Prichard Welsh Gentry 4

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Ancestry of ?Margaretta Prichard (est 1650 –?1728)

The Gentry 4

ELIZABETH was the daughter of ELEN VAUGHAN and THOMAS ap RHYS, and in contrast to her many royal ancestors given earlier in The Welsh Princes and the Branch Chart, ELIZABETH’s ancestors shown in the pedigree below are not well documented in Welsh history, and they apparently occupied very few official positions. They were land-owning gentry of ancient lineage, but they seem to have led quiet lives on their inherited estates. They show a different aspect of Welsh history than we found with our ancestors who were primarily officials, functionaries, and warriors

Pedigree of I-11.ELIZABETH ferch THOMAS ap RHYS of Ravensdale

I-11.ELIZABETH ferch THOMAS and her family

This line of ELIZABETH’s ancestry can be traced by continuity of ownership of Penddeulwyn (head of the two groves) as recorded by the herald Gruffudd Hiraethog in Peniarth 134, pp. 200-202. The property stands on a small hill, which on the north side drops steeply to the Tywi valley east of Carmarthen, and the earliest person we found to be connected with it was RHYS LLWYD in the 14th century. The pedigree indicates that the land passed to the descendants of RHYS’s granddaughter GWENHWYFAR (Guinivere), who married GRUFFUDD ap RICHARD. The line then continued through their daughter MARGRED, who married THOMAS ap RHYS in ELIZABETH’S direct male line. GWENHWYFAR and MARGRED appear to have inherited the property as heiresses, whereas by Welsh law it would have gone to male cousins if there were no sons. This supports R.R.Davies’s observation in Age of Conquest that by the 15th century English law was more often followed (p.423). Their husbands’ location before marriage is not recorded.

THOMAS and MARGRED’s son DAFYDD married ELEN, the daughter of THOMAS DDU, and her father was recorded by Gruffudd Hiraethog as “of Penddeulwyn”. Perhaps he lived there with his daughter after her marriage, as we found no connection in his ancestry with that property. DAFYDD and ELEN’s son JOHN married GWENLLIAN ferch JOHN, as shown by the pedigree, and they had two sons, another Dafydd, and RHYS. The property came to RHYS in place of his elder brother, and Gruffudd Hiraethog explained in Welsh that Dafydd’s heir was his daughter Gwenllian, and “RHYS is the one who got his father [JOHN] to leave him all his land on the death of the elder son [Dafydd] if he had only the one daughter” (p.201). Penddeulwyn did come to RHYS, whose wife MEDDEFUS was included in his pedigree by Gruffudd Hiraethog, and then to their son THOMAS, who married ELEN VAUGHAN as we have seen, and the pedigree shows that it continued in their family (p.202).

David Edwardes gives the additional information that RHYS lived at Cwmgigfran (Ravensdale), a property which we had not previously found in the records. With Penddeulwyn it is the only property on the hill, and it stands on the quiet south side, overlooking the little valley of the Pibwr brook. It can be postulated that the hill is the estate that the family had owned since the time of RHYS LLWYD, on which this new house had been built and named Ravensdale. David Edwardes also gave Ravensdale as the home of THOMAS’S daughter ELIZABETH when she married JOHN ap REES. Her brother Gruffudd, the heir of the estate, had an only daughter Frances who married Roland Walter of Roch castle in Pembrokeshire, and when Lewys Dwnn visited them in 1608 he named the home of her father “Gruffudd ap Tomos ap Rys Esq” as “Cwmgigfran” and recorded his arms in Welsh as “quarterly the three ravens and the arms of Elystan” (i, 228). The “ravens”, for which Ravensdale was probably named, were the arms attributed to his patriarch Urien, also borne by Sir Rhys ap Thomas and others, and Elystan Glodrudd was the patriarch claimed by his ancestors GWENLLIAN, and THOMAS DDU. The arms attributed to Elystan Glodrudd were ‘Gules, a lion rampant regardant Or, armed and langued Azure’ (on a red shield a gold lion upright and looking behind, with blue claws and tongue)

Arms of Urien and Elystan Glodrudd, quartered by ELIZABETH’S brother Gruffudd (from Royal and Princely Heraldry in Wales)

 Roland and Frances’s great granddaughter was Lucy Walter, whose life as the early mistress of Charles Stuart, later Charles II, and the mother of the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth, is described in her Biography. The Walter family still owned Penddeulwyn and Ravensdale in the 18th century (Jones, Historic Carms Homes, pp. 47,147), and the combined area of the two properties, 500 acres, equates to that of the hill on which they stand, thus confirming the extent of the estate.

This completes the story of the ancestors of ELIZABETH ap THOMAS through the royal branches and their gentry descendants.

Now, we turn to the shorter line of ancestors of ELIZABETH’s husband JOHN ap REES, who can be identified as gentry and officials of Carmarthenshire for the previous 300 years. JOHN’s pedigree is quite stable and homogeneous, the males being primarily royal officials of law enforcement. The two major branches are given here. First is the primary male line from the 13th century constable GRONO GOCH to JOHN ap REES himself. The second is the interesting branch of a wife MARGRED f. RHYDDERCH ap RHYS which shows agriculturalists, beautiful gardens, as well as more officials. It represents a change from the long lists of battles and wars that made up the careers of most of our famous relatives in this NARRATIVE.

Pedigree of I-10.JOHN ap REES

I-5120.GRONO GOCH and His Son and Grandson

The earliest of the ancestors of JOHN ap REES who can be identified from documentary evidence is GRONO GOCH (GORONWY of red hair or ruddy complexion), who was Constable of Dryslwyn castle in the 13th century. Many of his descendants continued to live near the castle. Its ruins still stand on a rocky bluff beside the river Tywi between Dinefwr and Carmarthen. A charter of the year 1281allowed an annual fair to be held at the small township on the castle hill, and later evidence reveals a mixed agricultural economy. Excavations have shown that the lords of Dryslwyn led a comfortable lifestyle, with glass in the windows, wearing ornate jewelry, and eating fine foods such as different meats, game birds, fish, and fruits including imported grapes and figs. Such fine cuisine was little different from that consumed by the household of the English king (Rees & Caple, pp.40-41).

The ruins of Dryslwyn castle on its hill in the Tywi valley

For GRONO’s long career, which was documented in considerable detail by Griffiths (Principality, p.279 ff), we must turn back to the time of great importance in Welsh history when Llywelyn the Last was acknowledged as Prince of Wales. As we have seen (The Welsh Princes 2), Dryslwyn was the headquarters of Rhys ap Maredudd, grandson of Rhys Gryg, one of the sons of the LORD RHYS, and as constable in 1281 GRONO witnessed a grant of land to Rhys (Griffiths, Principality, p.279). But in 1277 King Edward I had enlarged his holding around Carmarthen castle and taken over the north of the county and the whole of Cardiganshire. Unlike many Welsh lords, Rhys ap Maredudd did not support Llywelyn, and made peace with Edward, being rewarded with extra land. But he was disappointed not to be given Dinefwr castle, and subsequently he was outraged by his treatment at the hands of royal administrators. In June 1287 he rose in revolt, but an English army laid siege to Dryslwyn castle from 15 August to 5 September, and sappers undermined the walls. The castle was taken, and Rhys became a fugitive, eventually being captured and executed in York in 1292.

GRONO did not follow his lord Rhys into the revolt but remained in the Crown’s employ. He was nominated to lead 200 men at the siege of Dryslwyn, and later that year he became sergeant of the garrison and scoured the countryside in search of his former overlord Rhys. GRONO continued to hold an important position in the community, and played a leading role at Dryslwyn in assessing the royal tax of December 1292. At Michaelmas 1299 he was recorded as steward of the north of the county, and must have presided at the monthly courts in each commote and supervised the local officers. By 1301-07 he held half the royal mill at Brechfa, and on 9 December 1309 the governor of the Crown lands wrote to the chancellor at Westminster to delay GRONO’s retirement from office, because his absence might endanger peace. GRONO must by then have been an old man.

When Lewys Dwnn compiled the pedigree of one of GRONO’S descendants in 1588, he gave the coat of arms attributed to GRONO as ‘Azure, three stags’ heads caboshed Or’, (on a blue shield, three gold stag heads without a neck). David Edwardes gave his home as Lan Lais, on the bank of the Lais stream, and it continued in the family for another 250 years (Carms Book, p.9).

According to Griffiths, GRONO’s son GRUFFUDD was reeve of the parish in 1303-4, being responsible for collecting charges imposed by the courts and the lord’s rents. In 1307-9 he was bailiff (principal officer) of two forest areas and was leasing part of Brechfa mill, and in 1309 he was named in the cartulary of Carmarthen priory. In 1319 and 1322 he was one of the patrons of Llanybydder church in the north of the county (Griffiths, Principality, p.393).

Griffiths shows that GRUFFUDD’s son DAFYDD also held positions under the Crown. In 1335-6 he was constable (bailiff) of the commote of Maenordeilo (p.385), and beadle in 1337-40 (p.376), this office having absorbed the duties of the reeve. In 1340 he was beadle for the whole of the north of the county, assisting the sheriff as a policeman and collecting the fines imposed by the court, but he was also fined for not performing his duties properly (p.296). The hostility of the local population had made the office unpopular, and in 1333 there had been no applicants because the last beadle had been murdered, so it was necessary to fill it by compulsory nomination.

DAFYDD married JANE, the daughter and heiress of MORGAN WINTER of Rhyd-y-gors (ford of the marsh), Carmarthen. She brought the estate to her husband, and after it was inherited by one of their grandsons it passed eventually to his descendant, the herald David Edwardes, who compiled the LEIGH and PRICHARD pedigrees. It continued in that family until it was sold in 1911, and has since been demolished (Jones, Historic Carms Homes, p.173, from which the drawing was taken).

I-640.THOMAS ap DAFYDD

DAFYDD’s son THOMAS was bailiff of north Carmarthenshire in 1376-81 and 1385-7, at a time after the Black Death when many properties were without owners and had reverted to the Crown (Griffiths, Principality, p.297). In addition he carried out the duties of beadle of his home commote Catheiniog in 1381-6 and 1391-2 and acted as deputy in 1387-8 and 1394-6 (p.281), and was constable of two commotes in 1391-2 (p.386). He clearly was a well trusted official, as from 1391 to 1398 he acted as deputy steward of the north of the county while the English steward was occupied with his duties as Marshal of the royal household (p.281).

Besides THOMAS’s son and namesake in the next generation of the pedigree, he also had other sons who served the Crown. As documented by Griffiths (Principality), particularly Rhys ap THOMAS had a remarkable career. He was retained as an Esquire of the Household by Richard II, and in 1391 was granted an estate in Cardiganshire for life. The grant was confirmed by Henry IV and prince Henry after 1399, and he quickly secured the trust of the Lancastrians. He was a stout supporter of the Crown during the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dwr, and in recognition of his loyalty he was granted an annuity by the prince in 1408 (confirmed by Henry VI in 1422 and 1428). In 1407 Rhys ap THOMAS was granted Dryslwyn castle and the revenues from the town for 10 years in return for an annual fee. He served the bishop of St David’s as receiver-general in 1399 and 1400 and as a commissioner in 1403 and 1407, and from 1400 to 1410 he was sheriff of Carmarthen. In 1411 he was allowed to fell timber to build a new home.

With his patron on the throne as Henry V, Rhys’s wealth and influence in west Wales were enhanced. In 1413 he was the first Welshman to be released from the new Penal Laws, and he was awarded another annuity and was allowed to take various leases. He had custody of Carreg Cennen castle for life from 1414 and was still installed there in 1437. His offices and rewards continued to multiply throughout that time. By 1446 he was described a being “of a great age,” and when he died in 1449 he must have been about 80 years old. He had secured to his son John confirmation of freedom from the Penal Laws. John had been one of the king’s retinue accompanying Henry V on the Agincourt campaign, but he was not as successful in office as his father. The career of this Rhys ap THOMAS appears on many pages of Griffiths’ Principality, and can best be found by using the Index of Names. He should not be confused with the later and more famous Sir Rhys ap Thomas K.G. (d.1525).

I-320.THOMAS FYCHAN ap THOMAS and Sons

THOMAS FYCHAN followed his father in 1398-1400 as bailiff of the north of the county and as deputy beadle of his home commote. In 1411 and in 1415 he was an attorney or royal pleader “in the laws of Hywel Dda,” a position created because the operation of Welsh land law was formally guaranteed in the Principality towards the close of the Glyn Dwr revolt when the properties of Welsh rebels were being disposed of. In this capacity he prosecuted Crown pleas and cases directly affecting the king’s behalf at county courts and at the Petty and Great Sessions. In 1414-19 he was escheator for Carmarthenshire, as documented by Griffiths (Principality, pp.265, 298, 321, 372). THOMAS was referred to in a poem by Lewis Glyn Cothi as ‘Thomas Fychan of Lan Lais who built Glan Diwlas’, which was near Dryslwyn castle.

THOMAS FYCHAN had four sons (Bartrum’s pedigree Elystan Glodrydd 52). One son, also called Thomas, took the profits of Dryslwyn castle and town for 24 years from 1446 on payment of an annual fee. He lived nearby at Llether Cadfan, named ‘slope of the battlefield’ as the place where Llywelyn the Last had defeated an English army. Another son, Llywelyn, was the ancestor of the genealogist David Edwardes (Carms Book, p.11). The other two sons are in our ancestry.

THOMAS FYCHAN’s son GWILYM was described by Lewys Dwnn as “Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII.” His wife was identified in a contemporary poem by Lewis Glyn Cothi as GWLADUS ferch JOHN ap GRUFFUDD (see The Primary Chart for the several marriages between this family and the family of I-1288.GRUFFUDD ap LLYWELYN FOETHUS). Their son THOMAS DDU became the father of ELEN, who married DAFYDD ap THOMAS of Penddeulwyn in the line of ELIZABETH of Ravensdale. Another son of GWILYM, Henry ap GWILYM, lived at Court Henry. The Golden Grove Book records that “Henry ap Gwilym was of Court Henry which tooke its name from him who built it, was cotempory with Thomas ap Griffith of Newton, & fought often together with animosity. But Rice ap Thomas marrying his Daughter & coheiress Eva the families were become friends’”. This was Sir Rhys ap Thomas, who as described earlier, was in effect the king’s viceroy in south Wales. Their initial animosity came about during the Wars of the Roses because Henry ap GWILYM supported the house of York, and was imprisoned by the Lancastrians in Harlech castle.
 

Court Henry (from Historic Carms Homes)

I-160.RHYDDERCH ap THOMAS FYCHAN to JOHN ap REES

No record was found of any office held by THOMAS FYCHAN’s son RHYDDERCH. He moved to Cryngae in the north west of the county with his second wife, the heiress of that estate. His son LEWYS was joint bailiff of Carmarthen in 1511-12 (Griffiths, Principality, p.344). This LEWYS was the son of RHYDDERCH by his first wife MARGRED and did not go with his father to live at Cryngae, but lived at Aranell, according to a record made by Gruffudd Hiraethog in 1561-64 (Peniarth 132). Their house was probably on the river Anell, which enters the Tywi to the east of Carmarthen, and LEWYS’s son THOMAS and grandson REES were also said to live at Aranell.

In the next generation, JOHN ap REES was the collector of the Lay Subsidy tax in Carmarthen in 1597/8, so it appears that he had moved to Carmarthen from his birthplace at the family estate of Aranell in Abergwili. He may have been the “John Rees, tanner” who was wealthy enough to be assessed for tax on his land in the same year in the Carmarthen records (PRO E179/220/117). He does not appear in the Abergwili tax records. The next surviving tax records for Carmarthen are from 1625, where he does not appear, and by then he had probably died.

So now we turn back to the family of LLYWELYN FOETHUS (the Luxurious ). He was the 6X--great-grandfather of JOHN ap REES, and our narrative of his line would not be complete without picturing the various unusual interests and professions appearing in several members of this branch.

Pedigree of I-2576.LLYWELYN FOETHUS

I-2576.LLYWELYN FOETHUS and His Descendants

LLYWELYN FOETHUS (the Luxurious) was beadle of Catheiniog in 1326-31 and constable in 1356-7. The epithet luxurious implies not only that he was a wealthy man but also one who used his wealth for fine luxuries. He and his family are well described by Penny David, and their medieval family seat, though no longer preserved, is placed “almost certainly” at Aberglasney:

... the powerful Llywelyn Foethus (the Luxurious),[was] Lord of Llangathen. The family was important in medieval Carmarthenshire and held local government posts under several kings – English ones, after Edward I’s conquest of Wales in the 1280s. The name ‘Aberglasney’ does not appear until later, but the place was almost certainly the seat of the family. Apart from specific links with Llangathen, it is unlikely for the locality [i.e .the commote of Catheiniog, the subdivision of an administrative district equivalent to an English hundred] to have sustained more than one such sumptuous residence with a multiplicity of gardens. The epithet ‘Luxurious’ only makes sense if hospitality flowed from a hall of some splendour. (luxurious, p.11)

He was also known as LLYWELYN FYCHAN, as his father was named LLYWELYN DDU (with black hair or dark complexion), and was presumably the man of that name who had been beadle of Catheiniog in 1288-9 (Griffiths, Principality, pp.371-72).

His son GRUFFUDD ap LLYWELYN FOETHUS was constable of Maenordeilo in 1355-6 and of the neighboring commote in 1357-9. He was deputy forester to the local landowner Sir Rhys ap Gruffudd in 1377-8 and was associated with him in the defense of Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire. In 1360 he had acted as security for Sir Rhys’s mother when she traveled to the Black Prince’s council with the revenue from the lordship of Narberth in that county. Jointly with THOMAS ap DAFYDD in the main male line of JOHN ap REES, he was bailiff of north Carmarthenshire in 1380-1 and constable of Catheiniog in 1377-8, and he was a beadle at times between 1375 and 1383, according to Griffiths (pp.217, 372, 386, 395).

GRUFFUDD’S daughter JONET married NICHOLAS ap PHILIP and became the mother of GRUFFUDD ap NICHOLAS, who was named after her father. This marriage has indirect historical documentation because Griffiths found a reference to JONET’s son GRUFFUDD with his two sons OWAIN and Thomas and their ”kinsman Rhydderch ap Rhys” (PRO E28/83/63, 64,37 cited in Sir Rhys, p.22). This kinsman refers to GRUFFUDD’S cousin on his mother’s side, i.e. JONET’s nephew, son of her brother RHYS (Elystan Glodrydd 54).

GRUFFUDD’s son JOHN was the father of GWLADUS who married I-708.GWILYM ap THOMAS FYCHAN, as recorded in an early pedigree (Ieuan Brechfa, Peniarth 131, see PRIMARY CHART 2). This marriage brought them into the interrelated group made of the large families of LLYWELYN FOETHUS and THOMAS FYCHAN. Lewis Glyn Cothi painted the arms of their son Llywelyn ap GWILYM as ‘Per bend Gules and Azure, on a cross over all Or five crescents’ (on a shield divided diagonally red and blue, a gold cross bearing five crescents), which are the arms attributed to LLYWELYN FOETHUS.

Arms of Llywelyn ap GWILYM painted by Lewis Glyn Cothi (from The Development of Welsh Heraldry, Vol. 1)

In the next generation, RHYS ap GRUFFUDD ap LLYWELYN FOETHUS followed his father as beadle in 1383, and in 1386 was appointed constable of Catheiniog and Maenordeilo, and as beadle of those commotes for life. He was also bailiff of north Carmarthenshire in 1389-90, and sheriff of Carmarthen from 1400 to 1410. When the Glyn Dwr revolt broke out, he remained loyal to the Crown and was appointed constable of Dryslwyn in 1402 by Prince Henry, and awarded a large annuity. He welcomed Henry IV to the county in October 1401, and was granted the estates of two rebels, one of them his own brother Ieuan. But then RHYS’s loyalty to the English wavered, and when Glyn Dwr was in the Tywi valley in July 1403, RHYS threw the gates of Dryslwyn castle open to him, taking a very public stand for the rebellion. However, this success of the rebels was temporary, and the castle was recovered by English forces. RHYS’s properties were forfeited to the Crown, and although he received a royal pardon in 1409 he never retrieved his former influential position, according to Griffiths (Principality, p.264 ff). He is cited by R.R. Davies as one of the Welsh royal officials who were “stopped short in their progress... and their support for Glyn Dwr may well have been the crucial factor.” For them the revolt was “more or less, an unmitigated disaster” (Glyn Dwr, p.312).

RHYS’s son RHYDDERCH had an active career like his relatives, but he was primarily known for his unofficial, non-career interests, unlike our other ancestors about whom we have not found similar information. Ralph Griffiths listed his official positions. He farmed (i.e. took the profits of) the Dryslwyn castle and town lands from 1446 to 1470, in partnership with Thomas ap THOMAS FYCHAN. In 1446 he presided over a court at Carreg Cennen castle with Owain DWNN and GRUFFUDD ap NICHOLAS, which put him in the prominent cultural world of the time. In 1461-2 he farmed (i.e. paid for the right to gather the income from pasturing animals on) Glyncothi lands (Griffiths, Principality, p.265).

Most striking, however, was his agricultural activity. The bard Lewis Glyn Cothi wrote an ode praising the high quality of RHYDDERCH’s husbandry, comparing his skills with those of Adam the first gardener, and describing the nine green gardens around his mansion, as follows: 

He has a proud hall
A fortress made bright with whitewash,
And encompassing it all around
Nine green gardens.
Orchard trees and crooked vines,
Young oaks reaching up to the sky.
(trans. Dafydd Johnston, cited by David, Lost in Time, p.11)

Penny David asks, “Was Aberglasney, in the parish of Llangathen, that proud hall?” As given above, she answers that the family seat was almost certainly in present-day Aberglasney and that the locality could scarcely support more than one such sumptuous estate (p.11). It is known that RHYDDERCH owned property where in a later period gardens were documented and known to be continued up to the present.

The estate and gardens were cultivated for centuries, but neglected in the mid-twentieth century before being acquired by the Aberglasney Restoration Trust and in our own time excavated, revived, and opened to the public as partly historical restoration and partly modern botanical garden of British and international plants. The outline of the present gardens was set by the surviving walls, which include an unusual elevated path surrounding the main garden next to and below the house. At least four gardens are distinct with descriptive names such as the enclosed Cloister garden dated from late Tudor times, the Pool garden, and the Stream and Pigeon House Wood. The medieval dwelling house of RHYDDERCH is long gone, but the Jacobean mansion built by the next family to own the estate around 1600 and “rebuilt” a century later, stands as an imposing ruin amid the old and new gardens. For the history and beautiful photos of the estate and gardens, visit www.aberglasney.org

We do not know whether other members of RHYDDERCH’s family continued his tradition of excellent husbandry. According to Penny David’s book,“Little is known of Rhydderch’s son Thomas, and unlike his kinfolk he seems to have held no prominent positions in county affairs. No poet sang his praises in the customary ode, or at least none we know of, but perhaps his dying young prevented his making his name – it did, however, earn him an elegy from our friend Lewis Glyn Cothi” (pp.30-31).

Thomas’s son, who took the surname Thomas and became Sir William Thomas (c.1479-1542), was Groom of the Chamber in the household of prince Arthur, whose wedding to Catherine of Aragon he attended. He was also a servant of prince Henry, later Henry VIII, and attended his wedding and coronation as well as Henry VII’s funeral, also as a Groom of the Chamber. Because of his personal knowledge he was called upon in 1529 to testify about the marital status of both prince Arthur and prince Henry when Henry VIII was trying to secure a divorce from Catherine. He was knighted in 1513 after service in the expedition to France (Sir Rhys, pp.53, 89, 115). He was well rewarded for these services with grants of office in both England and Wales, being regularly a Justice of the Peace, and he spent much of his life in Shropshire and London. His wife Jane was a great granddaughter of Sir William ap Thomas of Raglan, the progenitor of the Herbert family. Their eldest son, Rhys Thomas, was Sheriff of Carmarthenshire in 1565 and of Caernarvonshire in 1574. Rhys’s son, Captain William Thomas, was Sheriff of Carmarthenshire in 1586, but was killed at the battle of Zutphen, Holland in 1586, the same battle in which the famous poet Sir Philip Sydney was fatally wounded (Griffiths, Principality, pp.205, 265).

With these members of the interesting family of LLYWELYN FOETHUS, we end the line of JOHN ap REES. As plainly seen in the NARRATIVE to this point, the lines of JOHN and his wife ELIZABETH supplied the whole pageant of illustrious figures in Welsh history.

Now we turn to the NN daughter of JOHN & ELIZABETH with whom all these ancestors came to the PRICHARD family. Then from this unnamed wife of RICHARD, son of WILLIAM PRICHARD, they came through ?MARGARETTA to the LEIGH family. Ironically, we have almost vast knowledge of her earliest ancestors, but we know much less about ?MARGARETTA’s immediate ancestors to be given now.

By this time in the 1500s, about twenty percent of the population was composed of “the landed class, the professional class, the merchants, the more substantial craftsmen and the yeomen,” the latter being substantial farmers who were usually freeholders rather than tenants. They had a standard of life “which varied from prudential sufficiency to luxurious abundance” though the remaining eighty percent must have lived on the very edge of destitution (J. Davies p.266). Towns developed increasingly during queen Elizabeth’s reign, and the town market and fair became central to the prosperity of the surrounding agricultural economy, as were the permanent shops of craftsmen and artisans and the rich merchants who exported local materials and imported goods needed in the town and surrounding estates. Carmarthen was not only the largest town in Wales but also one of the four main towns which could hold the Great Sessions of the court system (p.268), and it was the only town with the staple or head seaport for trade. As the towns developed, they provided new commercial opportunities to employ the many younger sons of the gentry who were not able to inherit the family estate, in addition to the previous traditional three professions of the military, the law, and the church. In fact, the towns themselves were governed by the leading commercial figures, who enjoyed the status of burgesses with the right to elect the mayor and aldermen of the town borough corporation. We see this commercial growth in our families, where JOHN ap REES may have been a tanner and another tanner married into the Hughes family, where a son was a silk mercer. Our first LEIGH was listed in Dwnn’s pedigree as a mercer, and he married a daughter in the NASH gentry family whose father was an “important merchant in Carmarthen” (DWB,”Beau Nash”). Those gentry who did not find wealth in the commercial class, of course, eventually found themselves outside the gentry class.

Pedigree of ?MARGARETTA PRICHARD

I-8.WILLIAM PRICHARD and NN WYN and Their Sons

WILLIAM PRICHARD is said by David Edwardes to have come to Abergwili from North Wales, and we assume the north was his birthplace. He was probably the WILLIAM ap RICHARD who in 1597/8 paid the Lay Subsidy tax in Abergwili (PRO E179/220/117), which would indicate higher than average economic status. Unfortunately the Abergwili record did not distinguish between tax on land and tax on goods, so the record tells us nothing of WILLIAM’s ownership or occupation. This tax payment dates him as a contemporary of JOHN ap REES (who was tax collector in Carmarthen and may have paid tax himself) and also a contemporary of RALPH LEIGH, who paid tax on land in the same year. None of these men had appeared in the tax records of 1573/4, 1581/2 or 1590/1 (though this fact does not necessarily mean they were not tax-worthy), and later records were probably too late.

WILLIAM’s wife is named in the pedigree as NN WYN from North Wales, which suggests she may have come from the large multi-branched Wyn/Wynne gentry family but gives no clues to help identify her.

One of WILLIAM’s two sons was named Hugh, which was a north Wales name, the south Wales equivalent being Hywel. His other son was RICHARD, but neither appeared in the records of the Lay Subsidy taxes which were levied in1597-8, 1625 and 1628. Each son married a daughter of JOHN ap REES, though the first names of the daughters were not given in David Edwardes’ pedigrees (Carms Book, pp.148, 165). These marriages into the well-documented gentry family of JOHN ap REES and his wife ELIZABETH of Ravensdale indicate the acceptable social status of WILLIAM and his wife, as does the fact that their pedigree was routinely recorded among the Carmarthenshire gentry by David Edwardes a century after their arrival.

We know nothing about Hugh, but his son John took the patronymic Hugh anglicized to Hughes, which was retained as a fixed surname in the next generation, and he and his descendants became known in Carmarthen. Their lives also indicate the gentry status of the family. As a Puritan John Hughes became mayor of Carmarthen in 1650 during the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell, and his wife named in the pedigree as Elizabeth Bevan was from a gentry family active in commerce. Her father had been mayor of Carmarthen twice and was recorded as a tanner. Their three children are also known, their son John becoming mayor under Cromwell but dying in office in 1659, and their daughter Rebecca marrying into the gentry Lewis family (related to the family of her brother John’s wife). The second son Stephen was a clergyman and became one of the best-known figures of early Welsh Nonconformity at a time when they were persecuted after the Restoration of Charles II to the Crown in 1660. For more on Stephen Hughes, see his BIOGRAPHY.

 I-5.RICHARD WILLIAM and NN ferch JOHN ap REES

David Edwardes showed in the family pedigree that RICHARD and his brother Hugh both took the patronymic WILLIAM (Carms p.10). In gentry families the patronymic system was gradually being abandoned, the first stage of which was dropping ap (see WELSH NAMES), but as we saw with Hugh, this did not necessarily mean that WILLIAM would become their fixed surname, as each grandson later took his own father’s name.

RICHARD’s wife’s first name is not given in any source we know, but despite this lack she provided all the illustrious ancestral lines given in our NARRATIVE. Our two longest lines back to the Welsh princes and their descendants in the landed gentry come through her mother ELIZABETH ferch THOMAS of Ravensdale. From her father JOHN ap REES come a full line of important crown and castle officials as well as landed gentry. Thus RICHARD married into one of the premier lines in south Wales.

I-2.JOHN PRICHARD and daughter ?MARGARETTA PRICHARD

WILLIAM’s grandsons took patronymic surnames, as already seen with Hugh’s son John Hughes. RICHARD’s son JOHN became PRICHARD, and note that his surname comes from his own father RICHARD, not for his grandfather WILLIAM, whose ap RICHARD would have been for his father RICHARD in north Wales. David Edwardes writes JOHN’s name as ”Jon Prich‘t ” in the family pedigree and also in the LEIGH pedigree where JOHN’S daughter is given as the wife of OAKLEY LEIGH (Carms Book, pp.148, 165). This is presumably the same man as the John Pritchard who subscribed 6 pence towards the Free and Voluntary Present to Charles II in Carmarthen in 1661, following the restoration of the king to the monarchy after the death of Oliver Cromwell (PRO E179/264/15). Other ancestors and relatives are listed with the donors of the royal present, i.e. RICHARD LEIGH (?MARGARETTA’S brother-in-law who became mayor five years later) and John OAKLEY (RICHARD’s cousin who was mayor just before RICHARD) and his mother Mary OAKLEY (widow of a previous mayor). Unlike the assessment of the tax rolls, such a donation may not indicate above average economic status, because other factors also determined the donation amount, such as royalist enthusiasm and class position in the sense of noblesse oblige. Our people were clearly not among the wealthiest, nor was their social position high enough to demand much of them, as RICHARD LEIGH gave £1, the OAKLEYS £1-2, JOHN PRICHARD 6 pence, whereas two members of the Vaughan family gave £10-20.

Thus ends our NARRATIVE of the historical place of the paternal ancestry of ?MARGARETTA PRICHARD. We may not know her first name for certain, but through her father’s maternal grandfather JOHN ap REES and grandmother ELIZABETH ferch THOMAS, she had a long and illustrious ancestry, comprising many of the most important figures in over seven centuries of Welsh history. Through her marriage to OAKLEY LEIGH by 1671, she brought that illustrious Welsh ancestry into our LEIGH family.

The ancestors of ?MARGARETTA PRICHARD given in the NARRATIVE are all known historically though with varying degrees of reliability. Besides them, she also had other possible relatives merely named in a pedigree, or known historically but with little documentary evidence of family relation, or simply considered uncertain or speculative. For all of these other figures, see the PRICHARD ANCESTRY CHART, which is divided into two parts, the Primary Chart and the Branch Chart.

By Norma Leigh Rudinsky and Derek Williams
July 2006, revised February 2007