Fringe"
has shown signs of great literary vitality and activity, and
it is interesting to note in passing that during this
recent period the different Celtic groups have passed
through very similar phases. Scotland at the end of the
nineteenth century possessed its idyllic Kailyard school of
novelists, but within a generation it had, probably in the
way of a reaction, produced George Douglas, with his
House with the Green Shutters — one of the most terribly
realistic works in recent fiction.
A generation ago, Ireland was in the throes of a great
literary renascence, whose main characteristic was a kind
of sentimental eclecticism in prose, in poetry, and in
drama. W. B. Yeats had imposed his dictatorial will on
iço Some Recent Wclsh Literaturc and
all, but within a few years something in the nature of a
revolution had occurred. Yeats was dethroned, and a
conscious realist in the person of J. M. Synge had taken
his place. In his drama particularly, but also in his prose
and poetry, Synge attempted to get at the elemental forces
in the lives of the people round him, and to depict them in
their true reality with a fine sense of their terror and
strength. He even turned to the common people for the
vocabulary of his art. One remembers with what pride
he asserted in his preface to the Play Boy of the Western
World that there were but one or two words in the whole
play which he had not heard among the country people of
Ireland. His literary f aitli as set forth in that remarlcable
preface may perhaps be quoted : —
" All art is a collaboration ; and there is little doubt
that, in the happy ages of literature, strihing and beautiful
phrases were as ready to the story-teller's or the playwright's
hand as the rich cloaks and dresses of his time. It is prob-
able that when the Elizabethau dramatist took his ink-horn
and sat down to his work he used many phrases that he had
just heard, as he sat at dinner, from his mother or his
children. In Ireland those of us who know the people have
the same privilege. When I was writing The Shadoic of the
Crlen some years ago, I got more aid than any learning could
have given me from a chink in the floor of the old Wichlow
house where I was staying, that let me hear what was being
said by the servant girls in the kitchen. This matter, I
think, is of importance, for in countries where the imagina-
tion of the people, and the language they use, is rich and
living, it is possible for a writer to be rich and copious in his
words, and at the same time to give the reality, which is the
root of all poetry, in a comprehensive and natural form."
The realist in matter and in form had arrived, and
later Irish literature proves that he was not some " isolated
accident " in the story.
Something of the same nature has happened in
Wales. During the last fifteen or twenty years, the
The Limitations of Realism. 191
literary activities of the country have undergone a com-
plete transformation, — although the full manifestation of
the change has been arrested to some extent by the War.
It is immaterial what particular form of literary creation
we choose to select, the change is obvious. If we take
Welsh poetry, and compare the work of the middle of the
nineteenth century with that of the beginning of the
twentieth, we fìnd that the whole world of the poet has
changed. The old poetry was the poetry of the compensa-
tions of life, and in it life's bitterness and cruelty were at
their strongest not much more than a distant echo. The
new poetry, whatever may be its faults and its weaknesses,
is concerned with the law and life of the visible world, and
its songs quiver witli suffering and sorrow. When the older
poet sang of love, he sang of an idyllic, balanced emotion,
with but little of the elemental force of nature in it, but
the new poet tells a stranger story — he sings of theterrors
of love, of the tempest in the blood, of the laying waste of
lives and the deliberate choice of hell for heaven. Ceiriog
was one of the master love-singers of Wales, but he never
sang of hungry passion with its mantle in tatters from its
own violence. According to the conventions of his period,
it was too rude and cataclysmic a theme for poetry.
When the older poets sang of the life of the Welsh
peasantry, they generally pictured it as poor and simple,
but contented, drawing its comforts frorn the things of
another world. The peasant had a warm hearth, a true
love, a good and a forgiving God. The new poet finds the
hearth cold and comfortless ; the life racked by suffering
and disease, the love often mean and insecure, the God
frequently deaf, the whole existence one long process of
victimisation and injustice, and he sings the song of pro-
test and revolt. He has lef t the " dewy and silent places
among hazel trees by still waters ", and is found among
192 Some Recent Welsh Literature ancl
the crowds covered with the grinie and clay of everyday
life. He has become a realist.
We have written first of the appearance of realism in
Welsh poetry because the pure literature of Wales is mainly
poetic, — other forms have been by no means abundant in
their growth. Wales has not been particularly fruitful in
fiction, and indeed the novel and the short story are
relatively quite modern products. Our country has pro-
duced up to the present one great novelist — Daniel Owen,
a master in the delineation of character, an irrepressible
humourist, often a profound and discerning critic, inti-
mately acquainted with the life of the people, because he
was one of them and lived their life, knowing their weak-
ness and their strength, and moved in all he did by
an overwhelming love of them. But Daniel Owen was
utterly unaffected by any realism. It is true that he
described many of the painful sides of Welsh life of which
the pompous, overbearing squire, the mean and cringing
parasite on the great, the hypocritical professorof religion,
the vain empty-headed intellectual fraud are symbols, but
he never chose any of these weaknesses as a main
motive. His atmosphere is throughout idyllic; he be-
longs both by inclination and by definite volition to the
" Kailyard ' : novelists. In the main, Welsh life was to
him idyllic. It was never part of his task to show the
overpowering catastrophic forces at w r ork in the life of
every village and country-side, and the terrible devastation
so often produced by them, though so often concealed from
the eye of most observers. The bitter and eternal con-
flict between hell and heaven for the souls of men
and women, with its ever changing fortunes and its
awful uncertainty, finds little place in his novels. He
lived " au dessus de la mêlée;" his air was free of the
growls and groans of earth in passion and labour, and
The Limitations of Realis?n. 193
his hands and grarments were clean of the soil and blood
of battle.
No other novelist of equal g-ifts arose after him, either
to inherit his idyllic tradition or create a new one, and for
the tiine being Welsh fiction was non-existent. During
recent years, however, an allied form seemed on the point
of achieving considerable popularity in the vernacular
literature, — we refer to the short story. Most of the pro-
ductions in that particular literary form (as was to be
expected) were directly under the influence of the "Daniel
Owen tradition — such, for instance, as the Rev. Dewi
Williams' little masterpieces, of which a small collection
has been published by the author under the title of Clawdd
Terfyn. There were others, however, touched with a
strano-e and alien manner more akin to the work of the
great European realists, to the Eussians, to Guy de
Maupassant, to Thomas Hardy, than to anything in
Welsh literature. One recollects two instances of re-
markable power which appeared in the issues of the
Beirniad for June 1911 and the Autumn of 1913 respec-
tively, entitled "Aml Gnoc " and " De Mortuis ", both
from the pen of Mr. W. J. Gruffydd. In the former, he
described the mysterious working of physical pain, mental
torture, and a forced intimacy with Death, that King of
Terrors against whom nothing can prevail, on the soul of
a hardened Pharisee, who had stitled all the emotions of
his nature. In the other, he shows the terrible possibilities
of coarse tragedy in an ordinary love affair in an ordinary
Welsh village, and both stories are in the true realist
style. The tendency was still more marked in that small
crop of dramas which were published in the three or four
years immediately before the war, of which " Beddau'r
Proffwydi ", and " Ble ma Fe " are good examples, and it
is still perceptible in the literature of the war period, as
194 Some Recent Welsh Literaturc and
can be seen in a delightful little slcetch by Mr. Llewelyn
Williams in the Beiruiad for this year — which is a per-
fect example of how, fancy and realism can be judiciously
combined.
Eealism, however, is as yet not very much more than a
tendency in pure Welsh literature — it has not become its
main method. All our poets and writers still retain
some measure either of the classicism which was its main
characteristic in the early part of the nineteenth century,
or of romanticism — its later inspiration. They still
worship the old legends and traditions, they still love the
glory of high colours and the grace of rhythmic cadences ;
nature with its magic beauties still haunts them every-
where ; even when the force of circumstances and con-
viction drives them to use the new instrument of realism,
they use it with great reserve and economy, as men
lcnowing its dangers and fearing them, and, indeed, this is
their justification. Extravagance in realism is as inde-
fensible as extravagance in the use of the surgeon's loiife.
The use of the realistic method by the artist is only
justified when he is able to make it clear that, in spite of
the proximity of the actual, the vision of the ideal has not
been obscured for him. When he describes ugliness, he
must convince his world that he loves beauty and is able
to comprehend it. And it is no excess to say that such
realists as there are in Welsh literature have so far been
able to do this. Eecently, however, we have witnessed an
amazing deyelopment in English literature whose subject
matter is Wales and its life. Two remarhable collections
of short stories or sketches from the pen of a Welshman
have been issued in English, purporting— as the title of
the first volume (My People), and the general advertise-
ments of both volumes, indicate — to be realistic studies of
the life of the peasantry of West Wales, and they have
The Limitations of Realism. 195
been hailecl by reviewers and readers both as works of
exceptional genius and power, securing for the author a
place among- the great literary artists of our daj, and also
as social documents of great value and interest.
Such a first judgment of these studies is not greatly
to be wondered at, for we are all interested in
accounts of peoples whose lives, manners, and customs
are strange and abnormal. There is always a market for
books about people who are not " like us ", whether they
inhabit the slums of our great cities, the wildnesses of the
lands of the Celtic fringe, the Russian prisons and dram-
shops, or the Indian hills. The Play-Boy of the Western
World, Creatures that once were Men, Plain Tales from the
Hills, No. 5 John Street, Limehouse Nights — are instances
of books which have appealed to many people, not so
much because of their intrinsic literary worth, but because
they have given them the thrill of realizing that their
world is still peopled by strange creatures unlike them-
selves. It is a satisfying, as well as an exciting experience
to realize that close to our respectable and well-organized
habitations there are wild and primitive beings living a
fierce life of their own. The nearer these strange peoples
dwell and the more barbaric their existence, the better
subjects will they make for the kind of literature that
appeals to this class of reader. Up to the present no one
seemed to have realized that Wales was a ground which
might with ingenuity be made to offer considerable
possibilites in this direction. In the past Wales has not
produced any real literature of its own life in English —
chiefly because it was intent on producing what it could
in its own language. It is true that some attempts have
been made to reproduce the life of the country in English
fiction— Rhys Lewis was translated, Theodore Watts
Dunton wrote Aylwin, Ernest Rhŷs, Owen Rhoscomyl,
o2
196 Some Recent Welsh Literatnre and
Miss Gwendolen Pryce, Miss Bowen Rowlands, John
Thomas, Alfred Thomas, Miss Dillwyn, John Finnemore,
and others, varying greatly among themselves in power
and achievement, wrote English novels and stories
dealing with Wales, Welsh history and Welsh life,
but not one of them produced any work of first rate power
and distinctiveness. In the days before the harsh and
raucous voice of the realist was heard in the land, Wales
produced no one who told for alien ears the story of the
sweetnesses, of the heroisms and the charities of its life,
so as to captivate and charm the listeners, who were
always ready to be fascinated. The first story-teller to
be hailed by his public as something more than an
amateur at his craft brought with him tales of sordid-
ness and filth — and he found the listeners waiting. This,
in itself, makes any real criticism of such work as My
People and Capel Sion highly difficult in so far as they
claim to be social documents, as we have 110 other records
of the life understandable by people of another tongue to
which to make our appeal. When a critic disputes, as he
has a perfect right to do, the truth of these books as true
representations of life, he must do it from the books
themselves and from universally accepted facts and
principles, but not from other related sources, as these, as
far as the English reading public is concerned, do not
exist.
The task, however, is not impossible in spite of all the
disabilities. It will, we believe, be universally conceded
that the realist fails both as an artist and as a social recorder
if he finds nothing in human life but ugliness and depravity.
If he sees nothing but these evil and ungainly things he
stands condemned by the consensus of human experiences
on one of two grounds. It may be that he lacks spiritual
sight, for no man lives on earth who, not being blind,
The Limitatioiis of Realism. 197
does not know that his fellow men have all some good in
their hearts, are possessed of some longing for holiness,
some love of beauty (of which they are often almost afraid
to whisper to their companions), some marvellous possi-
bilities of heroism and sacrifice.
He who sees at all must see these things — but he who
lacks sight is by the very absence of that sense, ruled out
from the communion of artists and truthtellers. All the
senses — even an abnormally developed sense of smell
which is often an endowment of the blind — can never
make up for the gift of sight. It may be, however, that
our theoretical realist is not deficient in any particular
sense, but that in his exclusive dwelling on the " deformi-
ties of human existence " . he is f or some purpose of his
own, from hatred or for propaganda or profit for instance,
consciously and intentionally rejecting life's balance and
grace, but even then he again stands condemned as an artist
and social witness. As an artist he is guilty of the very
misdemeanour in art against which he is supposed to be
in revolt — that of rejecting a part of life as being not
worthy of treatment, of deliberately making an arbitrary
difference between good and evil ; while as a social witness
he is guilty of the meanest of the perjuries — the sup-
pression of truth which would favour the condemned.
This general charge is our first count against the later
manifestations of realism in the literature of the life of
the Welsh peasantry ; they omit all but its ugliness. The
author is either blind by nature to all the other features
of that life, or he has deprived himself of his sight, which
is worse.
In the two volumes (My People and Capel Sion, by
Caradoc Evans) with which for the moment we are
priniarily concerned there are in all some thirty short
stories or sketches, and it is not too much to say that not
198 Some Rccent Welsh Literature aud
in one of them can there be found any real record of the
uniyersal sof tening and cleansing influences of human life,
even among the lowest barbarians.
There exists no community of men and women 011 the
face of the earth which does not know something of these
forces, of the ennobling influence of little children with
their innocence and simple dependence, of the arresting of
personal selfishness by that strange devotion of man to
man called friendship, of the power öf the love of man for
woman in idealising the things of the earthly body and
the common affairs of life, of the capacity for sacrifice in
the parent and for loyalty in the child, of the mysterious
longing for communion with the Unknown, which (even
among savages) always finds expression in words of dignity
and beauty.
But in these sketches we have nothing but a record of
an inhabited territory where apparently there is more con-
centrated devilry to the square mile than the world has
ever known before, and where none of these mj'sterious
but universally distributed forces are ever in play.
It would be difficult without a definite mathematical
effort to say how many births the stories would lead one to
expect, but there are no children anywhere in these
Stories of the Peasantry of West Wales, and, as far as they
are concerned, it would not be difiicult to believe that
these peasants are in the habit of putting all but the
unhealthiest of them to death at birth. Their mischief,
their laughter, their simple joj 7 s and sorrows never move
any heart or bring anxiety or hope into any home within
the covers of these two volumes.
One will seek in vain for any friendship here — there
are protestations of it in abundance but always with some
selfish end in view, and the ruling passion of the tribe is
for an opportunity t<> play again the drama of Cain and
Tke Liìmtations of Realism. 199
Abel. There is 110 love here, not even healthy desire.
Apart from one story, " Greater than Love ", which
recorcls a crime peculiarly rare in Wales, as cold judicial
statisties would prove, it would be difficult to find any
instance in the books of two people who might be ex-
pected to mate decently.
There is no love of clan or kindred which does not find
expression in meanness and cruelty, and 110 longing for
God and his works except among one or two madmen.
A mere citation of these omissions entitles us to say
that the creations of this writer are in defiance of the
whole of human lmowledge and experience, ineluding that
of the author if he be normal. ' How different it all is
from the work of the master realists, some of whose
names we have given. One is tempted to compare it with
one of the most terrible realist sketches in the whole of
European literature, Creatures that once were Men (also
published in English under the title of The Outcasts), by
Maxim Gorki, whom one suspects Mr. Caradoc Evans of
imitating. That story is a tale of pure squalor, but in
spite of that it is full of the eternal human charities.
Old Captain Kouvalda, the doss-house keeper, who
although always helping to draw his lodgers with him
deeper and deeper into the slough of drunkenness and
misery, yet never failed to help them at their need if it
was in his power to do so, the drunken old schoolmaster,
who only spent half his earnings 011 drink and the other
on the poor staiwing little children of the slums, are
monuments amidst the dreariness and the fìlth to the
divinity of man. A short description of the old school-
master transforms the detailed descriptions of human
weakness, selfishness and hypocrisy and makes them bear-
able and purposeful.
" Sometimes the schoolmaster would gather the childreri
200 Some Recent Welsh Literature and
round him, buy a quantity of bread, eggs, apples, nuts and
go with them into the fìelds towards the river. There they
would greedily eat up all he had to offer them filling the air
around with merry noise and laughter. The lank, thin
figure of the drunhard seemed to shrivel up and grow small
like the little ones around him, who treated him with com-
plete familiarity as if he were one of their own age. They
called him " Philippe ", not adding even the title of
" Uncle ". They iumped around him like eels, they pushed
him, got on his back, slapped his bald heacì, and pulled his
nose. He probably liked it, for he never protested against
these liberties being taken. He spoke very little to them,
and his words were humble and timid, as if he were afraid
that his voice might soil or hurt them. He spent many
hours with them, sometimes as play thing, and at other
times as play mate. He used to look into their bright faces
with sad eyes, and would then slowly and thoughtfully slink
off into Vaviloff's vodka shop where he would drink till he
lost consciousness."
That justifies all the ruthless analysis of character and
the cruel records of the actualities of life, because in the
flash of a searchlight it also reveals its glories, and had
Mr. Caradoc Evans enshrined in his two volumes five
hundred lines of the same character he would have been
able, without fear of conviction, to plead not guilty to the
charge of blindness either natural or self inflicted.
But the indictment does not end with the general
charge. We have still to point out that either from
ignorance or incompetence the distinctive features of the
life described, the features which make it unique and
recognisable, are all missing or distorted. We need only
give two instances. Every person who tnows Wales
knows also that, in the Eisteddfod, it possesses and
cherishes one of the most wonderful democratic cultural
institutions in the world to-day, which inspires the
common people to effort in all the arts, — in music,
in poetry, in prose, and in craft. The institution is
mentioned, as far as I can remember, once in the two
The Limitations of Realism. 201
volumes and then as the occasion of (if not the incitement
to) immorality. The practice of anyone of the arts may
be subversive of the code of morals declared in the deca-
logue, but surely when the life of a peasantry who, amidst
all the varying ebbs and tides of social and political for-
tune have kept alive the fire of inspiration is described, it
merits some more generous treatment than this.
Again, whatever may be the sins and weaknesses of
the peasantry of Wales, and of West Wales in particular,
no one can deny that their religious development has given
them a lmowledge of theological and religious termino-
logy not to be equalled anywhere in the world. As
Paxton Hood' said : —
" Religion was the'one topic upon which you might talk
intelligently anywhere in Wales: with the pitman in the
coal mine, with the iron smelter at the forge, with the farmer
by his ingleside, with the labourer in his mountain shieling ;
and not merely on the first more elementary lessons of the
catechism, but on the great bearings and infinite relations of
religious things. Jonathan Edwarrìs, and Williams of Rother-
ham, and Owen, and Bunyan and FIavel, these men and
their works, and a few others like them, were well known
thus you might often feel surprised when,
sitting down in some lowly cottage, you found yourself
suddenly caught and carried along by its owner in a coil of
metaphysical argument ".
We do not say it with any pride (for we know its
inherent weaknesses) but it is true that there is less of the
anthropomorpliism of religion among the peasantry of
Wales than among any other people in the world living
such a simple uncultivated life ; but in these sketches the
whole religious atmosphere is made ghastly with the most
materialist anthropomorphism. The very county which
is the scene of these sketches has produced some of the
1 Christmas Evans, the Preacher of Wild Wales (p. 7), by Paxton
Hood. Hodder & Stoughton.
202 Some Recent Welsh Literature and
most wonderful preachers our generations have known —
Daniel Rowlands, Christmas Evans, Ebenezer Morris,
Thomas and Ebenezer Richards — some of whom were
brought up within a few miles of the actual spot where
the horrible Bern Daf jdd's sermon on " The Word "
(Capel Sion, pp. 17-28) is supposed to have been delivered.
One is almost tempted to think that this sermon is a
conscious distortion of some of Christmas Evans' wonder-
ful deliverances.
Whatever else may be said in the defence of these
stories, they are not of the life of the Welsh peasantry —
they are stories of the diseased minds and the deformed
souls which are cast among all the congregations of men
and women, and of whom generally the world speaks only
in whispers and with tears.
There has recently been published in English a similar
collection of sketches of the life of China-town, by
Mr. Thomas Burke, under the title of Limehouse Niç/hts,
characterized also by the same ruthless realism, but at the
same time by an overwhelming sympathy and charity. In
the most terrible of them all, " The Paw ", which is full
of maniacal cruelty and torture, one is always conscious
of an enormous passion looming over all its horrors :
" Tlie Greaser loved his wife with the miserable, fuiious
passion of a \veak thing. He Ioved lier to life and death as
such men do when they rise to it at all".
and given the character of the Greaser, combined with
this passion and his "narcotised sensibilities", one under-
stands how the terrible blow that fell upon him led to all
the horror. The story is as much a defence as it is a con-
demnation. In others, such as " Gina of the China Town ",
we fînd pictures almost idyllic in their nature, only just
hardened here and there in their outlines by a touch of
pure realism. The book shows how this kind of work can
The Limitations of Realism. 203
and should be clone — for in it, the author (whether he has
been just to China Town or not) has at any rate observed
the inherent limitations and conditions of his method.
As we have already suggested, a new literary method
often necessarily entails a new literary form, and it is
hardly to be wondered at that so many of our realists have
been forced to discover or to create for themselves a new
language. Words, after all, areonly tokens, and they
become worn in use, and the images graven upon them
indistinct, so that ultimately they do more to confuse the
artist than to assist him. Mr. Grwynn Jones, for instance,
in his realist poem Pro Patria — like his confrère, John
Maseíield, 1 in England — had to seek for a new poetic
diction as the vehicle of his new ideas. This, we believe,
has been the first task of the realist everywhere.
Evidently Mr. Caradoc Evans was faced with the same
problem — and it must be admitted that he has found an
effective and adequate solution.
He knew that his work was to portray the coarseness
of life, and he has created a coarse vocabulary and an
uncouth idiom to convey his ideas. His method is simple
in principle but somewhat complex in execution. He has
generally (though not always) adopted the form of a
Welsh sentence and translated it iíito English, maintain-
ing partially the order of the original but almost invariably
choosing the ugliest and coarsest English equivalent. His
language is powerful, and it perf ectly expresses his attitude
and his ideas — but it bears no basic relation to the
original Welsh, as one or two instances will demonstrate.
The famous Welsh hymn
" Yn y dyfroedd mawr a'r tonnau
Nid oes neb a ddeil fy mhen,
Ond fy anwyl briod Iesu
A fu farw ar y pren ",
1 Cp., The Everlastùi(/ Mercy, The Widow in the Bye Street, &c.
204 Some Recent Welsh Literature and
is translated in the story, entitled, " Three Men from
Horeb " {Capel Sion), as follows : —
" In the big floods and swells there is none to hold my
head but my beloved hnsband, Jesus, who died upon the
Wood".
No one can blame the author for his version, for
he has the right to use the words, which are in tune with
his work ; but his version is not a translation of the
original Welsh, and it is obvious that there has been an
intentional choice of hard, ugly words.
All the prolonged conversations are so utterly unreal
to anyone acquainted with the country described, and so
full of ugly words hardly ever heard in any part
of Wales, that it would be useless to give the original
Welsh, the author's translation together with a parallel
one, but certain typical phrases can be chosen. A com-
mon phrase used for God in this part of Cardiganshire is
" Y Bôd Mawr " (not " Y Gwr Mawr " which is the term
used for the squire), and the literal translation of it would
be " The Great Being ". In these stetches it is rendered
" The big man ", " The great man " (Y dyn mawr),
" Great male " (Y gwrryw mawr).
The common Cardiganshire form " Gwedwch " (dy-
wedwch) is rendered " mouth " (cegwch) or " voice "
(lleisiwch) at will, and merely to give the Welsh equivalent
of the author's form is to demonstrate its absurdity.
" Gynau gwynion ", is generally given as " white shirts ",
which in Cardiganshire would be "crysau gwynion ".
The exact rendering is beautiful and dignified, "white
robes ". Phrases like "Move your tongue now ", " Clap
your old lips ", " What iobish do you spout ", " Back you
hie, you brazen slut ", abound in the books, and merely
to attempt to translate them would be sufficient to shew
how un-Welsh they are.
But the author's langnagc is no concern of ours in this
note, except in so far as it might be taken by those
Thc Limitations of Rcalism. 205
unacquainted with the origitial to be the exact equivalent
of the Welsh. He has createcl an expressive and powerful
form which admirably suits his purpose.
We have dwelt at such length on these two volumes
not so much on account of their intrinsic importance, but
because they are a sign of the times and also because
their success may tempt others to follow along the same
paths and disregard utterly the inherent laws of literary
art. It may be, of course, that present events will
create a great revulsion against the realistic and the
actualistic methods in literature, and that Europe will
see a great return to romance again, but it is just
as likely that an intimate acquaintance of a generation
with the ghastly realities and possibilities of life will
make it all the more impatient with the accepted forms,
methods, and traditions of the past. Indeed we are in-
clined to think that the remnant of the coming generation
will not be willing " to pass by life, to suppress the deep
and dark passions of the soul, and to lull by some lying
and narcotic phrase the urgent questions of the mind ".
If that be so, — the coming age will be above all the
age of the realist — but, it is worth remembering, he
will only be sovereign at will, — so long as he can con-
vince his age that his passion is for truth, that he is
inspired by high ideals, that life to him is indeed " the
sum of all human potentialities ", that he sees it as a
whole, and that he is able to find a place for all its forces
" in a pattern in which none should be distorted ", for
these are the conditions of the existence of the realist.
2o6 A National War Museum anci a
% (Haftonaf TDat (Hluseum <xnò a
Çpufiftc %uoxò Üfftce for lùafte*
By HUBEET HALL, F.S.A.,
Assistant Keeper of the Public JRecords ; Secretary to the Royal
Commission on Public Records.
It has been suggested that I might, with advantage to
fellow students, state my views on the subject of the above
institutions, both of which are generally believed to be
" on order " for the Welsh nation.
There was a time, not so long past, when Welsh states-
men and scholars were discussing the best means of
establishing a National Library and a National Museum
for Wales. The accomplishment of these earlier ambitions
may well encourage the belief thatanother "big push" will
put Welshmen in possession of a National War Museum as
well as a Public Record Office ; for both these institutions
are intimately concerned with tlie war itself. The daily
history of the war can best be visualised from the exhibits
that form the main feature of a War Museum, while the
problems connected with its responsibilities can only be
seriously studied from the original records that will be
preserved in the national archives. In short the records
will form the text of the History of the War, and the
contents of the Museum will serve as illustrations to this
text.
But there is another reason why the establishment of
these institutions should be regarded as a matter of
national importance. We have been reminded, more than
Public Record Office for Wales. 207
once, in recent years tliat the study of archives and other
documentary sources of Modern History has been sadly
neglected in this country. It is true that we have not
taken this reproof to heart, and that we have made no
special effort to mend our ways ; but, here and tliere, we
find scholars who resent the reproach of being outside the
pale of European culture in this matter of the archives.
Moreover we know that no excuse for this neglect is
furnished by the vicissitudes of the State. Our public
records were compiled and preserved under the same con-
ditions as those which obtained abroad, and they have
escaped the havoc that has been wrought in foreign
archives by hostile invasion and civil war. The neglect
that they have experienced, and the losses that they have
consequently suffered, are due to the fact that their value
as a national treasure has not been realized as it has been
by Continental nations.
One cause of this foreign enlightenment has been
frequently noted. The French Revolution brought about
a remarkable change in the treatment of State documents.
Instead of burning old records, like the insurgent peasantry
of the Middle Ages, one of the first acts of the Republic was
to nationalize them. There was no more ominous act in
the early days of the Russian Revolution than the wanton
destruction of archives. There is no more hopeful symptom,
to-day, than the appointment of a body of experts' for the
reorganisation of the ancient imperial archives.
With the restoration of the French monarchy, in 1814,
the archives had become a national institution which no
government dared to despise or neglect, and the care of
archives was taught and practised as a State service.
As Franlcish scholars had reformed the official hand-
writing of Western Europe in the ninth century, so the
1 Uncìer thc presidency of Professor Lappo-Dani]e\vsky.
2o8 A National War Museum and a
" Science ' : ' or " Economy " o£ the French archives was
adopted by most of the European nations a thousand years
later. In England, on the other hand, the public records
have not been dealt with on these lines. Official docu-
ments which, in theory, are the property of the Crown
have continued to be vested in their custodians, who have
received no recognized training as archivists and who
often have no hnowledge of the nature or value of the
records in their charge. This state of things is possibty
due to the conservative distrust of the French Revolution
which influenced English statecraft for more than one
generation. Six hundred years earlier Matthew Paris
petulantly assured his countrymen that England had no
use for paj)al and imperial notaries, and following this
insular tradition, we have held ourselves aloof from the
methods of French scholars, to whose learning and
patriotism the admirable system of the Continental
archives is due. 1
With this foreign archive system the cult of Libraries
and Museums is closely associated ; it is not surprising,
therefore, that from the beginning of the war, collections
were made by foreign governments to illustrate its pro-
gress. But now, in the third year of the war, a proposal
for a National War Museum has begun to engage the
attention of our own Government, and the event is really
one of great interest and importance. To a mere onlooher
it would seem as though this war will bring to pass the
dream of our historians that has waited for its fulfilment
during the whole of the smug Victorian era. 2
It is well known that the question of a National War
Museum is under consideration by a departmental Com-
1 Langlois and Stein, "Archives de l'Histoire de France ", p. xiii :
Quarterly lleriew, Jan., 1910, pp. 42-47.
2 Edinburyh Reriew, Oct., 1914, pp. 375-6.
Public Record Offìce for Wales. 209
mittee appointed by the First Commissioner of His
Majesty's Works, to whose patriotic and enlightened enter-
prise the credit for the whole scheme mainly belongs. It is
also lcnown that the interests of Science, Archseolog) r ,
History and Literature are represented by a sub-committee
of experts. Under these circumstances it would be improper
to make any conjecture as to the nature of the scheme
that the Committee has in hand. It can, however, be
inferred from the announcements made in the press that
some scope will be left for other national or local enter-
prises.
Now this is where our immediate interest in the matter
coines in. It may, perhaps, be assumed that the several
nationalities concerned will.become, as the new formula
runs, the " masters of their own destinies " herein : that
is to say that their requirements in respect of the equip-
ment of war museums or archives will be the care of
native archivists and historians. At the same time it
must be remembered that the position of these members
of the imperial family is intimately affected by tlie
present "political state of Great Britain " and by the
existing distribution of the archives of the war. In fact
we should find, in the case of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and
the Isle of Man, that the whole of the exhibits illustrating
the several aspects of the war are vested in the Govern-
ment departments at Whitehall. What may be the effect
of this official monopoly on the national interests or senti-
ments of our Scottish, Irish and Manx neighbours, I have
no right or wish to inquire. I am only concerned here
with the case of Wales, because I have set out to discuss
the purely academic question of the possibility and desir-
ability of instituting a National War Museum for the
Principality. It will be necessary, therefore, to examine
the national position of Wales more closely.
210 A National War Mtiseiim and a
In the first place it would seem that this resembles
tliat of the other members of the imperial community in
respect of the distribution of the various exhibits which
must form the bulk of a National War Museum. In
each case the warlilce gear, relics ancl recent administrative
documents are, as we have seen, under the control of the
London authorities. If any of these historical objects are
preserved elsewhere than in London, that is merely a
matter of official convenience or arrangement and does
not detract from the preroprative exercised by the secre-
tariats or Boards.
I am not aware whether the above countries wish to
have War Museums of their own, but the fact remains
that Wales, which apparently does wish to possess such
a memorial of the war, is just as much entitled to have it
as are the others.
On the other hand, Wales is under a distinct dis-
advantage herein owing to the loss of its national records,
which were removed to London some sixty years ago,
whereas the records are stiil preseiwed at Edinburgh,
Dublin and Douglas. Moreover, in the case of Jersey,
Guernsey and the Colonial Dominions, Dependencies and
Crown Colonies the distinction is emphasized by the pre-
servation of administrative as well as judicial records
abroad. 1 Now we know that from the Union of 1543
to 1830 the judicial records were preserved within the
Principality, whilst earlier still, from 1284 to 1543, many
administrative as well as judicial records were deposited
in Welsh repositories. 2
1 Royal Commission on Public Records, Second Report (1914),
Appendix (1).
J Ibid., First Report (1!)12), Appx. (10); Second Report (1914),
Appx. (1). Cymmrodorion Socirt>/'s Transactions, 1900-1, pp. 40-52, and
Ibid., 1914-15, pp. 16-42.
Public Record Office for Wales. 2 1 1
Tt is scarcely surprising therefore that many Welshmen
have regarded the transfer of those records as ill-advised.
As it was the records were handed over, in some cases
urider protest, and remained in a more or less unsatisfac-
tory state down to comparatively recent times. 1
This historical incident has an important bearing on
the subject of the institution of a National War Museum
for Wales, because the Principality has been deprived of
an archive establishment which elsewhere might serve as a
collecting depôt for a National War Museum. In view,
therefore, of the authoritative and emphatic Eeport of
the Eoyal Commission on Public Eecords in favour of the
repatriation of the Welsh records, an excellent opportunity
exists for the erection of a Welsh Memorial which may
combine the custody of the archives of the war with the
collection of relics and objects of national and historical
interest.
II.
Before I proceed to suggest a possible solution of the
various local problems connected with the proposed estab-
lishment of a Public Eecord Ofììce and National War
Museum for Wales, it is important that those who have
this matter at heart, in the interests of the Welsh nation
at large, should realize the technical requirements of
those institutions. A National War Museum appears to
be associated in the minds of many people with a com-
memoration on the lines of the Victorian Jubilee Memor-
ials, while letters incautiously addressed to the " Eecord
Office, London ", have been commonly delivered at the
offices of the " Eecord " newspaper. In any case the full
significance of the scholarly ideals inspired by such insti-
tutions has not been generally appreciated, and it is per-
1 Ibid., Royal Commission on Public Records, Minutes of Evidence,
Q. 334 and 3666.
P 2
2 12 A National War Museum anci a
haps desirable thattheir relative positions should be clearly
stated.
The Museum occupies a definite position in the
scheme of national culture as the repository of scientific
and archseological exhibits, which niust be regarded as
"objects" in distinction to " documents ". Half-way
between the two comethe products of Art, which may also
be displayed in more appropriate Galleries. The " docu-
ments " in question are everywhere preserved in two
distinct repositories ; official documents, in the shape of
records and state papers, being found in Archives, and
literary manuscripts, with printed books, in Libraries.
Naturally a certain admixture or interchange of these
elements is observable, but Museums, Archives, and
Libraries may be readily distinguished by the above-
mentioned characteristics. At the same time the official
titles of certain institutions may be somewhat misleading.
For example, the " British Museum " actually connotes
the " National Library of England ", and the removal of
the scientific exhibits to a Natural History Museum may
possibly forshadow the establishment of a National Art
Gallery at no distant date. In the provinces, however,
the intermixing of exhibits representing the domains of
Science, Art, Archseology, History and Literature in a
single Museum is still of frequent occurrence and is per-
haps inevitable under existing circumstances. Indeed
this exigency furnishes, incidentally, a useful object
lesson as to the value of all these materials for a survey of
the national history.
It will appear from the above statement that the pur-
pose of a National War Museum is definite, and its func-
tions will be exercised at the discretion of the authorities
concerned : that is to say, the proposed museum may
purport to include all the available exhibits illustrating
Public Record Ojjìce for Wales. 2 1
the war, or only such as come readily to hand. In the
former case, a scientific and coniprehensive plan of
operations will be necessary ; but, in the end, this
would not involve much more trouble or expense than a
casual method of collection. In any case it is important
that all the materials that exist for a permanent com-
memoration and adecpaate history of the war should be
carefully noted. It follows, therefore, that it will be
necessary to determine the following points : (1) What
the proper contents of a War Museum should be.
(2) Whether these are actually available for exhibition.
(3) If so, how they can be properly housed, arranged and
described to the best advantage.
Now each of these processes is complementary to the
other. To select a site and obtain a grant of the neces-
sary f unds for building and maintenance before the nature
and use of the exhibits or their extent and distribution
have been ascertained, would seem to be the wrong way
of setting to work. It is, indeed, obvious that no real
progress could be made with the establishment of such an
institution until it has been decided what it will contain ;
nor can the contents be estimated until their nature and
use, their extent and distribution have been exhaustively
determined. The very position and size of the building
must depend on the character of the matter that is avail-
able. Certain important materials may be found to be
unavailable, others may prove undesirable ; not a few may
have been already appropriated by local authorities and
collectors.
These and other points ought to be ascertained by
means of a preliminary survey, for which the knowledge
of official experts and the co-operation of local antiquaries
and historians should be utilised. At the same time some
definite provision should be made to recover documents or
214 A National War Museum and a
relics that have strayed from official custody, and the
respective spheres of influence of the imperial and local
authorities should be carefully ascertained to avoid the
risk of a disastrous competition.
These are operations that require both lmowledge and
tact, for even the most persuasive methods of official
enterprise will avail little without an exact loiowledge of
the materials that maybe found in sundry places. Finally
it is very desirable, in this connection, that the national
character and patriotic objects of the proposed collection
should be widely known and appreciated. These things
may be taken for granted in high places, but they should
be emphasized for the benefìt of smaller folk.
In the matter of the contents of a War Museum
that will claim to be of national or permanent import-
ance, there is already a wealth of exhibits in prospect,
if these can be realized. Whether such a museum
should include exhibits illustrative of the naval and
military methods, the history and literature of allied
or hostile states, is an academic problem that the author
of this Paper will not attempt to solve. That these
are objects of common interest cannot be doubted ; but,
on the otlier hand, it would be impossible to bring to-
gether in any one place a complete collection of universal
exhibits : an arbitrary or fortuitous system would have
little scientific value. When the belligerent nations have
completed their individual national collections, printed
catalogues can be readily used by students. In the mean-
time the respective National Museums might include a
foreign section for the display of the various trophies or
relics that have come to hand. 1
1 It will beremembered that in tlie caseof docunients, intercepted
or captured papers have always had a recogniseô! place in the State
urchives.
Public Record Office for Wales. 215
The normal exhibits' in a National War Museum will
include material objects such as the various engines of
war, with models and divers reproductions of naval and
military tactics. Other exhibits such as colours, uniforms
and other insignia, together with many relics from famous
battlefìelds, will have a sentimental as well as a didactic
value. Closely related to these are certain types of
documentary exhibits such as plans, drawings, portraits
and other delineations of the incidents or fîgures of the
war, and these might be more conveniently displayed in
a gallery annexe.
A third class of exhibits will comprise the documents ;
and these again may be sub-divided as printed and
unprinted materials. If prints, photographs and other
delineations are classed as objects of Art, the contents of
the above sub-divisions can be roughly estimated. In the
first place, however, it is necessary to insist that a sharp
distinction between printed and unprinted documents is
not always possible, or desirable. The fact that a certain
document has been printed, while others of a like nature
remain unprinted, is largely due to accident or caprice, as
well as to our haphazard method of issuing historical
publications. Many important series of manuscripts have
been published piecemeal ; others have been kept unpub-
lished. Under these circumstances we cannot reerard the
original MSS. and the partial reproductions thereof as
entirely independent sources. In fact the necessity of
co-ordinating the printed and unpublished sources has
been tardily or grudgingly acknowledged, and this
method has formed a noticeable feature of the best his-
torical bibliographies in recent years. It is, therefore,
important that the administration of a National War
1 Those mentioned in tlie following lines must, of course, be
regarded only as types.
2i6 A National War Museum and a
Museuin should recognize this method of co-ordination in
connection with a survey of the documentary exhibits.
There are, of course, many printed books that are not
affected by the above consideration. In order to make
this point clear it may be possible to regard the whole
body of printed historical literature as falling naturally
into three main groups. These are : (1) The " original
sources " which have hitherto been printed. (2) Various
compilations that are based directly or indirectly on
original sources. (3) The still more numerous works
that are based on common knowledge, hearsay or mere
supposition, ratlier than on any specific source of infor-
mation.
How far it is necessary to preserve copies of every type
of historical literature relating to the War for the sup-
posed benefìt of posterity, is a question that may yet have
to be decided. A select bibliography has always been
viewed with some distrust by expert bibliographers^ but
modern historical students have rebelled against a method
of historical research which had been reduced to an absur-
dity. Here, at least, a drastic " selection " would seem to
be inevitable. It goes without saying that the term
" printed book " will cover such forms as pamphlets,
broadsides, &c.
In the case of the unprinted documents, the position is
one of still greater difficulty, for here not only is the bulk
of the material relatively larger, but it is also much more
difficult to classify, with a view to a survey or selection.
The manuscript materials for the History of the War
correspond, on the whole, with the fìrst division of
printed materials mentioned above. Since the invention
of printing, compilations more or less basedon the original
sources and worlcs of imagination have not usually been
preserved in a manuscriptform ; but such as have survived
Píiblic Record Office for Wales. 2 1 7
in this form only have usually come to be reputed as
" sources 'V
It remains, then, to sort out these documentary
sources, but this is a somewhat delicate as well as a
difficult operation. To begin with, 110 scientiíic or even
scholarly attempt has been made to deal with the docu-
ments for the purpose of ascertaining and describing their
various natures and their several uses. We have a classi-
fìcation of the official records, which is both arbitrary and
incomplete, for it is based 011 the overlapping and inter-
changeable custody of the old courts and departments of
State, while it has not attempted to co-ordinate the records,
as now preserved, with the vast number of official docu-
tnents that have found their way from time to time into
other collections. We have 110 classification whatever of
*•
our local records, and the remaining original sources of a
literary nature have not been classified or co-ordinated, as
a whole, with the official or local records.
It will be obvious that a nation that has not troubled
to evolve an intelligent classification of its historical
records and manuscripts will not have a very exact
knowledge of their several relationships and values.
At the same time it may be said that we have an
adequate description, to hand, of most of the important
records and MSS. pi*eserved in our national repositories.
Certainly the custodians, as well as unofficial historians
and antiquaries, have enlarged on the importance of
various classes or specimens of documents ; but the result
of their learned labours will not be helpful for the present
purpose. It might indeed assist us greatly in replenishing
a museum connected with the study of archeeology and
1 An exception may perhaps be made in the case of the original
" copy " of printed vvorks which has gradually acquired a sensational
value for personal or sentimental reasons.
2 1 8 A National War Museum and a
mediseval history; but it is well known that the later
State Papers, with the records of the War Office, Admiralty
and other departments concerned in the conduct of the
war, have not yet been completely or adequately cata-
logued. 1 Much has been done in the way of identification
and description of these modern records by the Eoyal
Commission appointed in 1910 ; 2 but a great deal more
remains to be accomplished before all the original sources
for the History of the War can be finally considered and
selections made therefrom for exhibition or permanent
preservation in the archives.
In tlie first place, therefore, we may take it that it is
essential to know what official documents exist before they
can be properly examined and utilized. In the second
place, we must know how these records are distributed,
and how far they are available for exhibition or reference.
Again, it would seem very desirable that some decision
should be arrived at with regard to the general scope of
the collection ; that is to say what types or classes of
documents are to be admitted and what are to be excluded? 3
Another point to be decided is concerned with the
period of time covered by the collection : for example is it
to be confined to the period of the war, or will the
archives of the war be brought together over an indefinite
period ?
In this matter a special difficulty is suggested by
the Reports of the Royal Commission.* It is the official
practice in this and other countries for the papers of the
various Government departments to be periodically trans-
ferred to the central archives as they mature. Here they
1 Quarterly Review, April, 1917, pp. 505-507.
2 Second Report, Appenclix iii, No. 77 arul passim.
3 Tliis question applies equally to other classes of exhibits.
* Especially the Second Report, pp. 61-66.
Public Record OJJ/îce for Wales. 2 1 9
form part of a permanent series which becomes accessible
to students in due course. To divert any considerable
portion of these records to a new repository, where they
would be less accessible for purposes of refèrence, might
prove a real hardship to students.
It is true that these archives of the war appear to be
as yet imperfectly, or rather partially arranged and
described, 1 but the same might be said of a large propor-
tion of the State Papers of the last two centuries. In any
case it is indisputable that the records of every period
should be properly catalogued and described, both to
ensure their preservation and to facilitate authorized
researches.
Incidentally, this matter is of some importance. We
have seen that a War Museum and a Public Record Offìce
has each an interest (one immediate and the other rever-
sionary) in these archives of the war ; but besides this
question of access for students, there is the far more
important question of their permanent preseiwation. For
this purpose the Museum may play the part of a careful
foster-mother, since the records may be, soon or later, in
grave danger of destruction. It would certainly be use-
less to insist upon their retention for transmission to
the archives if they are never destined to reach the hands
of future historians."
This is the real crux of the matter. These archives of
the war to-day are securely preserved, in almost infinite
extent and variety, within numerous official repositories.
They are, for the most part y the lineal successors of the
archives of what we once thought to be great national
1 Ibid., pp. 89-92.
2 The argument (if it should be a<ìvancerì) that the substance of
these documents has been published in official prints is vitiated by
the practice of official expurgation.
220 A National War Museum aud a
wars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ; but
where are these archives now?
We have learnt, for the first tiuie, from the auiazing
revelations of a receut Blue Book' that a very large pro-
portion, amounting in some cases to 95 per ceut. of these
collections, is no longer in official custody.
For the manner of the disappearance of the docu-
ments reference must be made to the authorities here
cited. It may suffi.ee to say that the destruction wrought
by the natural enemies of archives (and equally of libraries
and museums) namely, fire, water, dirt, vermin and
thieves, has apparently been far exceeded by the deliber-
ate destructiou carried out by their custodians on various
pretexts."
Of these the most convincing is the positive necessity
for conserviug space, and thereby labour and other inci-
dental charges of the custody of archives. A further
reason, which would be more properly advanced by
historians than by archivists, indicates the increasing
difficulty of dealing with the great accumulations of
historical materials. The ultimate bearing of the whole
matter on the position of the proposed War Museum
really depends, therefore, on the permanent security of
the records which must be the ultitnate authority for any
serious history of the war. The answer that is given to
this question by the Reports of the Royal Commission
raises grave doubts with regard to the fate of many of the
records of other " great " wars in which this country has
been engaged since the Napoleonic era. Some have been
burnt, or defaced by damp, or appropriated, as the result
of negligent custody; others have been destroyed by
1 Second Report of Royal Commission on Pnblic Records (1914),
pp. «57-7^ ; Contemporary Review, May, 1916, p. 608.
2 Ouarterly lieuirw, April, 1917, pp. 500-503.
Public Record Office for Wales. 221
unexpert boards oí' officers or departmental committees,
contrary to statutes made for their protection. 1
Many of the archives that have been allowed to perish
within living memory could be supplemented by State
Papers that still survive, though these are no longer in
official custody. I refer to the documents that have been
removed from public departments, at one time or another,
and are now regarded as the private property of those
persons who have inherited or otherwise acquired them.
Under the head of Local Records, it will not be prac-
ticable to include, in a War Museum, any large body of
documents of a public nature, even where these may
illustrate the administrative and social history of the war.
The business of the local.courts may refìect the effects of
the war in the shape of convictions, orders, bankruptcies,
and inquests ; but these evidences will be practically sup-
plied by printed statistics. Of far greater interest and
value are the records of the local Statutorv Authorities ;
the various Committees dealing with distress, pensions,
agriculture, food, savings and other matters of national
concern. Here again, however, the interest of the indi-
vidual collections is cumulative, though they are to a large
extent an unlcnown quantity. Again vve may surmise
that the inclusion in the archives of derelict local records
appears to afford the only hope (especially in Wales) of
their permanent preservation.
We now come to the last group of presumptive exliibits,
documents of a private or literary nature, as distinguished
from the public interest of official records ; but it will be
evident that this class cannot furnish many types of value
to the historian of the war. For the mediseval period,
and for such subjects as political, constitutional or eccle-
siastical history, the case would have been different. At
1 The Puhlic Record Office Acts of 1838 and 1877.
222 A National War Museum and a
the same time tliere will be many " semi-official " papers
in private custody which might be deposited or lent for
exhibition or reference. Other types of special interest
would include diaries, correspondence and accounts.
Finally, mention may be made of the extensive muni-
ments of societies, associations, and various professional
and trading corporations to which a fresh interest will be
added in connection with the war.
Such are the main classes of exhibits that should,
perhaps, come under the consideration of the authorities
of a National War Museum. These indications will assist
in determining how these exhibits could be most suitably
distributed and preserved in the Principality.
III.
In the fìrst part of this paper I ventured to suggest
that a National War Museum and a Public Record Office
for Wales might fulfil a common purpose, and I will now
attempt to show how the two schemes might proceed
towards their accomplishment, hand in hand.
In the first place, before we build upon the prospects
of either of these new institutions, we should naturally
consider whether the requirements of the Principality
could be supplied by existing institutions.
Of these, the National Libraryof Wales contains boolcs
and other printed matter, literary and historical manu-
scripts, local records and certain public records relating to
Wales, acquired by gift, purchase, or statutory grant.
The National Museum of Wales contains various
scientific, archoeological and artistic exhibits, including
specimens of MSS. and books of reference. Each of these
important institutions would doubtless be prepared to add
to its present responsibilities by taking charge of such
exhibits relating to the war as seemed most appropriate
Public Rccord Office for Wales. 223
to its national objects. It may also be assumed that tlie
National Library would be able to make suitable provision
for the Welsh records, if and when these are retransferred
from London in accordance with the recommendations of
the Royal Commission. Moreover, the National Museum
will be concerned eventually with many of the exhibits
that would illustrate the conditions of the war as they
affect Wales.
The most obvious objection to such a promising- arrange-
ment would be that neither of these institutions is specially
equipped for dealing' with the reconstruction of the
archives and worlcshops of the war. It will be evident,
from the statement made in the second part of this Paper,
that such undertakings reguire special experience for their
successful execution. We shall also see that the archives
with which we are now concerned are outside the spheres
of interest of both these institutions.
But if the above conclusion is inevitable, it does not
follow that those who are interested in the projects of a
Welsh Record Office and War Museum are at the end of
their resources. It would certainly have simplifìed
matters if these undertakings could have been handed
over to existing institutions without raising the difficult
question of obtaining funds for the erection and suitable
equipment of two new national institutions or the delicate
question of their respective locations. At the same
time it must be remembered that the proposals of
Welsh statesmen and scholars, and the recommenda-
tions of the Royal Commission in recent years, have
alike contemplated the provision of a Public Record
Office for Wales as a new and independent institution.
The important point, therefore, seems to be whether this
third national institution can be utilized for the concen-
tration of documents and relics of the war without in-
224 *4 National War Museum and a
curring the expense of building and equipping a separate
War Museura.
And here it is necessary to speak very franldy about
the whole situation. It may be that an adequate Record
Office and War Museum can be provided and equipped,
as separate institutions, without risk of the reaction that
follows on most rash undertalrings. Even so, however,
there are two or three considerations which should be
carefully weighed by all concerned.
The first of these is that, with the exception of the
judicial records now preserved in London and a few others
recently transferred to Aberystwyth, the national archives
of Wales are practically non-existent at this moment.
They would certainly need to be defined and identified
before they are available either for a Record Office or a
War Museum.
The second point is that these two institutions would
fìnd themselves competing, on unequal terms, with exist-
ing bodies in respect of the collection of the earlier MSS.
and certain classes of material exhibits ; for no statutory
intervention can be contemplated in this matter.
The third point is that although there can be no com-
plete or serviceable collection of Public Records until some
further scheme of local government for Wales has been
propounded, there are many public records now in local
custody which could be brought together with advantage
to the public departments concerned and, incidentally,
with a considerable saving of expense for their niain-
tenance. In this and other directions a considerable
amount of spade-work will have to be done before the
Welsh records can be transferred to a new repository, and
the sooner this work is taken in hand, the more chance
there will be of preserving the records and malcing them
accessible to students.
Public Recorci Office for Walcs. 225
It would seem, therefore, that a Public Eecord Office
and a National War Museum for Wales, if and when they
are constituted, must be chiefìy concerned with purely
preparatory work during the first few years of their
existence. During' these years the building of the archives
would be carried on and sufficient accommodation could
be provided on the spot for such documents and exhibits
as required immediate attention. When these operations
have been completed ; when the Record Office has been
built (as a model of its kind for the whole Empire 1 ) and
filled with the records and exhibits that have accrued,
these collections can then be transferred to their permanent
receptacles.
Probably it would be found desirable to take powers
for a broad and scholarly scheme of clistribution. Hitherto
the obligation, real or iniaginary, of preseiwing certain
documents in a particular court or office, with which they
havebeen traditionally associated, has proved a stumbling-
block to antiquaries. The result has been constant dupli-
cation and inconsistency. Students have been mystified
by these cross-references, and much official time and
copious stores of paper and ink have been wasted in
attempts to describe these heterogeneous documents. It
has been the cause of needless jealousies and wasteful
competition between official bodies, whilst it has provided
a direct incentive to the misappropriation of documents
and has offered no inducement for their restoration to
national or local collections. If this proprietary system of
classification were abandoned, it would be possible to make
a more scientific and serviceable distribution of the con-
1 This does not possess a single reputable building of the kind,
with the possible exception of the new Canadian archives at Ottawa.
It may be mentioned in this connection that the Public Record Com-
missioners inspected, in 1912, an up-to-date repository at Rotterdam
which cost only some £10,000.
Q
2 26 A National War Mtisetim anci a
tents of any large national collection of historical
clocunients. In the place of obsolete custodies, new
spheres of official interest would be created, and these
would have a comrnon interest in an intelligent distribution
of historical sources.
In the case of Wales, these spheres of interests may be
roughly defìned as below, to indicate the respective con-
tents of the several national institutions, together with
the proposed allocation of documents and exhibits : —
A. Existing Institutions.
(1) National Library of Wales —
(a) Department of printed books, &c. (including
prints).
(b) Department of MSS. (including seals).
(c) National War Museum (special collection of
printed books and prints).
Note. — All historical and literary documents, other
than official records, to be transferred here from
the Pnblic Record Office for Wales for permanent
preservation.
(2) National Museum of Wales —
(à) Existing departments.
(b) National War Museum (special collection of
professional, scientific, economic, social
and artistic exhibits illustrating the War,
as affecting Wales).
Note. — War exhibits to be transferred from the Public
Eecord Office for Wales to the National Museum.
B. Proposed Institutions.
(3) Public Record Office for Wales—
(a) Record Department. All official documents,
the property of the Crown, which may be
transferred from the London Record
Onice or departmental and provincial re-
Public Record OJjìce for Wales. 227
positories, or deposited by local authorities
and private individuals for the use of
students.
Note. — All literary MSS. to be transferred to the
National Librarv of Wales, and all War Exhibits to be
transferred to the National Museum for Wales.
(6) National War Museum for Wales (Directory
and Secretariat and special collection of
the archives of tlie War).
(4) National War Museum for Wales —
(a) Directory and Secretariat (at the Public
Record Office for Wales).
(b) Special collection of archives of the War
(at the Public Record Ofíice for Wales).
(c) Special collection of Printed Books, &c. (at
the National Library of Wales) .
(d) Special collection of War exhibits (at the
National Museum of Wales).
It will be seen from the above statement that the
suggested distribution of the Welsh archives and War
exhibits would add considerably to the value and import-
ance of the existing contents of the National Library and
National Museum respectively. It would also justify the
early establishment of the long promised Public Record
Office as a collecting and distributing agency in connec-
tion with the outstanding public records and the exhibits
for the proposed War Museum. Finally it would nialce
the establishment of a War Museum possible at a compara-
tively small cost and with far better results, in respect of
the meritof the collection, than if it were housed in a sepa-
rate building, unless such a building were adjacent to the
Record Office : for the archives of the War which must
be preserved there will form, if not the most important
section of a National War Museum, at least that which is
Q2
228 A National War Museum and a
most likelyto endure. It is unthinkable thatan imposing
institution should be established for the preservation of
relics, trophies, and other mementos of the war, whilst
the title-deeds of the Welsh nation to its national estate
continue to moulder and rot in a Babylonian capthdty. 1
History, indeed, teaches us to doubt the permanent
utility, or popularity, of national memorials that are ex-
clusively associated with successive historical events.
Some of those events undoubtedly excited the strongest
emotions of contemporary witnesses ; but after the lapse
of many years their testimony leaves us unmoved. It is
otherwise with the monuments of local patriotism and
piety which have always formed enduring land-marks in
the civilization of even the smallest states. A worn
Celtic cross or a fissured tombstone can move us more
deeply than stately monuments showing where the funeral
procession of a Plantagenet queen halted, or where a great
fìre or a grievous plague were stayed. And so the earliest
palaces and f orts- have been replaced by public buildings —
courts of justice and town-halls, churches and chapels,
libraries and institutes ; and besides these in " some old-
fashioned house, in an old-fashioned street of an old-
fashioned town ", throughout the continent of Western
Europe, we should find the public archives.
In one of the remoter Swiss cantons there is a small
but ancient town wherein an unpretentious archive-house
displays the following proud inscription :
" I watch over the old charters of liberty of the men of
this town ;
1 Ezra, I, vi. The archives of the Vatican underwent the same
experience in the fourteenth century. The term of the exile of the
mediieval popes at Avignon in the fourteenth century a.d. coincided,
roughly, with that of the deportation of the Jews to Babylon, in the
sixth century b.c. The deposit of the Welsh records in London has
lasted for a somowhat shorter period,
Public Record Offi.ce for Wales. 229
" To preserve the liberties themselves, is their own
care."
Then there is the other picture, recently drawn by an
American explorer of the Mexican archiyes. 1 Everywhere
the student looks in vain for a track through the wilder-
ness of unsorted records ; for during three centuries that
nation has put off till " to-morrow " what should have
been done to-day. And so the old charters of its liberties
are lost sight of and forgotten ; and so for us also " to-
morrow " may be one day too late.
Can we not interpret profitably the writing on the
walls of these neglected archives? A nation without
records is not only the poorer for the loss of a heritable
treasure ; it is as a ship without its logs, or a trading
company without its ledgers ; nominum umbrae, repre-
sented, some day, only by a hulk and a brass plate.
Moreover, the longer these muniments are leftin abeyance,
the more diffìcult will be their restoration. " Manana "
has only one significance for business men.
If, indeed, the preseiwation of their national records
was a matter of great moment to the Commons of
England under Plantagenet and Hanoverian kings alike ;
if this has also been the occasion of passionate protest by
the Commons of Scotland and Ireland, and even by the
county justices of Wales ; and if the tiny Channel Islands
and the whole of the Dominions and dependencies over
sea have preseiwed their respective national archives and
published much of their contents, is it not time Welsh-
men made a special effort to accomplish something of the
same kind ?
1 "Guirìe to the Manuscript materials (for U.S.A. History) in the
archives of Mexico ", p. v.
230 Welshmen in the American
Tt?efe#nten ín íÇe Çjlmerican Tì?ar of
Jnbepenbence*
By e. alfred jones,
Author of " Church Plate of the Diocese of Banyor", etc, etc.
The Welsh were ahnost unaffected by the wave of emigra-
tion, forced by economic conditions, from Scotland and
Ulster to the American Colonies in the eighteenth cen-
tury. Many individual Welshmen, however, faced the
long and dreary passage across the Atlantic to seek fortune
in the new World, as will be shown in this article. 1
The present writer's interest in the subject which
forms the title of this paper began with a study of the
mass of MSS. of the American Loyalists in the Public
Record Office in London.
Before presenting a few biographical sketches of the
Welshmen among these loyalists, based upon the original
material just mentioned, it is proposed to offer a few
remarks on the men of Welsh nationality or of Welsh
descent who were adherents of the American cause in the
great struggle which ended with the loss of the American
Colonies to England.
Taking the names at random, there was General Daniel
Morgan, who, as the name indicates, was of Welsh extrac-
tion, and who is known as the " Hero of Cowpens ", from
his defeat of Lord Cornwallis in that battle. Of the
fifty-six signatories to the celebrated Declaration of
Independence in 1776, 110 fewer than four were of
Welsh descent, while a fìfth was born in the Principality.
1 A Welsh scttloniL'nt had heen formed in South Carohna in 1735-36.
Froni tliese emigrants have descended many distinguished nien of
that State. ( Hi&tory of South Carolina underthe Royal Government,
J 7 19-1776, by E. McCrady, 1899, p. 136.)
War of Independence. 231
These were Jefferson, Williams, William Floyd, and Lewis
Morris, the native-born Welshman being Francis Lewis,
who is said to have hailed from Llandaff. 1
One warrior of Welsh birth was Isaac Shelby, who was
a hard and stubborn fighter in the frequent engagements
in the Carolinas. Another soldier of Welsh blood was
Colonel John Thomas, 2 the successor of Colonel Thomas
Fletchall, the loyalist, as Colonel of Militia in South
Carolina. There were other men from the little princi-
palityof Wales, as active iri this greatwar aswas Jefferson
Davis, of direct Welsh descent, on the Confederate side in
the Civil War.
Turning now to an account of the Welsh loyalists, the
most conspicious was perhaps Anthony Stokes, barrister-
at-law, who is described in the admission book of Gray's
Inn, under date of 28 January, 1758, as of the parish of
St. Andrew's, Holborn, gentleman. He was, however,
called to the bar by the Inner Temple, of which he was
elected a bencher in 1796. This description would seem
to rule out all possibility of Anthony Stokes's Welsh
descent, but his own declaration of his nationality is
obtained from three sources, namely, from his memorial to
the Commissioners of American Claims, from his printed
petition 3 of 10 January, 1785, to William Pitt, Chancellor
of the Exchequer, and from a letter mentioned later.
The official career of this Welshman began with his
appointment, a few years after his call to the bar, on the
Colonial Council of Antigua. On 15 May, 1767, he was
appointed Chief Justice of the Southern Caribbee Islands,
and on St. David's Day, 1771, he was transferred to
America, as member of the council of the province of
Georgia, and Chief Justice, an appointment which had
been made in 1768.' The honourable office of Chief
Justice was held by Anthony Stokes until war put an end
1 See The Scotch-Irish in America, by H. Jones Ford 191/), p. 491.
2 McCrady's South Carolina in the lieoolution, 1775-80, p. 608.
3 Public Record Office: F.O.4/1. 4 Public Record Office: C.O. 5/G57.
232 Welshmen in the American
to his enjoyment of it. Finding things too hot for him,
he returned in 1776 to England, where he remained until
he received orders in 1779 to return to Georgia, upon its
subjugation by the British. On the passage out on H.M.
ship Eoiperiment, 1 he was the observer of a smart action
between that vessel and the enemy.
Anthony Stokes claims to have been the only Chief
Justice from the revolted colonies who had been called to
the English bar. He performed the functions of his office
of Chief Justice until 1782, when the British evacuated
Savannah, and he returned home on H.M. frigate Garys-
forl, on which he accidentally broke his arm.
Tributes to his strong character and to his firm adminis-
tration of justice were paid not only by such distinguished
loyalists as Sir James Wright, Governor of Georgia, but
also by Americans, whose respect he had won.
The following letter 2 from Anthony Stokes to the
Commissioners of American Claims, dated from 1, Inner
Temple Lane, 23 February, 1786, is not without interest: —
"I beg Leave to return you my Thanks, for increasing my Allow-
ance (as the King's late Chief Justice, and a Member of his Council
of Georgia) from £50. to £100. a year. on my receiving the Arrears,
I hastened to pay some Debts, I had contracted; but I unfortunately
find, my present Income inadequate to my decent Support; I, and
my Family yet want many Necessaries — I still owe some Debts — and
I lately borrowed Money to pay for my Daughter's Schooling.
Having been driven to the Bar for Bread, on Account of my slender
Allowance, I attend regularly there ; and was absent from West-
minster Hall, only one Day during the last Term : The Fruits of my
Attendance, were only 2 half Guinea Motions : For, by a long
Absence from this Country, I have lost my Connections ; And whilst
I was serving my Sovereign, in the prime of Life, in an unwholesome
Climate ; young Men have got forward, who were at the Breast, when
I was called to the Bar.
1 This ship was captured at the end of 1779 by the French, with
£30,000 in specie on board. (Hist. MSS. Comm. : Report on the
American MSS. in the lioyal Inst., Vol. ii , p. 71.)
2 Public Record Office: A.O. 13/137.
War of Independence. 233
" I shall not mentionthe Names of several (mylnferiors in üffice;
ancì not my Superiors in Loyalty, or Character,) who have Allowances
from £200. up to £500. a a Year, and a Prospect of large Compensa-
tion; whilst I have no Claim depending: Such an Enumeration
might appear bnridious : And as I subscribe to the Merit, and Pre-
tensions of those Gentlemen, I rejoice at their good Fortune ;
However to convince your Honorable Board, that I am not inferior
to those Gentlemen, in any Respect; I beg Leave to inclose a Copy
of a Certificate, subscribed by a Number of Loyalists ; and which I
trust, no Man who knows me, would hesitate to sign.
" I do most readily admit the strict Impartiality of your Board :
But there has been some unfortunate Misapprehension of my Case ;
or an Enemy has endeavour'd To do me a Prejudice, which I sho d be
happy to remove by producing several of the Principal Loyalists, who
know me ; to speak to my Character, and Conduct. Such an
Examination might, perhaps, induce you to place my Name as high
in the List of temporary Subsistance as those of inferior official
Rank.
"When I applied at Whitehall to have my Case recommended
back for your Reconsideration ; I was told that the Treasury Board
had come to a Resolution ag' making any such Recommendation ;
and that the Matter rested with you ; It has also been a Rule of your
Board, not to pay anyAttention to Patronage, or Interest. I there-
fore beg Leave to throw myself on the Justice of Gentlemen, selected
by a solemn Act of the Supreme Power in the State, to dispense the
Benevolence intended for the unfortunate Loyalists; without Favor,
or affection to any one : And as it is one of the Ojualities of liberal
Minds, to be open to Conviction ; and to rejoice at an Opportunity
of correcting any Mistake ; I therefore rely on your Humanity to
measure out to me the same Justice that you have done to others :
Being satisfied that you are alike insensible to Resentment, and
Recommendation.
"I am the rather induced to address you at this Time, because
the Governor of Georgia, and several other Loyalists, who had con-
siderable Allowances, are dead : And I have been informed that in
the Case of those who have received Compensations ; a Deduction is
made from their temporary Subsistence, in Proportion to such Com-
pensation, for the Purpose of increasing the Allowances of the
Crown Oföcers from America : And, at this Juncture, an Increase of
Income, wo d be a happy Circumstance, for me, and my Family.
" But sho d your Board be decidedly of Opinion not to increase
my present Allowance ; I then trust that this Letter will be taken in
good Part ; and not excite a Displeasure in you, that may distress
me by lessening my present Pittance.
234 Welshmen in the American
"I shall thinlc myself highly obliged by a speedy Answer to this ;
that in Case I have nothing to hope for ; I may look ronnd, and
endeavonr to raise some Money to snpply my present Necessities "
This letter is endorsecl, probably by one oí' the Coni-
missioners : —
" Having been already reconsidered cannot at present take any
steps in Consequ of his Request ".
Copies of Certificates
"I, Sir James Wright, Baronet, late Governor of Georgia, do
hereby certify ; that I was well acquainted with Anthony Stokes,
Esq., late Chief Justice of the said Province and also one of his
Majesty's Council there, That the said Anthony Stokes, during his
Continuance in those Stations, until the Evacuation in July, 1782,
discharged his Duty, with great Abihty, Honor, and Integrity. That
he was a firm and steady Loyalist; truly zealous to promote, and
support his Majesty's Authority, and Government, and uniform in
his Opposition to the Rebellion ; and, as a private Gentleman,
esteemed by all who had the pleasure of his Acquaintance. That he
has certainly suffered greatly by the Rebellion ; and I consider him
as a very worthy deserving Person. In Testimony whereof, I have
hereunto set my hand, the 2 d Day of November, 1784.
" (Signed) Ja : Wright.
" In Addition to the Certificate of Sir James Wright ; We whose
Names are hereunto subscribed, Crown Officers and others, Inhabi-
tants of the province of Georgia, in North America ; do hereby
certify ; that we know, and are well acquainted with Anthony
Stokes, Esq., his Majesty's late Chief Justice of that Province ; that
during his Continuance in that Ofnce, he discharged his Duty with an
Uprightness, and Integrity universally acknowledged, by all Ranks
and Descriptions of people. That no Man could possibly have
exhibited greater Zeal for the Service of his Sovereign, or have shewn
a more determined, or uniform Opposition to the Rebellion. That,
besides his public Conduct being most unexceptionable his private
Character as a Gentleman, entitled him to, and procured him the
Esteem of all who had the pleasure of his Acquaintance. We there-
fore, in Justice to his great Merit sincerely unite in bearing this
Testimony to his Integrity, Loyalty and Sufferings.
" Given under our hands at London, this 2 d day of November,
1784.
"(Signed by)
"John Graham, late Lieutenant Governor of Georgia.
"Lewis Johnston, late a Member of his Majesty's Council for
Georgia.
War of Independence. 235
"Josiah Tatnall, late a Member of his Majesty's Council for
Georgia. 1
" Martin Jollie, late a Member of his Majesty's Council for
Georgia, &c.
" John Jamieson, late Member of the Assembly of Georgia.
" B. Cowper, Member of the Assembly, Georgia.
" James Butler, Member of the Assembly of Georgia.
"S. H. Jenkins, Member of the house of Assembly of Georgia.
" Wm. Jones, Member of the house of Assembly of Georgia.
" Simon Munro, late a Member of the Assembly of Georgia.
" Simon Paterson, Member of the Commons house of Assembly
" Ja : Herriot, Member of the house of Assembly, Georgia.
" John Rennie MA. 2 late Rector of S' Philip's Georgia, now Vicar
of Chilver's Coton, Warwicks.
" George D'erbage, late Master in Chancery in Georgia. 3
In one of several letters 4 from Anthony Stokes to the
Commissioners of American Claims, praying for relief,
dated 23 October, 1 784', he complains of his harassed
financial position and of the inadequacy of the allowance
of £50 per annum. In another, dated 14 January, 1785,
he states that he was on the point of breaking in on his
small capital and sacrificing £100 worth for £55. He was,
however, relieved from the necessity of making this heavy
sacrifice by an opportune loan of £30 from his wif e's sister.
But this loan was only sufficient for the immediate needs
of the family. To pay the rent of his chambers in the
Temple he was obliged to sell his gold watch. If the
Commissioners were unable to grant him a more sub-
stantial allowance forthwith, he would be compelled to
1 Josiah Tatnall was born at Charleston, but settled in Georgia,
where he was a planter and sawyer ; colonel of a militia regiment ;
and holder of several public offices during the war. In 1785 he was
surveyo>r-general of lands in the Bahamas.
2 TheRev. John Rennie was instituted as Vicar of ChihersCoton,
21 April, 1783, and was succeeded on 25 September, 1786, by the Rev.
Bernard Gilpin Ebdell, the "Mr. Gilfil" of George Eliot's Scenes of
Clerical Life, though the latter appears not to have entered
immediately upon his duties. Public Record Office : A. O., 13/137.
3 The claims and petitions of these Georgia loyalists are in the
Public Record Office, A. O., 12 and 13.
4 Public Record Office : F.O. 4/1.
236 Welshmen in the Aìnerican
dispose of all his investments to pay for the education of
his daughter and for the rent of his lodgings at No. 53,
Theobald's Road.
In a later letter 1 dated 23 August, 1788, he
declines to prefer a memorial for compensation for the
loss of his property in Georgia because " the quantum of
such loss would in a great measure depend 011 a memori-
alist's own evidence ", and, therefore, might make it
necessary for an examination on oath, to which, as will be
observed later, he had a strong objection ;~ but the facts
stated in his petition for coinpensation for the loss of his
office of Chief Justice and his services and sufferings in
the cause of Government admitted of proof by others,
trusting that no Crown Officer from America had adduced
stronger evidence of uniform loyalty to the King, attach-
ment to the British Government, or zeal in opposing the
rebellion, than he had done. Anthony Stokes declares
further that it would always afford him great satisfaction
to reflect that there was not one loyalist or American who
had attempted to impeach his loyalty or moral character
in a single instance. He ends with his thanks for the
increase in his allowance to £200 and with the hope that
if on any occasion he had unfortunately manifested the
least peevishness, either by letter or in person, he would
earnestly request the Commissioners' pardon, and hoped
that they would not attribute it to that " absurd irasci-
bility " to which the natives of the Principality of Wales
are " proverbially subject".
In another letter Anthony Stokes mentions that in Lon-
1 Public Record Oftice : A.O. 13/85.
2 There is 110 evidence in the documents that he was a Quaker.
Several Quakers were among the loyalist claimants, and their faith
was invariably mentioned, e.g., Captain Thomas Gummersall, of the
King's Royal Regiment of New York, who, being a Quaker, was per-
mitted to affirm in evidence on his claim, before Anthony Stokes at
Savannah, in June, 1775. (Second lleport of the Bureau of Archẁes,
Province of Ontario, 1904, p. 254.)
War of Independence. 237
don he was compelled by liis inadequate incoine toexercise
tiie greatest economy, and that in consequence he " was a
stranger to all public places and amusements of all kinds ".
His aversion f'rom taking an oath is again emphasized in
this letter, where he hopes that, knowing his scruples,
he would not be required to take an oath when he attends
upon the Commissioners to give evidence in support of his
claim.
An affidavit of his clerk, Edward Harraden, sworn
29 August, 1788, states that Anthony Stokes was not at
that date in the enjoyment of any place or employment
of profit or emolument, ecclesiastical, civil or military,
under the Crown, or any half-pay or allowance for military
services in America, except the sum of £200 a year allowed
by Grovernment for his temporary subsistence as an
American loyalist ; and unless the appointment of Colonial
Agent to the Bahama Islands be considered an employ-
ment under the Crown, for which he was to be allowed
the sum of £100 per year. His clerk goes on to say that
Anthony Stokes appeared to have " on all occasions a
great aversion to take an oath ", and that he was much
affected on seeing the form of oath administered by the
Commissioners of American Claims to all loyalists about
to be put on the pension list.
In the impoverished condition of Stokes, the arrival of
the following note from the Receiver General of the
Bahamas, dated 19 July, 1788, was a bitter disappoint-
ment to him : " I received your favour by Mr. Hood, and
am very sorry to acquaint you that the Treasury is in so
bad a situation that I cannot give you encouragement to
expect your salary soon ". The arrears of salary and
other charges of Anthony Stokes, as the agent of the
Bahamas in London, had amounted to £213 18s. 1d. from
thedate of his appointment, 1 October, 1785, to 1 January,
1788. 1 This Colonial Agency he offered to resign forthwith
1 Public Record Office : A.O. 13/83 ; A.O. 13/85.
238 Welshmen in the American
if the Commissioners regarded it as an obstacle to his
receipt of an increased allowance, as he would be sorry to
give up a substance here for a shadow abroad.
Anthony Stokes claimed £1,200 for the loss of his
annual income from his public offìces in Georgia, and was
allowed £1,000.' He died 27 March, 1819.
Another Welsh loyalist worthy of mention was Hoplrin
Price of Charleston, South Carolina.
In the claim in behalf of the estate, made by his
executor, Robert Williams, counsellor at law, it is stated
that Hoplrin Price died 011 14 December 1781, presumably
at Charleston, leaving by his will legacies to his relations
in Wales. This will, however, cannot be found at Char-
leston or at Somerset House, and therefore the names and
places of residence of these relations cannot be traced.
His real property in South Carolina is said to have been
confiscated because of his " loyalty to the King and
attachment to the British Constitution ". The personal
estate was sold by Robert Williams and the proceeds
applied to the discharge of debts. The claim of £4,600
was disallowed by the Commissioners of American Claims,
on the ground that insufficient proof had been adduced of
the loyalty of Hoplrin Price. Here it may be observed
that all the American loyalists who made claims for loss
of property, or applied for allowances or pensions, were
required to produce eviclences of loyalty, by certificate or
by the personal testimony of men of unquestioned loyalty.
In this case the death of the claimant was a serious
obstacle to the executor in obtaining the necessary proof
of his loyal principles.
The name of Robert Williams suggests that he, too,
was of Welsh blood ; but the present writer in his search
among the documents'- has failed to trace any evidence of
1 Public Record Office : A.O. 12/109, fos 85, 251.
' l Public Record Office: A.O. 12/48, fo. 12; A.O. 12/109; A.O.
13/1:;:;.
War of Indcpendence. 239
the original nationality of his family. At Charleston his
eminence as a lawyer attracted the attention of the
leaders of the Whig party, who failed, however, to
wean him from his political faith, by offering him, among
other incUicements, the dignified position of a judge.
Eobert Williams claimed for his losses by the war the
large sum of £22,692, but was allowed only £1,705. His
further claim of £1,050 for the loss of his professional
income per annum was met by an allowance of £800,
while the British Government also gave him a pension of
£360. The wife and family of ten children of this loyalist
would seem to havc remained at Charleston after the
evacuation of South Carolina by the British forces.
John Jones, the third Welsh loyalist, was born in
Wales at a place not revealed in the documents. He
started lif e as a common soldier, and by promotion became
sergeant in the 44th Foot in 1755, when it was ordered
out to America. After the peace with the French in 1763
he got his discharge from the army, and he would appear
to have contemplated following the example of many
British officers and men, participants in that war, and
settle down on bounty lands in the Province of New York.
In 1764, however, his abilities and general good conduct
were recognized as deserving of further promotion, and he
was appointed by General Gage to the lucrative position
of barrack-master at Fort George on Lake George, New
York, with pay of 4s. a day with a house. Here he re-
mained in comfort and ease, in possession of a good
orchard, land, barns, and a saw mill until the Eevolu-
tionary War, when Fort George was captured by the
Americans. In addition, he was the owner of a house in
the town of Albany, which he had bought in 1776 from
one Jacob Lanson for £300 in New York currency, equal
to about £200 sterling.
Among his services during the war was that of con-
veying intelligence, with the help of other loyalists, to the
British army in Canada of the proposed expedition of
240 Welshmen in the American
the Americaus into Canada in 1775. By some means,
undisclosed in liis petition, he was discovered as the
sender and was captured and confined by the enemy to
Fort Edward. He succeeded, however, in escaping and
in joining the advanced part of General Burgoyne's army
at Skenesborough, 110 w Whitehall. In his memorial, John
Jones states that he was " soon af ter employed by General
Burgoyne to Quebec, Ticonderoga and Fort George ",
without, however stating exactly the nature of this duty.
On 1 August 1777, his merits were rewarded by his
appointment as barrack-master at Ticonderoga — the ram-
part against invasion from Canada and regarded as the
stronghold of the north — which had been unexpectedly
and suddenly evacuated, with its immense supplies of war
material, by the American General, St. Clair, to the sur-
prise of America and England. He was afterwards em-
ployed in obtaining stores for the army in Canada, where
he remained on hearing of Burgoyne's defeat at Saratoga.
The confidence of the army in John Jones was further
recognized by his appointment, in 1786, as barract-master
at William Henry, now known as Sorel, in Canada, where
he was liying in 1788 and where it is presumed he re-
mained until his death.
His losses amounted to over £4,000 sterling and in-
cluded four farms of 1,500 acres, with four dwelling
houses, good farming stock, two boats and a large barge,
and £500 worth of wine, rum, brandy and other liquors,
which he had buried at Fort George, and which were dis-
covered and seized by the Americans. Part of his claim
of £4,187 lOs. was waived, the property having been dis-
posed of in part by permission of the Americans. The
amount awarded to him by the Commissioners of American
Claims was £323, and £70 per annum for the loss of his
official income as barrack-master at Fort George, until his
appointment to the same position at Sorel. 1
1 Second Ileport of the Bureau of Archives, Province of Ontario,
1904, pp, 380-381; Public Record Office : A.O. 12/26, fos. 181-186;
A.O. 12/109.
War of Independence. 241
David Propert, a loyalist from Boston, Massachusetts,
had been an emigrant from South Wales. He had
achieved consîderable success as a musician at Boston
until the war ended his career there. According to his
evidence before the Commissioners on 17 January 1783,
he estimated his annual income from his profession at
£300, inclusive of his salary of £40 as organist of Trinity
Church. From his income as a musicianhe saved sufficient
money, aecording to his petition, to acquire substantial
real property in the town of Boston, consisting of two
pieces of land in Beach Street, two warehouses and land
in King Street, and a messuage in Back Street. All this
property was adjudged forfeit in 1781 by reason of David
Propert's loyalty. In cross-examination, however, by the
Commissioners, this Welsh musician stated that he was
not in actual possession of any landed property, but that
he had personalty, consisting of bonds, doubtless 011 the
above estate, to the amount of £1,500 sterling'. A fellow-
exile, Robert Hallowell, the former comptroller of the
customs at Boston, in supporting the claim, stated that
Propert had " considerable property ", whether personal
or real is not disclosed in the minutes of the evidence.
David Propert's musical career at the chief city in
New England began with his appointment as organist to
Trinity Church on 9 December 1770, when John Rowe, a
conspicuous Boston merchant, was churchwarden and one
of his patrons. In this worthy merchant's diary, pub-
lished as the " Letters and Diary of John Rowe ",' some
references to Propert's concerts are made. For example,
on 15 March 1771, the diarist writes " . . . . when I
came home I found Mr. J. Lane 2 and Mr. Propert who
supped and diverted us all the evening by playing 011
Sucky's Spinnet 3 and Joyned by Mr. J. Lane in singing —
1 Edited by E. L. Pierce, 1895.
2 Probably John Lane, partner in the firm of Lane, Son and
Fraser, of London, agents and exporters in the American trade.
3 Sucky was Susannah hiraan, niece of John Rowe's wife, Hannah.
She married Captain John Linzee, R.N., in 1772.
R
242 Welshmen in the American
Propert is a fìne hand ". Two other references, under
date of 3 February 1773, are of interest : " I went to the
Concert at the Coffee House 1 of Mr. Propert's — very fine
Musick and good Performers " ; and 17 February 1773:
" Spent the Evening at the Coffee House with a great
number of G-entlemen and Laclies being Mr. Propert's
concert ".
References are made to the musical life of David
Propert at Boston in 0. G. Sonneck's Early Concert Life
in America (1731-1800), where he is mentioned as per-
forming some select pieces 011 the fortepiano and guitar,
at a concert in March 1771."
Propert took no part as a combatant in the war,
for he fìed from Boston 011 the outbreak of hostilities,
leaving four spinets in the custody of friends. From
Boston he returned home to Swansea, and was again
welcomed to his former position of organist at St. Mary's
parish church — a position which he filled from September
1776 until his death or retirement on 25 March 1784,
when he was succeeded by S. Dyer. In 1783 he was a
single man, whether a bachelor or a widower is not stated
in the documents, and was earning- £50 a year by teaching
music, as well as receiving £16 a year from Lane, Son and
Fraser, and a government pension as an American loyalist
of £20. 3 David Propert's name is not to be found in the
registe'r of deaths of St. Marys's. 4
The history in America of the next Welsh loyalist,
Thomas Hughes, begins with his emigration, in 1765, to
New York, where he became prosperous as a storekeeper
and a retailer of liquors in Morecoil Street. By dint of
energy and thrift he saved sutìicient money to buy two
houses in New York, and in 1770 he was the purchaser of
1 British CofFee House in King Street, Boston.
2 The writer is indebted for this note to Mr. Charles Knowles
Bolton, of Boston.
3 Public Record Office : A.O. 12/99, fo. 327; The Royal Commis-
sion on Loyalists' Claims : The Roxburghe Club, 1915, p. 322.
4 Note contributed by Mr. F. Pale Ẃood, churchwarden,
War of Independence. 243
a farm on Barbados Neck in Bergen county, New Jersey,
for £500 sterling, from his father-in-law, Gustavus Kings-
land, who remained in possession of this farm after the
war. His appointed duties during the war included the
purchase of horses, wood, hay, and other supplies for the
British army. But the episode, of which he spoke with
pride, was 011 the occasion when he conducted a party of
British troops to two barns at Toppan in Orange eounty,
New York, where they surprised " Lady Washington's
Light Horse ", and killed or wounded all except three.
The pension granted to Thomas Hughes and his wife
and five children was £20.
John Lewis, a New York loyalist, and perhaps a
fellow-countryman, was present at the purchase of the
above farm. 1
Owen Richards emigrated from Wales to America in
or about 1750 and settled at Boston. He was named in
the Banishment Act of the State of Massachusetts, passed
in September 1778, "to prevent the return to this state of
certain persons therein named, and others who have left
this state or either of the United States, and joined the
enemies thereof ".
Shortly after his arrival in England he settled in
Eotherhithe, with his family of four small children, and
earned a living by plying a boat.on the Thames.
His memorials are here printed :
2 "(i) That He has the most Gratefull sence of, and desires to
return his sincere thanks to your Lordships for the relief granted
him on his Petition in January last and as he is in hopes, tbat his
poor Wife and Family 3 is got away from Boston to Halifax, he is
1 Public Record Office: A.O. 12/21, fos. 325-327; A.O. 12/85, fos.
5-10; A.O. 12/109, fo. 165: A.O. 13/64; A.O. 13/144.
2 Public Record Office : A.O. 13/75.
3 Mrs. Richards was one of the inhabitants who in March, 1776,
when Boston was evacuated by the British Army, accompanied the
Army to Halifax, Nova Scptia. The complete list of names is
published in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Hist. Soc, Vol, 18,
p. 266.
R2
244 Welshmen in the American
desirous of going thither to their Assistance, And humbly requests
that your Lordships would give him leave of Absence and Order the
Stipend of £30 per Annum allowed your Petitioner to be paid his
Attorney — and in Duty bound will ever Pray
"OWEN RlCHARDS.
"March, 1778".
" (ii) That your Petitioner has been in the Service of his Majesty
by Sea and Land near Thirty Years, the greatest part of that Time
in his Majestys Customs at Boston, in the Year 1770 when Thomas
Hutchinson Esq. was Governor. Your petitioner made a Seizure of
a Scooner and Cargo of Foreign Sugars &c. Illegally Imported. and
with an Intent to defraud his Majesty of his Revenue, This act of
Duty of your Petitioner so Incensed the Disaffected Inhabitants of
Boston against Him, that the same Night, they Collected a Tumul-
tuous Mob of near 2000 and came to your Petitioners House. Broke
his Windows, and distroyed his Furniture; they then Draged him
by the heels along the Streets to the Custom House, then tore all
his Cloaths off his Bocly to his nakedness, and then rolled him in the
Channel Then put him into a Cart, Tarr'd and Feathered him, then
set the Feathers on Fire on his Back, and fìxed a Rope round his
Neck, In this Possition they Exposed him round the Town for seven
Hours untill he was just expiring.
" Your Petitioner through these sufferings of savage treatment
lay many Months Sick, and at a great Expence, and in great Doubt
whether he could Survive it, To verify the truth of your Petitioners
Sufferings and Loyalty to his Majesty he humbly appeals to Governor
Hutchinson and other Gentlemen, Your Petitioner is now near Sixty
Years of Age — he has a helpless Wife and four Children, his Interest
(which was some hundreds of Pounds Value, that he had Indus-
triously Obtained and through Oeconomy had saved, He was obliged
to leave behind him in Boston and it is now Destroyed by the
Rebelious Inhabitants there,
" Your Petitioner has never received from Government any
recompence or Rewards for his Sufferings, nor for the Loss of all the
Interest had in Boston
'• Therefore Your Petitioner most Humbly Implores your Lord-
ships, that your Lordships would be pleased to take your Petitioners
Age, Distressed State, and Faithful Service into Consideration and
Order him such Relief, as you in Your Goodnessshall see Meet to do.
" And Your Petitioner as in Duty bound shall Ever pray
"OWEN RlCHARDS.
rs "
War of Iudependence. 245
'•This Petition was recommended, by Gover r Hutchinson
" Peter 01iver, Chief Judge of the Province
" TIiob Flucker, Secretary D°
"Harrison Grey, 1 Treasurer |-Esq
" Robert Auchmoody, 2 Judge of the Admiralty
" Jon'a Sewel, 3 — D° of Nova Scotia
With this inemorial are the following- copies of
Certificates : —
" at the request of the Petitioner Owen Richards I certify that
he was an Inhabitant of the Massachuset Bay and Officer and of the
Customs when I was Governer there, and that I remember the great
Abuse by the Mob, to which he Refers, and I then understood and
Believed that it was Occasioned by a regular discharge of his Duty
in the Execution of his Office,
" Sig d Th° Hutchinson.
" Sackville Street Nov r 5 th 1777.
"I can Certify that it appeared on a Trial had in the supreme
Court of Judicature that the fact above Related with Respect to his
Sufferings is not at all Exaggerated.
" Sig d Peter 01iver.
" The Facts related by the Petitioner I believe to be true and
that his Sufferings were Occasioned by a regular Discharge of his
Office, Sign d Harrison Gray.
" I Certify the Like. Sig d Tho» Flucker.
" I Beüeve the within Facts to be truly Stated —
" Sig d Robert Auchmuty ".
Endorsed : —
" Read 22 Dec r 1777, let him be p d his Sal^ as Tides n out of
Custom 20 and 30 per ann.
" The Coppey of | His Formor | Pettistion ".
" (iii) That your Memorialist is now sixty five Years of Age, and
has been Employed in his Majesty's Service thirty eight Years, and
has been a Tidesman in the port of Boston, more than twenty Years,
That in year 1770 your Memorialist suffered very great abuse, and
Inhuman treatment from the Mob in Boston for His regular dis-
charge of Duty and for his Loyalty and Attachment to His Majestys
Government, That in the Year 1775, during the Seige of Boston
Your Memorialist was Imploy'd on Several Occasions, on his Majesty
Service, and that his Salary as a Tidesman was 25 pounds per
Annum, and Eighteen pence per day when on Duty which together
1 Harrison Gray. - Robert Auchmuty. 3 Jonathan Sewall.
1 Public Record Office : A.O. 13/75.
246 Welshmen in the American
was 45 pounds per Annum, That in March 1776 when the British
Troops under the Command of Gen 1 Sir William How left Boston
and came to Halifax in Nova Scotia. Your Memorialist embraced
that Opportunity to come away with a number of the Loyal Inhabi-
tants, under the protection of his Majestys Troops and Navy, Your
Memorialist from a Steady attachment to, and Long Services under
the Brittish Govermment, Left Halifax and came to England, and
Applied tu the R' Hon ble the Lords Commissioners of His Majestys
Treasury for Relief, That in Jannary 1778. their Lordships was was
pleased to Order your Memorialist Twenty Pounds, and thirty
Pounds per Annum, for further particulars beg reference may be had
to the petition and Certiücates herewith Exhibited, That the pro-
perty of your Memorialist is Confisticated and Lost which was in
Value as per Estimate on the other side of this Memorial, Your
Memorialist therefore prays that his case may be taken into your
Consideration, in order that your Memorialist may be enabled, under
your Report to Receive such, aid or Relief, as his losses may be
found to Deserve.
" And your Memorialist will ever Pray
" OWEN RlCHARDS ".
This memorial is endorsed : —
" to Be heard of at the Torbay Elephant Staiers
" Rotherhith in Sury ".
"At the Request of the Memorialist Owen Richards, I hereby
Certify, that I knew him many Years a peaceable Loyal Subject in
America, and that for his Integrity as an Officer of the Customs of
the Port of Boston he was esteemed by his Superiors in Office, and
I have every reason to believe. that the Illtreatment and Suffering he
met with by the Hands of the Populace was Occasioned by the
Faithful discharge of his Duty as a Custom House Officer, and I also
realy believe what he sets forth respecting his property in America
to be Just I know he had a House in Boston —
" Charles Street N° 7 Benj Hallowell—
" 22 d October 1783 — One of the Commissioners
" of His Majestys Customs
" for America —
" ESTIMATE.
" A Dwelling House and Land, as per Title Deeds
•• Household Furniture, Plate &c.
"The Estate of William Prince Deceased p' Acc'
annexed . .
"To which Add one Years Salary from his Majestys
Customs . .
" Eighteen pence per Day when 011 Duty . .
£256 18
30
70 14
25
20
••i.102 12
War of Indepèndence. 247
"Your memorialist at Presant cannot Bring beter Proof to the
above account of his Losses then his title Deeds and the accounts
here with Exhibited ". 1
A printed affidavit, such as was sent to most of the
loyalists, that Owen Richards was not the holder of any
place or employment of profit or emolument, ecclesiastical,
civil *or military, under the Crown, or in receipt of half-
pay or allowance for military services in America, except
the teinporary support of £30 allowed by the Lords of the
Treasury, was sworn by him, 30 August, 1788. 2
Owen Richards claimed £286 18,<;. for loss of property
and was allowed £120. He also claimed £45 for loss of
annual inconie from his post as Customs Officer and was
granted £-40. From 1782 to 1784 he received a yearly
allowance of £50 from the Treasury. This was reduced
to £30 in 1784, and a further reduction to £10 was made
until the year 1800, 3 when he probably died.
Lieut. John Hybart in his evidence and memorial,
dated 6 March 1784, declared that he was a native of
Wales, and left these shores for South Carolina in 1771 at
the early ag-e of twelve. There he became provincial
deputy-surveyor to Elias Durnford. In 177(5 he removed
to West Florida to escape compulsory service under the
Americans, and shortly afterwards, while yet a youthof 17
or 18, received a warrant to raise men for the King's
Florida Rangers, raised and commanded by Lieut.-Colonel
Thomas Brown, a redoubtable loyalist. This young 1
Welshman succeeded in recruiting forty-one men and
received a commission as ensign, and later as lieutenant
1 Public Record Office : A.O. 13/48.
2 Ibid. : A.O. 13/83.
3 Ibid: A.O. 459/7; A.O. 461/16; T. 50/6; T. 50/8; A.O. 12/109,
fo. 256; AO. 12/105, fo. 43.
Seeond lieport, Bureau of Archires, Prorince of Ontario, 1904,
p. 1 160.
The Royal Comm. on Loyalists Claims: Roxburghe Club, 1915,
p. 80.
248 Welshmen in the American
in that loyalist corps, which was subsequently merged
into the King's Carolina Rangers. At the siege of
Augusta in September 1780, when that place fell to the
Americans, Lieut. Hybart was so severely wounded that
he was incapacitated from further participation in the
war. His total claim amounted to £708, and included the
following tracts of uncultivated land in South Carolina :
150 acres in Orangeburg township £78 15
500 acres in Colleton county ... £525
250 acres 011 Tom's Creek, a branch
of the Congaree river, about two
miles from Friday's ferry ... £56 5
With Lieut. Hybart's claim are copies of affidavits
sworn before John Mills and David Scott at St. Augustine
in East Florida in 1783 that he was lawfully possessed of
the above property. The title deeds having been lost in
the course of the disturbances, the claim was rejected.
From February 1783, one year's pay(£85 3s. éd.) was paid
from H.M. bounty for the loss of his arm. 1
Tn an undated petition to the Commissioners of
American Claims, Lieut. Hybart appeals for a " place in
the revenue, near the sea, in any part of the West of
England'" that thereby he might be able to support his
little family comfortably, for which he would willingly
relinquish his half-pay ". Whether he succeeded in ob-
taining a revenue appointment is not divulged in the
documents. His half-pay, however, ceased in 1816. 3
1 On 18 September 1782, a certificate was signed at Charleston by
John Allen, surgeon of the Carolina King's Rangers, by Daniel Ban-
croft, surgeon of the 3rd Batt. New Jersey Volunteers, and by Major
James Wright (of the Georgia Rangers until tliat corps was amalga-
mated with the King"s Carolina Rangers in June 1782), that Lieut.
John Hybart had lost the use of his left arm at Augusta (Hist. MSS.
Coìnm. lieport on the American MSS. in Royal Inst., vol. iii, p. 124).
2 ? The West of Wales or South Wales.
3 Public Record Office : W.O. : Ind. 5604, 5605, 5606.
4 Public Record Office: A.O. 12/101, fo. 61 ; A.O. 12/109, fo. 168 :
A.O. 1:5/129.
Wai' of Independence. 249
English official documents in the eighteenth, and well
into the nineteenth, century, frequently ignored the racial
and geographical distinctions between England and Wales.
Thus the nationality of Lieut. John Hybart is stated in
the half-pay lists as English, whereas in his written
memorial and in his oral evidence he declares himself to
be Welsh.
The name of Susannah Marshall has 110 suggestion of
Welsh origin. When summoned before the Commis-
sioners in London she stated, however, that she was a
native of Wales and had married an Irishman, one
William Marshall. She related the story of their emigra-
tion to the new world, taking with them their little f ortune
of £500 in money ancl cargo, and accompanied by their two
children, and gave a vivid picture of her exciting experi-
ences at Baltimore, in Maryland, where they had settled.
Susannah Marshall was a determined enterprising
woman and opened a boarding house and liquor retailing
store in that city. Hardly had her enterprise met its just
reward than the clash of arms was resounding in Mary-
land, and William Marshall was in May 1775 called upon
by the revolutionary party to take up arms " in defence of
the country " ; but the call was met by this loyal Irish-
man with a blank negative, coupled with a refusal to sign
an association in violation of his allegiance to his rightful
sovereign. His loyalty rendering him obnoxious, he was
obliged to quit his home at Baltimore, leaving his wife
and children to the mercy of the times. Like so many
other harried lo} T alists from the Southern Colonies in the
early days of the rebelliou, he determined to seek a tem-
porary asylum in the British West Inclies until the storm
should blow over and he coulcl return to his wife and
family. But William Marshall never again cast eyes on
the American shore, for he died in the island of Dominica,
sometime before its seizure by the Erench in 1778. Mean-
while his wif e, ignorant of his death, was " maliciously
compelled ", as she describes it, to billet a number of
250 Welshmen in tlie Amcrican
American soldiers in her house from time to time until
1776, when in desperation she declared her intention
" to embrace Lord Dunmore's proclamation ", and refused
any longer to have any more soldiers quartered iu her
house. Such an unexpected refusal could not be tolerated
from a woman, and an attempt was made, according to
her evidence, to " tar and feather " her. Tarring and
feathering was a popular form of punishment meted out
011 both sides during the revolutionary war. Owen
Richards, it will be remembered, was one of the victims.
This good woman's determination and enterprise, com-
bined with her unwavering loyality, in spite of a long
succession of threats, are further confirmed by her char-
tering of a schooner 011 8 August 1776 for the purpose of
conveying her and her children to a spot .011 the Maryland
coast in search of the protection promised to the loyalists
by Lord Dunmore, then Governor of Virginia. Failing to
reach the appointed spot in time, Susannah Marshall
ordered the schooner to make for the Head of Elk, where
she resolved to settle, and where she either bought or
rented the Elk tavern and country ferry from one Thomas
Bailey, a master mariner and loj^alist. Her occupation of
this home was destined to be of brief duration, for,
alarmed by the spread of the rebellion and anxious for
her own safety, she decided in March 1777 to sell off her
personal property and to take advantage of a " proclama-
tion of Congress stating that all wlio were desirous of
quitting the province might do so, without taking any
goods except country produce ". Chartering a schooner,
she took on board eighty-one barrels of flour, two hogs-
heads of venison and hams, and a quantity of bacon and
bread, intending to join her husband in the West Indies,
ignorant, as has been already observed, of his death.
Her troubles were not yet at an end, for she was
obliged by the Americans to clear out for Hispaniola
in the West Indies, and to get a bondsman for £2,000
as security that she was not tating the cargo of
War of Independence. 251
foodstuffs to an English port. Another glirnpse of her
steadfast loyalty is afforded by her allowingthree deserters
from the Amerieans to take shelter on her vessel. The
escape of these men had, however, been reported on shore,
and a vessel was forthwith despatched in pursuit of
Susannah MarshalPs schooner, which was shortly after-
wards captured. Luclrily, the schooner was retaken by a
British armed boat and was sent by the commander,
James Wallace, 1 to St. Augustine in East Florida, where
the vessel and cargo were condemned in the Admiralty
court and the cargo sold for £1,070 Vòs. for the use of the
starving garrison and population. The capable governor
of that province, Patrick Tonyn, gave Susannah Marshall
a certifìcate, in order that she might recover compensation
and a passage for herself .and children to England by the
Hawhe transport. Arriving in England in an enfeebled
and destitute condition, she was allowed by the Treasury
£20 per annum, and appealed later for an increase in this
allowance because of ill-health and because of her timely,
if accidental, supply of food for the relief of St. Augus-
tine. Williani Lloyd, a loyalist witness before the Com-
missioners, declared 011 oath that William and Susannah
Marshall were regarded as people of property, that
Mrs. Marshall was worth £700 or £800 at Baltimore, and
that her house there was " very genteely furnished ". 3
Lorenzo Sabine 3 is the authority for the statement
that Bichard Bonsall, a Welshman, was a loyalist, and
that before emigrating to New York he had commenced
the study of medicine, but had abandoned the pursuit of
that profession in America. His name is not included in
the list of claimants for confiscated property. Sabine
states that Richard Bousall married a lady named Smith,
of Long Island, New York, and that in 1783 he accom-
1 Afterwards Admiral Sir James Wallace. {Dict. of Nat. Bìoíj.)
2 Public Record Office : A.O. 12/6, fos. 2,57-263 ; A.Ó. 12/99, fo.'i'l I ;
A.O. 12/109; A.O. 13/46; A.O. 13/62. The Royal Comm. on American
Claims : Roxburglie Club, 1915, p. 388.
3 Bioyraphies of Loyalists.
252 Welshmen in the American
panied the loyalist refugees to St. John, !New Brunswick,
where he was a grantee of land, and where he died in
1814, aged 72. He is presumed to have been a kinsman
of Sir Thomas Bonsall, sheriff of Cardiganshire, knighted
in 1795.
The tenth Welsh loyalist was Lieut.-Colonel Propert
Howorth. In his memorial he states that he fìrst went
out to the American colonies as a cadet in General Ogle-
thorpe's 1 regiment of Foot to Georgia in 1737 or 1738.
On 7 November, 1741, he received a commission as ensign
in that regiment, and in March 1744 was promoted
lieutenant. In 1749 this regiment was disbanded, and
three independent companies detached and sent to South
Carolina. Lieut. Propert Howorth's own company was
afterwards ordered in 1754 to Virginia, and in the follow-
ing year he was dangerously wounded in Braddock's
defeat. Returning to South Carolina, he was appointed
in August, 1757, by Governor Lyttelton (afterwards Baron
Westcote and fìrst Baron Lyttelton ; Governor of South
Carolina, 1755-62), Lieut.-Colonel of a regiment of foot
and accompanied the Governor on an expedition against
the Cherokee Indians in 1759. In February, 1760, he was
appointed Commanderof Fort Johnston, 2 near Charleston,
at an annual salary of £200, which was augmented by
certain fees, amounting to about £250 a year, from all
merchant vessels entering Charleston harbour.
Colonel Howorth lived in ease and affìuence at that
charming city and prosperous centre of Southern colonial
life. His military duties at Fort. Johnston were not
onerous and the ten men who occupied the fort were
content in his absence to serve under the command of a
non-cominissioned officer, such as George Walker, who was
subsequently banished as a loyalist from South Carolina. 3
1 General James Edward Oglethorpe, soldier, philanthropist and
colonist. (Dict.ofNat. Bẁg.)
2 Fort Johnston is shown on Crisp's Map of Charleston, abont 1711.
3 For u picturesque account of his trial by a mock jury at Char-
leston, see A.O. 12/46, fos. 53-61.
War of Independence. 253
In order to protect his property in that province from
confiscation, Colonel Howorth divested himself of it all in
favour of his only daughter, who was married shortly
after the year 1778 to Lieut. James Graham. 1
Colonel Howorth was a refugee at Charleston in 1782. 2
He claimed £500 for the loss of his annual income in
America and was allowed £450, receiving in addition a
pension of £220, under the address of the House of
Commons, 9 June, 1788.
In September, 1788, he was living at Hay in Brecon-
shire, and a letter of that date to the Commissioners bears
the hat post-mark, and is sealed with his initials in a
medallion, enclosed in palm branches, surrounded by the
motto, Credo Christi Cruce, and surmounted by the crest :
an arm holding a wreath enclosing a cross. 3
Colonel Propert Howorth, in a letter* dated 5 Novem-
ber, 179G, from Hay to his brother, Captain John
Howorth, R.N., says that he is very ill and very low and
unable to say half what he would wish. He desired,
therefore, to add in as few words as possible that he
wished his niece, Frances Bavies, to have everything that
he was possessed of, after his death. One of the two
administrators was George Boone Roupell, of the Middle
Temple,a loyalist from South Carolina. Colonel Howorth's
cleath occurred between the date of the above letter and
8 February, 1797.
Another Welsh loyalist was Henry Walkeys, who had
gone out to New York as a gunsmith just before the
outbreak of war. His record of war services begins
officially in January, 1776, when he was employed to
malce arms for the British forces by William Tryon, then
1 His signature is in the Public Record Office : T. 50/3, book 11,
folio 24.
2 Ensign in lst (or Royal) Regiment of Foot from 14 May, 1773,
until his promotion, 23 November, 1778, in 64th (or 2nd Staffordshire)
Regiment of Foot, from which he retired in 1783.
3 Public Record Office: A.O. 13/83 A.O. 13/85; A.O. 12/109, fos.
166-167; A.O. 13/129; A.O. 13/83; A.O. 459/7; A.O. 459/13.
4 Somerset House (Exeter 90).
254 Welshmen in thc American
Governor of New York. In the following year he was
transferred to the Rojal Artillerj as an armourer, and in
1781 he was appointed armourer to the garrison of the
Citj of New York, a position which he held until the
evacuation of that citj bj the British in 1783, when he
returned to this countrj. Confident in a victorj bj the
British, he bought in 1782 a house in Little Queen Street,
New Yorlc, froin James de Lancej, the lojalist, for £350,
in local currencj. This propertj had, however, been
alreadj confiscated bj an act of the province, with other
estates of de Lancej, and sold bj the Americans. 1 Henrj
Walkejs then brought an action against de Lancej in the
Court of King's Bench in London, for recoverj of the
monej paid, but failed to secure a verdict in his favour.
In the hope of obtaining compensation for his losses, he
crossed the Atlantic again, this time to Halifax, Nova
Scotia, where one of the Commissioners, Jeremj Pember-
ton, was sitting, in Julj, 1786, to investigate the claims of
those lojalists who had sought an asjlum in that colon j ;
but the unhappj Welsh lojalist met with another dis-
appointment, being allowed onlj £171 of his claim
of £804 14s. for loss of propertj. 2 David Mathews, the
last Mayor of New York under the Crown, and afterwards
President and Commander-in-Chief of Cape Breton,
testified at Halifax to the loyalty of Henrj Walkejs.
William Price described himself in evidence as a native
of Wales who einigrated to Charleston, in South Carolina,
in or about the jear 1746, and had a drj goods store at
Charleston when war broke out. Bj industry and thrift
he had saved about £1,000 sterling — a substantial sum in
those dajs. Steadfast in his lojaltj, this son of Wales
refused on several occasions to abjure his king and to take
the oath of allegiance to the Americans. In consequence
of this refusal he was obliged to shift from place to place
to escape the anger of the revolutionarj partj.
1 Second Report of the Bureau of Archẁes, Province of Ontario,
1904, pp. 668-669. - Public Record Office : A.O. 12/109.
War of Independence. 255
From Charleston, William Price escaped to New York,
which was then in possession of the British Army. Here
he was ordered by Sir Guy Carleton, commander-in-chief,
an allowance of £30 per quarter, " on account of his good
character", and 011 the recommendation of " respectable
people of Charleston ", his fellow-refugees at New York.
His loyalty was never in doubt, for among the written
proofs, presented to the Commissioners of American Claims
in London, was one from Colonel Nisbet Balfour, formerly
of the 23rd Foot (Royal Welsh Fusiliers) and Commandant
at Charleston during a part of the war.
In 1784 William Price was almost an imbecile, at the
age of 70, and was granted an allowance of £24. His
place of abode at that time is not mentioned in the
documents in the Public Record Office. 1
The Scotch husband of a Welsh woman, Mary Rice,
of " a good Carmarthenshire family ", as she describes
herself in lier memorial, was a loyalist, one Dr. John
Hamilton. This worthy Scot emigrated to America
shortly before the outburst of the revolutionary storm,
taking £200 in money and a quantity of medicines, and
settled as a physician and surgeon at Dover, in New York.
As a loyal Scot he secured 150 recruits at his own expense
for the King's American Regiment, a loyalist corps which
was first raised in December 1776 by Colonel Edmund
Fanning of North Carolina, who became Governor of
Prince Edward Island in 1786. Dr. Hamilton, before
embarking on his self-appointed task of recruiting, had
suffered considerable maltreatment at the liands of the
local revolutionists, and had been ordered to appear before
the Supreme Court on a charge of being a traitor to
America — a charge of which he was acquitted.
Some time later in the war he was engaged as a sur-
geon to H.M. ship HinchinbrooJc, which was destroyed on
the Mississippi in April 1778 by the Americans, 2 Dr.
1 Public Record Office: A.O. 12/101, fo. 92; A.O. 13/133.
2 Hist. MSS. Comm. Report on the American MSS. in the Royal
Jnst., vol. i, pp. 221, 239, 244, 251.
256 Welshmen in the American
Hamilton escaping injury. He was afterwards transferred
to H.M. ship Zebra, which was lost in a storm off Tybee,
22 December, 1788. After these misfortunes he returned
to England, but was not long idle, as the records show that
after seiwing as surgeon 011 a frigate in the British Navy,
he became, in February 1780, surgeon to H.M. ship
Centaur, on which he died in July of the same year at
Barbados, leaving his wife, Mary, with one son, Walter,
aged 5 years.
Mary, his widow, would seem not to have accompanied
her husband to America. Her claim of £1,000 for the
loss of his property there was disallowed for the want of
adequate proof of loss, being unable to produce the title
deeds (which were probably in the possession of her hus-
band), or proof of the confiscation and sale of the pro-
perty. 2
Although not strictly an American loyalist, the inclu-
sion in this list of a Welshman, who suffered considerable
pecuniary loss by the American War of Independence,
may not be inappropriate. This was William Jones, a
prominent shipowner of Swansea, who presented a large
claim to the Commissioners for American Claims for the
brig Toiunsend (David Thomas, master), which he had
sent out to Falmouth (now known as Portland, Maine),
laden with sundry goods, wares and merchandize for the
purpose of establishing a store there. His factor and
future partner, one William Horton, a Quaker, accom-
panied the cargo to Falmouth, aiid for eight months
successfully carried 011 the business, so successfully that
the brig was ordered to return home and bring another
consignment. Hardly had the vessel brought this second
cargo than the revolutionary disturbances broke out at
Falmouth and a petition was, on or about 30 June 1775,
sent round to all the inhabitants that " as the British
ministry was making use of means to bring the Americans
2 Public Record Office : A.O. 12/19, fos. 21-28; A.O. 12/109: A.O.
13/65; A.O. 13/114.
War of Independence. 257
into abject slavery,the subscribers thereof did utterly detest
such artifices and did thereby declare that they would with
their lives and fortunes oppose such measures and also
that whatever methods the American leaders or Cono-ress
should propose tliey would support to the utmost of their
power". William Horton was required to sign this
petition, being given overnight to reflect upon it. On the
following day, deeming discretion the better part of
valour, and conscious that a refusal to append his signa-
ture to this hateful petition would result in personal
abuse, he signed it. But the loyal Quaker determined to
escape from his unhappy position, and secretly got on board
the Welsh brig in the dead of night and hid himself,
intending to set sail before daybreak. The vessel was,
however, seized by the revolutionists and a threat was
made by the search party that unless all on board signi-
fied their intention to support the American cause, both
they and the vessel would be destroyed. David Thomas,
the master, anxious for the safety of all on board, in-
cluding William Horton, prudently made a formal decla-
ration of adhesion to that cause, distasteful as it was, and
was permitted, with his crew, to remain in possession of
the vessel. The Welsh mariner kept watch, and per-
ceiving a chance in the darkness to escape, set sail for
home, crossing the Atlantic without accident and reaching
Swansea early in July 1775.
The inventory of the goods left behind in the store at
Falmouth included such diverse things as pottery, knives,
snuff-boxes, women's fur hats, brass inkstands, horn combs,
Jews-harps, gloves, shoe buckles, ironmongery, etc. 1
The borough records 2 of Swansea prove that William
Jones was a considerable merchant there between 1770
and 1790. In 1775 his natne is included in a Hst of
1 Public Record Office: A.O. 13/74.
2 Mr. D. Rhys Phillips, of Swansea, who is engaged in editing
these records, has kindly sent this note, with the consent of tho
borough authorities,
S
258 Welshmen in the American
principal magistrates, noblemen, gentlemen and merchants,
who had coal estates in the neighbourhood of Swansea.
One extract from those records deseiwes mention here
because of its allusion to the American war, namely: —
February 2, 1776. " The Sally brigantine calls at
Swansea. This vessel belongs to Isaac Lascelles Winn,
Esq., who purchased her at Boston in order to convey his
family to England, she having been taken from the
Americans by one of H.M. ships of war. We made
inquiry touching the state of the Army &c. in America,
but cannot learn any particulars which we think can be of
service in communicating to your Honours ".
The Sally also carried Lieut. Julian, of the 23rd Foot
(Royal Welsh Fusiliers), bound for London with despatches
for Government.
One of the most pathetic stories of the war is that of
the wife of a loyalist, William Powell, described as a
native of South Carolina, of Welsh descent. His home
on the Ogeechee river in Georo-ia was attacked in his
absence by a party of nine Americans, under the leader-
ship of John Hampton of Salt Ketches, South Carolina.
Sheltering in the house were some loyalists who had been
sent by William Powell to acquaint his wife of his situa-
tion. One of these loyalists, John Jones by name, was
shot dead by William Nichols, and Mrs. Powell was
wounded and disabled by the same ball. Thomas Rice is
named as a member of the attaclcing party. The Powell
family consisted at this time of a beautiful girl, two
handsome boys and a baby. 1
There were other Welshmen or men of Welsh extrac-
tion on both sides of the great struggle in America, whose
names have escaped remembrance. Several characteristi-
cally Welsh names are to be found in the loyalist lists,
but these, like certain distinctively Scottish and Irish
names, are included in the comprehensive title of natives
1 Public Record Office: Treas. 1/622.
War of Indcpendcnce. 259
of Britain. One Welsh name of a loyalist is that of
Hopldn Williams of Ninety-six district in South Carolina,
who was a refugee at Charleston in 1782. ' Flewelling,
which like tlie " Fluellen " of Shakespeare, is a corruption
of Llewelyn, is a name represented by a loyalist family in
the province of New York. One member of this family
was Thomas Flewelling, a yeoman, of Northcastle, who
had 110 fewer than four sons in the well-knovvn loyalist
corps, the King's American Regiment, two of whoni died
on active service and one was killed in action. Thomas
Flewelling hiinself settled, after the war, in Queen's
County, New Brunswiek.
Records of the services of two Welsh officers in the
British army during the American Revolutionary War
are extracted from official documents.
The first of these is Lieut.-General Sir John Vaughan, 2
son of the third Viscount Lisburne, who, after serving in
the lOth Dragoons from 1746 to 1755 (when he was
transferred to the 16th Dragoons),raised the Eoyal Welsh
Volunteers, 3 known also as "Vaughan's Foot" and after-
wards as the 9-lth Regiment, of which he was commissioned
Lieut. Colonel Commandant, 12 January, 1760. In 1762
this regiment was disbanded and Vaughan was appointed
Lieut. Colonel of the 46th Foot.
At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in America,
Colonel John Vaughan took out reinforcements and was
granted the local rank of Major-General on 1 January,
1776. For his great victory and capture of Fort Mont-
gomery on 6 October, 1777, he was mentioned in orders
by General Sir Henry Clinton in the following words : —
" Fort Montgomery is henceforth to be distinguished by
the name of Fort Vaughan, in memory of the intrepidity
and noble perseverance which Major-General Vaughan
1 Public Record Office : Treas. 50/5.
2 Dict. of Nat. Biog.
3 An account of the Welsh Volunteers is in preparation by the
present writer.
2Óo Welshmen in the American
showed in the assault on it ". The fort has, however,
continued to be known in history as Fort Montgomery.
From 1780 to 1782, Lieut.-General Vaughan seiwed in
the West Indies and was in command of the military
forces, while Admiral Rodney commanded the fleet, in the
expedition to the Island of St. Eustatius, which surrendered
on 3 February, 1781 .' Both he and Rodney were after-
wards accused of peculation at the capture of that Dutch
island — the centre of American smuggling trade against
the British Navigation Laws, and in the course of the war
a source of supplies for the Americans. Vaughan, as
member for Berwick, defended himself from his place in
the House of Commons, and the ìnotion for an enquiry
into the alleged peculation was defeated.
Whether Vaughan's purchase of a large tract of land
of 8,000 acres, in Albany County, New York, from the
Indians, by deed dated 21 March, 1770, was a mere specu-
lation, an investment, or an indication of his intention to
settle down in the American Colonies, is not disclosed in
his memorial to the Commissioners of American Claims.
Many British officers and men, after the war against the
French which ended in the conquest of Canada in 1763,
received bounty lands in the Province of New York, while
others married during or after the war, and subsequently
settled there. The Revolutionary War saw some of these
former British soldiers fighting • on the side of the
Americans, and others in defence of the Crown.
The second Welsh officer in the regular British Army
who participated in the Revolutionary War was the Pem-
brokeshire-born Major John Lewis, who served throughout
the war. His recorded military career appears to begin
with his commission of 16 May, 1766, as Lieutenant in
the 64th (or 2nd Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot, in
1 Original Correspondence of George III. Public Record Office :
H.O. 42/3.
2 Public Record Office : A.O. 13/137.
War of Independcnce. 261
which he was promoted Captain, 3 May, 1776, and later
Major. He had doubtless been a cadet or ensign in the
64th or another regiinent of the line previous to the date
of his commission as lieutenant, for in a petition 1 of
26 April, 1787, he refers to his 25 years service in the
British Army. Towards the end of the war, Major Lewis
was appointed deputy Quartermaster-General. The peti-
tion just mentioned was dated from Grosvenor House to
William Pitt, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and
prays for the appointment to the vacancy in the steward-
ship of the Castles of Pembroke and Haverfordwest and
of the King's Manors in the county of Pembroke.
This is perhaps hardly the occasion for the inclusion of
an account of the services of the Ro}'al Welsh Fusiliers in
the American War of Independence. It may, however,
not be out of place to mention that a member of the regi-
ment, one Sergeant F. Lamb, published in 1809 an
" Original and Authentic Journal " of the war, and that
the names of four American loyalists appear among the
officers of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers after that war.
Biographies of these officers will be included in a book
by the present writer on Americans in the British
Army.
The weary continuation of the war in America, the
surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and perhaps the
knowledge that a treaty of alliance had been made by
the Americans with the French in January, 1778, plunged
London into a state of gloom and anxiety. Prophecies of
invasion by the French were as frequent from 1778 until
the Peace in 1783 as they were later, in the Napoleonic
wars. The result was that volunteer coinpanies 2 were
raised throughout the land. In Wales nine independent
1 Chatham papers in Public Record Office, Bundle 220.
2 Several independent companies, amounting to something about
a regiment in point of number, were raised in Wales {Annual Register,
1778, p. 86).
2Ó2 Welshmen in the American
companies were organized in February, 1778, commanded
by the following officers, with the rank of captain : —
Hugh Lord, Viscount Fielding,
Rowland Edwards, George Vaughan,
Alexander Campbell, John Edwards,
George Adams, Lord Herbert,
Thomas Lloyd.
The Welsh ports were free from blockades during the
war. Milford was used for shipping stores for the British
Artny in Atnerica, as was Barry port. Swansea, as has
been obseiwed earlier, was not without importance as a
port of export and entry.
Holywell can show the names of two inhabitants who
had business or social relations with American loyalists.
One was J. E. Mostyn, who in March, 1775, had some
transactions with Gilbert Deblois, senior, a prosperous
Boston merchant, and afterwards a refuoee in Eneland.
The second was Captain Thomas Totty, who was a witness
to the loyalty and material losses of Lieut. William
Haswell, who had retired from the British Navy after the
war against the French in America and married and
settled in Massachusetts, only to be disturbed a few years
later by the Revolutionary War, when he threw all his
strength on the side of England.
There were not wanting, as is well lcnown, strong
advocates in England of the American cause. Among
these were two dmnes, 1 one a Welsh bishop, the other a
Welsh Nonconformist minister in London, both of whom
were correspondents of Benjamin Franklin.
The former was Jonathan Shipley, bishop of St. Asaph
from 1769 to 1788, and the other was Richard Price, who
combined the gifts of a writer on morals, politics and
economics with theology. The bishop ẃas not at first
whole-heartedly a supporter of the Americans. In an
eloquent appeal for a reconciliation with the American
1 Both are in the Dict. of Nat. Bìotj.
War of Indeỳendence. 26
.->
colonies, tinged with a melancholy suggestion of the
inevitable decay and downfall of England, the bishop
regarded those colonies " as the only great nursery of
freemen left upon the face of the earth ", adding that "we
ought to cherish them as the immortal monuments of our
public justice and wisdom, as the heirs of our better days,
of our old arts and manners and our expiring national
virtues 'V
Price is remembered as the author of the pamphlet,
" Observations on Civil Liberty and the Justice and Policy
of the War with America ", and as the recipient of an
invitation from Congress in 1778 to assist in the financial
adtninistration of the insurgent States. Richard Price
concluded his letter, declining this flattering invitation,
with the prophetic words that he looked " to the United
States as now the hope, and likely soon to become the
refuge, of mankind ".
1 Force's American Archẁes, Series IV, Vol. ii, pp. 97-104.
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