Welsh Journals

The Robber's Grave in Montgomery Churchyard By J. D. K. LLOYD, M.A., F.S.A. I beshrew his heart, that gathers my opinion from anything he finds wrote here. (Dr. John North, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1677-1683). THE LEGEND The story of the "Robber's Grave"- the grave of the innocent man, wrongly convicted and hanged for highway robbery, upon which the grass will not grow- is not only well known locally, but has often been retold in various English- speaking countries: but there have been, so far as I am aware, no attempts to distentangle the known facts from the legend, nor to trace the growth of the latter, and the following pages are written with these ends in view. One of the most remarkable features of the legend is its comparatively recent date: the hanging-an undoubted fact-took place not in the distant past, but in the year 1821, and the earliest printed account of the execution and the legend appeared at the beginning of 1852, well within the memory of many of those who must have witnessed the event. This account, a paper-covered pamphlet of eight pages, entitled "The Robber's Grave in Montgomery Churchyard," its cover embellished with two moral woodcuts, one depicting a cattle-drover starting in horror before a body swinging in an iron cage from a gibbet, and the other showing a skeleton holding a scythe and confronting a seated man, bears the date January, 1852, and, on the cover, the words "Printed and Published by Park & Son, Newtown, Mid-Wales". The author's name is not given, but it is generally accepted that it was written by the Rev. Richard Henry Mostyn Pryce (1798-1858) of Gunley, one-time vicar of Trelystan, and the then head of one of the oldest of our county families, which claimed descent from Einion ap Seisyllt and which supplied several Sheriffs of Montgomeryshire. The late Mr. Robert Owen, of Welshpool, a well-known local antiquary and for many years a member of the Council of the Powysland Club, confirmed this attribution in a conversation with me in October, 1937, and added that Mr. Mostyn Pryce subsequently died as a result of wounds inflicted by him- self in a barber's shop at Newtown.