Welsh Journals

A MINSTREL FROM LITTLE ENGLAND Owing to the threatened erasure of the premier county and the resultant protracted discussions, the term "Little England beyond Wales" has acquired a particular significance in the calculations of our administrators. The special position of Pembrokeshire has been traditionally acknowledged within Wales, and the circumstance that gave rise to the distinction is a commonplace of history. That it was equally well-known in medieval England is shown in a hitherto unpublished document I discovered some time ago in the Public Record Office, London, and which I now place before my compatriots of "the mixed breed". The document mainly concerns Avice, Countess of Wiltshire, and a brief account of her association with west Wales must precede our examination of its contents. Born at Woodsford in Dorset, on 14 December 1423, Avice was the only child and heiress of Sir Richard Stafford by his wife Maud, daughter of Sir Robert Lovel and Elizabeth de Brian. Maud was one of the greatest heiresses of the early fifteenth century, having inherited the vast possessions of her mother Elizabeth Lovel, daughter and coheiress of Sir Guy de Brian, son of Sir Guy de Brian, lord of Walwynscastle, Laugharne, and Tor Brian in Devon. Some time before July 1438 Avice married James Botiller who was created Earl of Wiltshire in 1449, and on his father's death, three years later, he succeeded to the earldom of Ormond. An ardent Lancastrian, the Earl held important posts in the Royal Household and in the administration of the realm. He was a member of the Prince of Wales's Council, High Treasurer of England, Lieutenant of Ireland, Privy Councillor, and a Knight of the Garter. He, too, was connected with west Wales having been appointed Sheriff of Cardigan and Carmarthen for life, in 1442, and by a post-nuptial settlement made in 1445 his wife's possessions in Pembrokeshire and elsewhere were entailed upon him. In 1461 he marched from Wales with the Earl of Pembroke at the head of a large army of Welsh and Irish, to assist the Lancastrian queen, Margaret, but met with defeat at the battle of Mortimer's Cross on 2 February. Wiltshire escaped from the carnage, but in the subsequent disaster at Towton (29 March) he was captured by the Yorkists, beheaded on May Day, and his head placed on a pike on Tower Bridge. Avice did not see her husband's discomforture, as she had died, without issue, in 1457. Many years after the death of the Earl and Countess, disputes arose concerning the devolution of the Welsh properties, with the result that it became necessary to conduct an enquiry and to compile