Welsh Journals

antiquarian world of his day, it was expected that he might be in a position to induce others of his rank and aptitude to supply Speed with the necessary details. The second letter was sent by John Jones at Ludlow to Sir John Wynn on 26 March 1622, barely five months later, and was more specifically aimed at complimenting him for proceeding industriously to compile what was apparently a detailed survey of his own county, namely Caernarfonshire.29 He urged Sir John to send his material to the writer or his brother who would convey it directly to Speed. He despondently added that Sir John Hanmer and Sir Roger Mostyn of Flintshire and Simon Thelwal of Plas-y-Ward, prominent landed gentry in east Denbighshire and Flintshire and probably acquaintances of his brother Thomas who lived at Hope,30 had not even replied to his request which, in his mind, was a disgrace since the gentry of south Wales had been particularly active in this respect. This letter seems to imply that Wynn, in response to John Jones's earlier letter, had himself undertaken to supply Speed with information on Caernarfonshire apparently without knowing or without heeding any limitation which Speed may have liked to have imposed on the amount and nature of the factual details prepared but further than that it is difficult to decide what assistance, if any, Wynn gave to Speed. Further light is thrown on this probability by the recent acquisition by the National Library of Wales of a Mostyn manuscript purchased, among many others, at Christie's on 24 October 1974. It contains works by Sir John Wynn of Gwydir, including a copy of the History of the Gwydir Family which seems to derive from Bishop Humphrey Humphreys's copy of the work and written in an early eighteenth-century hand.31 This is followed by further notes on the descent of Wynn's great-grandfather, Maredudd ab Ieuan ap Robert, all of which have already appeared in print. The most interesting part of the document from the point of view of Wynn's antiquarian activities is the brief section on f.32r and f32v which seems to have been intended as a preface to the Memoirs of Sir John which have been published in the latest edition of the History of the Gwydir Family (1927). These sections seem not to have been discovered before the appearance of this document and they throw much light on Wynn's literary intentions and on his motives in writing his memoirs. He referred to the fact that he had observed and surveyed the 'soile and scituation' of Caernarvonshire (an account which, unfortunately, has not survived), and proceeded to record details of the 'witts and worthy members' who had prospered in the county other than the gentry and members of traditional county families which he believed someone else should undertake to describe.32 The preface seems to suggest that Sir John had intended to compile notes which would eventually form part of a larger descriptive work on the administration and physical features of his native county. His purpose was to give publicity to 'such as by theire own Industry have Advanced their fortunes and become Eminent'. He refers to the fact that he is writing forty-five years after Edmund Grindal's elevation to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 157533 and the year when Sir Thomas Ramsey, a London grocer,