Welsh Journals

Mar., 1879. BYE-GONES. 183 sided at Ross, where his family of twelve children ap¬ pear to have been born, their mother being Catherine Mynd, of the ancient family of that name settled at Hentland. Dr. Evans (for he was M.D.) had prepared some memorials of the antiquities of Ross, but what became of them at his death is not known. EVANS, Thomas, who was born at Mynyddislwyn, Monmouthshire, and educated at the Caermarthen Pres¬ byterian College, is notable as a Dissenting minister who was ordained at Llanuwchllyn in 1745. He remained there for fifteen years, and did good service to religion in divers parts of North Wales, for there is hardly a hamlet or town that he did not visit upon his preaching tours, and in the history of North Walian Dissent he is always mentioned with respect. He is supposed to have settled in Yorkshire as an English minister about 1761, and to have died there in 1779. EVANS, William Edward, youngest son of a well-known medical man, John Evans, M.D., of Llwyny- groes, near Oswestry, was born at the Council House, Shrewsbury, in 1801, and educated at the Grammar School of that town, when it was under the distinguished master¬ ship of Dr. Butler. He proceeded thence to Clare College, Cambridge, andhavingchosenthe Church for his profession, he was ordained to the ministry, and served for some time as curate of Llanymynech, in his native county. We meet with him subsequently at Criggion, in Montgomery¬ shire, and Monkland, in Herefordshire, and in each of these places he did good service to the Church. When at Monkland he was made precentor of Hereford, and toon afterwards vicar of Medley with Tiberton, in that county, and in 1860 or 1861 Canon Residentiary of Here¬ ford Cathedral. His name will be known to the reading public as the author of " Songs of the birds," " Sermons on Genesis," and "Family prayers." He died in 1869. EWLOE, John, a native of Chester, and Mayor of that city in 1405, and the three following years, was the son of one David de Ewloe, a native of Flintshire. Mr. Richard Llwyd, a great authority upon Welsh genealogies, states that the Ewloes were of Cheshire descent, but being supporters of Henry II., and the English interest in Wales, they had gained a settlement in Flintshire, and had thriven there. David Ewloe, was Mayor of Chester in 1381 and 1383, and probably favoured Richard II.'s party, as many Flintshire and Chester men did. The son, however, could not have been zealous in that interest, for Henry iV. was King when he was first chosen Mayor of his native city. Whether he took any part against Henry Percy's movements before the celebrated battle of Shrewsbury, and so commended himself to royal favour, and had afterwards changed sides, is not clear, but in 1409 he was removed from his office, and Sir William Brereton, a military man, put into it by the King, as a mark of his royal displeasure. Many Cestrians having favoured the opposite faction, the authorities doubtless gave offence to the Court, and the unhappy Mayor thus became a marked man, and suffered accordingly. The incident just alluded to gives some importance to John Ewloe's name, for it occurs at a time when the seeds of disaffection were being sown in England, to be succeeded by the long and bloody "Wars of the Roses," beginning at St. Alban'sin 1455, and ending at Bosworth in 1485. EYTON, Thomas, or as he was styled in old histories, Thomas de Eyton, had desiended from a very reputable family long settled in Shropshire, and he is supposed to have been born in that county and to have obtained the Deanery of Bridgnorth. Henry de Harley had applied for and obtained this dignity in the second year of Edward III., upon the representation that Dean Eyton was dead, but that very reverend gentleman soon put his successor to flight by appearing in person before the King, upon which the grant to Harley was revoked, " with a special madatefor the restoring of the rightful dean to his office." There must have been a struggle for the deanery between the two deans, for we read how " the sheriff certified that both Thomas de Eyton, and Henry de Harley had raised great numbers of men in arms to dispute their respec¬ tive rights," upon which the King commanded the sheriff to charge both parties to desist, and to appear in his Court of Chancery to have the matter enquired into. What came of the proceeding in that court we know not, but in the end Dean Eyton was restored to his own again, and we may hope enjoyed his dignity for many years afterwards. MARCH 5, 1879. RIXHAM.—In thanking "J. J." for his communication, we beg to inform him that the extract respecting the Fanatics at Wrexham, from Grammont's Memoirs, appeared in Bye-gones, Mar. 10, 1875 (see page 199 of Reprint for that year); and the letter from Mat Prior to Sir Thomas Hanmer about buying a "nagg at Rixhani fair" (quoted from Thackeray's Humourists) was given Oct. 27,1877 (see page 302 of Reprint for that year). Except through inadvertence, we never publish the same thing twice in Bye-gones. NOTES. WELSH TROOPS FOR THE IRISH WAR. Captain Ellis Maurice, whose name appears in the fol¬ lowing communication, was the second son of Sir Wm. Maurice, of Clenenney, in Carnarvonshire, and of Pork- ington, now Brogyntyn, in Shropshire, and was born 1st of May, 1568. He married Jane, one of the daughters of Sir Wm. Mering, of Mering, co. of Notts. His father, William, afterwards Sir William Maurice, was elected to represent the county of Carnarvon in 1592, 1593, 1597, 1604, and the borough of Beaumaris in 1601, and was one of the Council in the Marches of Wales. He was a personal friend of King James I., and it was at Sir William's suggestion that that monarch assumed the title of "'King of Great Britain" (see Reprint of Bye-gones 1873, page 211). In the printed Calendar of State Papers it appears that on December 18, 1606, Sir Wm. Maurice pressed in Parliament to have the King's title of '' Great Britain " confirmed ; and there is at Peniarth the original proclamation, supposed to be unique, whereby the King assumed that title. The following papers exhibit an instance, very common at the time, of the indifference of persons as to the spelling of their names. Sir Wm. Maurice always signed his surname "Maurice," so did his son; yet the former, in endorsing his son's account and letter, writes it " Moris."— The accompts of Captain Ellis morrys appointed Conductor of fiftie souldiors by William Maurice, of Clenenny esquier one of her Ma'ts. deputie lieftennants for the Countie of Carnarvon beinge the west parte of that shiere and have received at the Towne of Carnarvon within the Countie of Carnarvon affore- said of Wm. Maurice esquier the fiftie men savinge the defects which was wantinge out of the three Commotts of llyne with the Some of one hundredth three score and fifteen poundes bestewed by me the said conductour to the vse of the said fiftie men as folio weth the xxviijM day of february last 1599 Anno R. R. xlij. Imprimis Paid for presse & conduct when I was sent abroad by the said deputie lieftennants to llyne Evioneth & Vchor. as by theire names shall appere xxxvs.