Glamorganshire

“ MERRICK, RICE (d. 1587) , historian of Glamorgan, son of Meiric ap Howell of Cottrell in Glamorganshire, resided at that place, being part owner of the manor of St. Nicholas. He was appointed clerk of the peace for the county of Glamorgan by William Herbert, first earl of Pembroke (and subsequently by Henry, the second earl) , and held the office until his death on 1 March 1586–7. ”

“ The bard petitions the Summer to visit Glamorganshire with its choicest blessings. This fine poem was evidently composed after the death of his early patron, Ivor. The melancholy and affecting allusion to the lost friend of his youth, with which the poet concludes his gorgeous description of the summer landscape of South Wales, forms a transition of great beauty and pathos. ”

“ But with the systematic development of the vast mineral resources of the South Wales coalfield, the population of Glamorganshire has increased at a more rapid rate than that of any other county of the United Kingdom, so that at present this county contains about half the population of all Wales. ”

“ He was a child of prayer, and was born about the year 496, of noble parentage, in that part of South Wales which is now called Glamorganshire, then in the country of the Demetes, upon the borders of the Wenetes, who inhabited the province called by the Britons Guent, now Monmouthshire. At seven years of age he was put under the care of St. Iltutus, a very learned abbot in Glamorganshire, and having made great progress in learning and virtue, was ordained priest by Saint Dubritius, bishop of Caërleon. ”

“ In Glamorganshire also this is done: A man gets possession of a girl’s garters, and weaves them into a true lover’s knot, saying over them some words of hope and love in Welsh. This he puts under his shirt, next his heart, till he goes to bed, when he places it under the bolster. ”

“ LEWIS Morganwg, i.e. of Glamorganshire (fl. 1500–1540) , Welsh bard, was the son of another bard named Rhys Llwyd ab Rhys ab Rhicert (fl. 1450–1490) , otherwise known as the Old Grey Bard of Glamorgan, who lived at Blaen Cynllan in that county. ”

“ Sion Mowddwy, a contemporary, says he was an usher in the Glamorgan court of great sessions, but he gained his living mostly by transcribing Welsh manuscripts for Glamorganshire gentlemen, and had access to the libraries at Raglan, Y Vann, and other places. About 1575 he is mentioned under the name Lewelyn John by Sir Edward Mansel in his 'History of the Norman Conquest of Glamorgan,' as a learned and diligent collector of Welsh manuscripts. ”

“ On her death he left Glamorganshire, and for about seven years worked as a journeyman mason in various parts of England. He then returned to Wales, and in 1781 married Margaret, daughter of Rees Roberts of Marychurch. His occupation interfering with his health, he set up in 1797 a bookseller's shop at Cowbridge, but found the confinement irksome, and took to land surveying instead. Flemingston, in the vale of Glamorgan, now became his home, and from this centre he made long expeditions, always on foot, in search of manuscripts bearing on Welsh history. ”

“ Athan was a famous scion of that Anglo-Norman stock who had carved up Glamorganshire in Henry the First’s time. He had inherited the great castle and lordship of Coity from his mother’s family, the Turbervilles, whose male line had only just failed after three centuries of such occupation as must have made men of them indeed. Sir Laurence, it need hardly be remarked, had experienced a stormy time for the past few years, battling for his patrimony with Glyndwr’s sleepless legions. ”

“ Had the counties taken the requisite steps to avoid the calamity? Quite the reverse; the aversion to a police assessment was so strong, that nothing whatever had been done. Glamorganshire had only established one on a small scale, [Pg 537] after repeated and earnest efforts on the part of its able and public-spirited lord-lieutenant, the Marquis of Bute; and the Rebecca riots surprised the adjoining counties without any preparation whatever. And even after those disgraceful disorders had continued several weeks, and rendered South Wales the scandal of the empire, and the astonishment of Europe ”

“ A Scotch legend, alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, credits the ghost of a Duchess of Queensberry with an innovation, as the spectre is said to wheel its head in a barrow through the galleries of Drumlanrick Castle. In Glamorganshire there is a tradition of a headless woman, who appears every sixty years, and many are the terrible stories told of her dreadful visitations. ”

“ He seems to have retired to Glamorganshire, for in 1650 he is mentioned in certain articles exhibited against Colonel Phillip Jones [q. v.] as being prepared to supply evidence against him. In 1653 he acted on behalf of his father as lessee of a part of the manor of Wrinston in the county of Glamorgan, and petitioned Oliver Cromwell for its recovery from Colonel Jones. ”

“ Among the Welsh peasantry the cromlechs are called by a variety of names, one interesting group giving in Cardiganshire ‘the Stone of the Bitch,’ in Glamorganshire ‘the Stone of the Greyhound Bitch,’ in Carmarthenshire and in Monmouthshire ‘the Kennel of the Greyhound Bitch,’ and in some other parts of Wales ‘the Stone of the Wolf Bitch.’ These names refer to no fact of modern experience; they are legendary. ”

“ Reference has been made, in the chapter on courtship and marriage, to the Welsh practice of planting graves with flowers. There are graves in Glamorganshire which have been kept blooming with flowers for nearly a century without interruption, through the loving care of descendants of the departed. ”

“ An old man named Jenkin Williams, a native of Llangwyryfon, a parish in the same County, who is 89 years of age, informed me that he well remembered the custom observed in his native parish, about seven miles from Aberystwyth, many years ago; but it is rarely observed at the present day. There are many parts of the country nowadays, where the practice is unknown, but there are evident signs that the beautiful old custom is reviving in parts of Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire, and Pembrokeshire. In Glamorganshire, as I have already observed, the custom is very general. ”

“ LLANTRISANT, a small town and a contributory parliamentary borough of Glamorganshire, Wales, picturesquely situated with a southern aspect, commanding a fine view of the vale of Glamorgan, in a pass on the mountain range which separates that vale from the valley of the Taff. The population of the parish in 1901 was 10,091 and of the contributory borough 2057. A branch of the Taff Vale railway running from Pontypridd to Cowbridge and Aberthaw has a station, Cross Inn, 1/2 m. ”

“ Cardiff has published its Records in 5 vols., and there is a volume of Swansea charters. There is no complete history of the county, except a modest but useful one in Welsh—Hanes Morganwg, by D. W. Jones (Dafydd Morganwg) (1874) ; the chief contributions are Rice Merrick’s Booke of Glamorganshire’s Antiquities, written in 1578; The Land of Morgan (1883) (a history of the lordship of Glamorgan) , by G. T. Clark, whose Genealogies of Glamorgan (1886) and Medieval Military Architecture (1884) are also indispensable ”

“ The village of Nantgarw is situated in the parish of Eglw y Sillan, in Glamorganshire; it is eight miles from Cardiff, and one mile from the “Taffs Well” Station, on the Taff Valley Railway; and the Rhymney Valley Railway is also equally near.
The works shown in the engraving are picturesquely situated by the side of the Glamorganshire Canal, on the road to Caerphilly, from whose glorious old ruined castle they are only a few miles distant.
Brown and Stoneware Potteries.—The other works (besides Nantgarw) in Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire are those of Messrs. ”

“ Originally a Norman building, most of the present fabric belongs to the 15th century. There are numerous chapels. Welsh is still the predominant language. Oliver Cromwell’s forbears were natives of this parish, as also was Sir Leoline Jenkins, secretary of state under Charles II. There are tinplate works at Pontyclun and numerous collieries in the district.
LLANTWIT MAJOR (Welsh Llan-Illtyd-Fawr) , a small market town in the southern parliamentary division of Glamorganshire, South Wales, about 1 m. from the Bristol Channel, with a station on the Barry railway, 5 m. S. of Cowbridge. Pop. ”

“ Among the Norman magnates who encouraged the intellectual movement in Wales—one stands out pre-eminent—Robert Earl of Gloucester and Lord of Glamorgan, a splendid combination of statesman, soldier, patron of letters. Robert was a natural son of Henry I.—born before 1100—there is no evidence that his mother was the beautiful and famous Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tudor. He acquired the Lordship of Glamorgan together with the Honour of Gloucester and other lands in England and Normandy, by marriage with Mabel, daughter and heiress of Fitzhamon, conqueror of Glamorgan. ”

“ Glamorgan, the old Morganwg, had been practically a County Palatine since Fitzhamon and his twelve knights seized it in Henry the First’s time, that is to say, the inferior lordships were held in fealty, not each to the King as elsewhere, but to the heirs of Fitzhamon, who for many generations were the Clares, Earls of Gloucester, having their capital at Cardiff, where higher justice was administered. Pembroke was something of the same sort, though the Flemish element made it differ socially from Glamorgan. ”

“ The conquest of “Morgannwg,” that is the country between the Usk and the Neath, was the most permanent of any of those accomplished by the Normans in Wales, but its details [Pg 277] are the most obscure of any. The earlier version of the Brut takes no notice of the conquest of Glamorgan; the later version which goes by the name of the Gwentian Chronicle [908] tells us that the Norman Robert Fitz Hamon, being called in to the help of one Welsh prince against another, conquered Glamorgan for himself, and divided it amongst his followers, who built castles in all parts of the country. ”

“ The mind of man was not yet broken down into a dull monotony.”
No doubt exists that all these, the more splendid characteristics of the age of chivalry, were daily before the eyes of the Welsh bard. The county of Glamorgan, in which he spent the greatest part of his life, was in his time studded with proud feudal castles, and superb ecclesiastical edifices in the finest style of architecture, many of which still excite admiration even in their ruins. In the hospitable mansion of his patron he appears to have enjoyed all the peculiar amusements of that festive period. ”

“ Fairs, too, were established and protected by the Lords Marchers. The early lords of Glamorgan seem to have been specially successful in this respect; in the twelfth century immigrants from other parts of Wales are said to have come to reside in Glamorgan, owing to the privileges and comparative security which were to be found there. Nor perhaps has it been sufficiently recognised how soon the [Pg 26] Lords of the Marches began drilling their Welsh subjects in Anglo-Norman methods of local self-government. Most of the greater Marcher Lords possessed estates in England ”

“ More serious, however, than Glamorgan, bristling as it was with Norman interests and Norman castles and always hard to hold against them, the powerful and populous island of Anglesey in the north and the Vale of the Towy in the south fell away from Glyndwr. ”

“ And the nature of his gifts to these two favoured houses would be almost enough of itself to enable us to set down Robert Fitz-hamon as conqueror of Glamorgan. Grant of Welsh churches to English monasteries. Gloucester and Tewkesbury were enriched at the cost of the churches of Glamorgan, proof enough that he who could thus enrich them had won great possessions in Glamorgan. The holy places of the Briton, Llantwit and Llancarfan, with a crowd of churches of lesser note, supplied the conqueror with an easy means of being bountiful with no cost to himself. ”

“ On the hill above Ruperra is a very large and very perfect moated mound, but without any trace or tradition of masonry. Llangibby is an old Monmouthshire castle.
The occupation by the Normans of the valleys of the Wye and the Usk no doubt served to protect the exposed flank of Monmouthshire, but beyond the Rhymny in Glamorgan this protection ceased, and the hill territory of Glamorgan contained a native population ever ready to assist their countrymen, who frequently invaded that Lordship from the north-west. ”

“ Is there then nobody in all the world but Glamorgan? Verily I believe thou wouldst turn thy back on the angel Gabriel, if he dared appear before thee without thy Ned under his arm. Bless the Irish heart! I never gave thee MY Ned that thou shouldst fall down and worship the fellow.'
'Bear with me, sir,' she answered faintly. 'It is but the pain here.
Thou knowest I cannot tell but he lieth at the bottom of the Irish Sea.'
'If he do lie there, then lieth he in Abraham's bosom, daughter, where I trust there is room for thee and me also. ”

“ Well, I was born in Glamorgan, at Ruperra Castle, on this side of the Rumney. I know that if a man is born in a stable it doesn't make him a horse, but I always understood that the place of your birth had a certain claim upon you. ”

“ The thriving industries, the densely populated districts, and the frequent and active railways, are in the extreme south or in the extreme north; and they are separated by five or six shires of pastures and sheep-runs, without large towns, and with comparatively few railways. In the three southern counties—Glamorgan, Monmouth, and Carmarthen—the population is between two and six people to 10 acres, and the industrial population is from twelve to three times the number of the agricultural. ”