Welsh Journals

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mercer. They set the attack in the aftermath of a great affray made by Welshmen in Bristol on midsummer night 1527. They place it on the town bridge, as the mayor and his brethren returned from watching wrestling on St James's day, 25 July. And they describe how the assailant named as William Herbert in one of the three chronicles, merely as a Welshman in the others escaped into Wales by boat on the ebbing tide.4 Evidence from the records of the court of King's Bench seems to place the veracity of the anecdote beyond doubt. On 3 August 1527, the Bristol coroners held an inquest on the body of William Vaughan. Their report is printed below. Vaughan, it states, had died on 2 August of a wound to the right side of his head received in an assault with swords by William Herbert and six named accomplices on the town bridge on 28 July. Two further accomplices assisted in their escape, taking them by boat from the Back the landing place on the north bank of the Avon downstream from the bridge into Wales. 5 The details given in the inquest seem consistent with what other evidence we have about those said to be involved. William Herbert himself was, as Aubrey wrote, a younger son. His father, Richard Herbert, esquire, of Ewias and Abergavenny, an illegitimate son of William Herbert, earl of Pembroke (d. 1469), had died in 1510. Sources differ as to the exact number of children Richard fathered: the tallies range from three, and two bastards, to eight, or seven and three bastards, though probably the most reliable pedigree gives a legitimate progeny of three sons and one daughter.6 We can, however, be confident that the future Sir George Herbert of Swansea was the eldest 4 F. F. Fox (ed.), Adams's Chronicle of Bristol (Bristol, 1910), p. 86; Bristol Record Office, MSS 07831, 09594. 5 M. D. Lobel, E. M. Carus-Wilson, 'Bristol', The Atlas of Historic Towns II, ed. M. D. Lobel (London, 1975), pp. 7, 13, map 2; J. W. Sherborne, The Port of Bristol in the Middle Ages (Bristol, 1965), map facing p. 17. 6 British Library, MS Harley 6068, fo. 94v (George Owen of Henllys), consonant with J. H. Matthews (ed.), Cardiff Records (6 vols, Cardiff, 1898-1911), IV, 34 (Sir Edward Mansel of Margam). For the other figures, see J. A. Bradney (ed.), Llyfr Baglan (London, 1910), p. 202; C. E. Long (ed.), Diary of the Marches of the Royal Army during the Great Civil War kept by Richard Symonds (Camden Society, LXXTV, 1859), p. 237; G. T. Clark, Limbus Patrum Morganiae et Glamorganiae LXXIV, 1859), p. 237, G. T. Clark, Limbus Patrum Morganiae et Glamorganie (London, 1886), p. 283.