Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

moiety by an assignment made by Morgan ap Llywelyn ap Eignion. Hugh Lewis died shortly before 4 March 1604/5 when his will (Probate Records, N.L.W.) was proved. He was buried in the parish church of Ystrad. He bequeathed land, stock and crop variously to his children Richard, Owen, Thomas, Marged, Agnes and Gwenhwyfar, including the tenement of tir castle bygaid (now Castell-buged), land near the bridge, and a house and garden called [ ] mawr Phillip David Phillip, all in the lordship of Llanbeder, and land at Llanwnen. One of the witnesses to the will was his brother Rees Lewis, clerk, vicar of Llanfihangel Ystrad from n May 1583. His heir was the eldest son Richard who seems to have succeeded him at Maes-mynach, which is unfortunately not named in the will, for in 1618-29 the tenant there was Morgan Richard, probably the son of Richard ap Hugh. It is perhaps significant that in 1540-60 the tenant of Maes-mynach was also called Morgan Richard and was probably an ancestor, i.e. 'Syr' Morgan, the grandfather of Hugh Lewis. But Hugh Lewis will be remembered mainly as the owner and instigator of 'Llyfr Hafodwen', Mostyn MS. 159, which George Owen seems to have used for the supplementary information about the children of the Lord Rhys which Owen indicated should follow the rest of the pedigree at fo. 51b of Brogyntyn MS 15. At this latter point he inserted the marginal note see more in the Welshe book of Robert geo which we should expect to be a cross-reference to the Hafodwen (Mostyn) MS. owned by Hugh Lewis and later by Robert Gethin. Either Robert geo is a mistake for Robert Gethin or the manuscript he was quoting from was a copy of the Hafodwen MS. owned by an unidentified Robert geo[?rge]. The next section of the Brogyntyn MS., written by another of Owen's scribes, contains a further collection of pedigrees, predominantly of South Wales families. The ultimate source of this section is partly a book made by levan Brechfa, written according to Owen's marginal note pan oedd oed Krist 1513, but some of the pedigrees have been extended to the second half of the sixteenth century and Owen probably was using a copy of levan's book. The final section also contains genealogical material in various hands. The manuscript is a well-preserved, neat folio containing folios numbered (inaccurately) 1-250 plus 23 blanks. It has been rebound in calf with the original tooled covers dating from George Owen's days inlaid. In preparing this note I have received much asisstance from Mr. Graham Thomas, Mr. D. Emrys Williams, Mr. Robert Davies, Mr. Ifor Pugh and other members of the Library staff, and Dr. E. D. Jones for which I am grateful. B. G. CHARLES Aberystwyth