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FOURTH SERIES.—VOL. XIV, NO. LV JULY 1883. THE EARLY HISTORY OF HAY AND ITS LORDSHIP. A fuller account of the border-town of Hay and its lordship than has yet appeared seems desirable, as well on account of its situation as of the important part which its successive owners played in the affairs of the kingdom. On the completion of the Domesday Sur¬ vey, the little brook called Dulas, which runs into the river Wye at the entrance of the town of Hay from Herefordshire, defined the boundary there of Wales as a principality, if not a kingdom, owing an allegiance little more than nominal to England. Twenty years before, Leofgar, the warlike Bishop of Hereford, had attempted to extend the borders of his county on the right bank of the Wye, and had died in battle, at Glas- bury, in the attempt. There is no record or trace of any Norman aggression in the same direction until the closing years of the Conqueror's reign. It is un¬ certain when the Norman invasion of the province of Brecheiniog first began; but it appears that in the second year of the reign of William Rufus, Bernard Newmarch was in possession of Glasbury, and with the assent of his sovereign gave it and the tithes of his lordship there to the church of St. Peter, Gloucester.1 It may, therefore, be safely assumed that he had pre¬ viously acquired the lordship of Hay, which lies between Glasbury and the border. 1 Cart. S. Petri Gloc, vol. i, p. 314, Rolls Series. 4th ser., vol. xiv. . . 13