Welsh Journals

to the Library in 1942-3 by the Right Honourable the Lord Bagot. Two examples will suffice to show the affinity between the two collections. The Bagot group contains a number of important letters on the marriage between the two families, and there are in both groups papers relating to suits in Chancery during the period 1674-7 between William Salesbury of Rug, plaintiff, and Sir Walter Bagot and others, defendants. Readers of the Library's Journal will also remember that a preliminary inspection of the Bagot deeds brought to light an original grant of land executed by Owen Glyndwr at Sycharth in 1392.1 B. G. OWENS. 20. BODFEL DEEDS AND DOCUMENTS. These also were received' on deposit' from Colonel Vaughan Wynn of Rug, one group in 1936 and another in 1947. The Bodvels of Bodfel in Caernarvonshire occupied an outstanding position among the squirearchy of the Llyn peninsula in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries they were allied by marriage to the Wynns of Gwydir and the Pulestons, their names appear in both the shrievalty and parliamentary lists for the county, and their estate included the island of Bardsey, which was the reward for bravery on the part of John Wynn, standard-bearer to Edward VI, during the suppression of Ket's rebellion near Norwich in 1549, and the demesne lands of Beddgelert Priory. Unfortunately, however, the present collection bears little relation to the illustrious history of the Bodvels, either in size or in importance, for both groups number no more than forty-two documents and con- tain practically no items earlier than the Restoration, when the authority of the Bodvels, like that of the Wynns, had considerably declined and when the family estate had become the subject of domestic dispute. With a few isolated exceptions (including the post-nuptial settlement, 1639/40, of Sir John Bodvel and Ann, youngest daughter of Sir William Russell of Chippenham, co. Cambridge, knight and bart., Treasurer of H.M. Navy), the earliest surviving records are an Act of Parliament and some legal papers relating to the protracted litigation which followed the death in 1663 of Sir John Bodvel. The latter, both by conveyance and will, had settled his estate on his daughter Sarah, Countess of Radnor, and her second son Charles Bodvel Robartes, but it was alleged that Thomas Wynn of Bodvean, a member of the younger branch of the family, by sinister practices had induced him to publish a second will entirely in favour of Griffith Wynn, son of the said Thomas, and of Thomas Bodvel, infant son of one Alexander Bodvel. The case was twice heard in Chancery, on the second occasion upon a direction of the House of Lords, and a bill to settle the estate in accordance with the original settlement and will received the royal assent on 18 January, 1666/7.2 The remaining documents illustrate, albeit sketchily, the devolution of the estate during the next one hundred years to Sir George Markham, M.P. for Norwich, to George Ogle of St. George, Hanover Square, his nephew and heir, to Bernard Wilson, D.D., vicar of Newark (D.N.B. lxii, 84-5), and eventually to the de- positor's great-great-grandfather Sir John Wynn, bart., of Glynllifon,3 and the presence of such records as mortgage transactions and cases and counsels' opinions suggests that throughout this period, until it finally became identified with the powerful Glynllifon interests, its history was far from stable. B. G. OWENS. 1 This deed, with others of Glyndwr interest in the Library, were described by Mr. J. Conway Davies in the Journal, III, p. 48. Two other important deeds in the possession of Lord Bagot were described, again by Mr. Conway Davies, in the Journal III, pp. 29, 158, namely, a grant by Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (1243) and another by David ap Gruffydd (1260). 2 See Arch. Camb., 1883, pp. 81-3, for a description of some relevant records among the manuscripts ot the House ot Lords. 3 [An important collection of well over 5,000 Glynllifon records, including the Bodfean muniments, were received on deposit' in 1936 from the trustees of the Hon. F. G. Wynn. It is hoped in the next number of the Journal to publish an account of these and also of other Glynllifon documents which were recently acquired by purchase.-Editor.]