fellow to be taken up'.5 He seemed to be unworried by the possible problems of taking Powle into custody and he promptly obtained a warrant to arrest him. An ensign, Jarvis Newton, having been sworn in as a petty constable, was given the task of taking Powle into custody. Unlike his superior, Newton was worried by the potential difficulty in detaining Powle. Tuesday was a market day and the town and its inns would have been thronged with people from the surrounding district. Some of them would have been none too sober. Given the circumstances, he requested Captain Dutton Colt's assistance. He was only too willing to help and turned up in person. He, Captain Harry Colt and Jarvis Newton with the help of others attempted to seize Powle near the Red Cow Inn but Powle would have none of it and put up a fierce struggle.6 The constable and soldiers tried to pull him in to the Cow but he resisted and refused to enter the inn. They finally managed to grab him and dragged him through the door. Once inside, ensign Newton asked the innholder, William Powell, for his assistance in the Queen's name but Powell refused. Then Captain Dutton Colt, asserting his rank, asked Powell again in the Queen's name to help keep the peace and help to restrain their new 'recruit'. But Powell would have none of it. He flatly refused to help out in any way, saying 'He would mind his own business not the Queen's'. Dutton Colt asked Powell for a second time and warned him that he was a justice of the peace. Powell was distinctly unimpressed and replied that 'there was more justices of ye peace in ye town than himself'. When asked afterwards whether he would have reconsidered his actions, Powell still said that he would have refused. While the argument raged between Dutton Colt, the petty constables and the innkeeper, William Powell's brother grabbed a knife and waved it about. According to Captain Harry Colt, he simply waved the knife about threateningly but Captain John Dutton Colt claimed that Powell had attempted to stab one of the constables. In the midst of all the confusion and commotion, one of the serving maids in the inn helped the Powle escape. His freedom was short-lived. He was recaptured and brought in front of Dutton Colt and two other justices of the peace from Abergavenny, James Gunter and Christopher Price.7 After as full an appraisal as they could make of Powle, they concluded that he was fit to serve as a soldier. He was handed over by the justices of the peace into the custody of Captain Henry Colt and his ensign who, with a small troop of soldiers, escorted him to the Angel Inn where they intended to hold him for the night. Assuming that everything had settled down, Captain Dutton Colt returned home to Llanvihangel Crucorney. If he thought that the night would pass quietly he was wrong for some of the 'lewder sort of the inhabitants' attacked the Angel in an attempt to free Powle. The soldiers were helped by one of the justices of the peace, James Gunter, to escape with their prisoner. He took them through a back street to the lodging's of the mayor, Stoughton.8 But sometime between one and two o'clock