1249. His widow then married Geoffrey de Genville, a Poitevin, who was living in 1283, and who held the Castle and half the manor, the other half belonging to Margery de Lacy, sister and coheiress with Matilda, and who had married John de Verdon. During that period, and immediately after the battle of Lewes, when Simon de Montfort visited Wales in 1264, he took Ludlow Castle, which, however, he could have held but for a short time.

Although Peter de Genville, son of Geoffrey and Matilda, died before both his father and mother, yet he had the Castle at his death in 1292. His daughter and heiress Johanna de Genville, married Roger de Mortimer, Earl of March, who, in 1316, was joint lord of Ludlow with Theobald de Verdon, grandson of John de Verdon and Margaret de Lacy.

The Mortimers held what they probably made the lion's share of Ludlow for five generations, through some of the most turbulent times in English history, but under this rule Ludlow gave place to Wigmore, their chief seat, and the centre of their oldest estates and main power. Roger, the paramour of the she-wolf of France, received the young Edward III at Ludlow soon after his father's death with great magnificence, and not long before his fall, attainder, and execution. Edmund his son, recovered this and his other castles in 1354, six years before his death. His grandson Roger, the fourth Earl of March, obtained the long separated moiety of the Lacy property by exchange with William de Ferrars, who had inherited it from the Verdons, and thus transmitted the whole of Ludlow to his son Edmund, the fifth earl, in whose time Sir Thomas Beaufort, afterwards Duke of Exeter, held the Castle against the insurgent Welsh. The fifth earl died childless in 1424, when Ludlow Castle and the earldom of March descended to his nephew, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, who held it through the wars of the Roses, and transmitted it to his son, King Edward IV. The borough of Ludlow profited by the

assumption of the Castle by the Crown. The townsfolk were steady Yorkists, and if they occasionally suffered, and that severely, from the fortunes of war, on the whole they were gainers. Their ancient franchises, dating at the least from the commencement of the thirteenth century, were confirmed in the reign of Henry VI by Richard, Duke of York, and in 1461 and 1478 Edward IV gave them an extended charter, under which they were removed from dependence upon the Castle. In 1472 the king sent his two sons to remain in the Castle, where the council of Wales, established by him, sat in the name of the elder, the Prince of Wales, then but an infant in arms. They remained at Ludlow until 1483, when they were removed to a prison and a grave in the Tower. Henry VII also sent Prince Arthur, his infant son, born in 1486, to Ludlow, and was himself a frequent visitor here till the prince's untimely death in 1502. After that event the council of Wales was established on a more regular footing, and placed under a lord president, who at first was a bishop. Money was granted for the repairs and maintenance of the Castle, which, it appears from Bishop Lee's report, in 1535 was in a ruinous state.

In 1559 Queen Elizabeth appointed Sir Henry Sidney as lord president. He held the office twenty-seven years, keeping considerable state at the Castle, where, on his return from Ireland, he passed the latter years of his life. He built the gatehouse within the middle ward, which the inscriptions inserted on the gate show to have been completed in 1581. He built also the bridge leading into the Castle, probably one to the outer gate, for the description does not accord with that standing, and which leads to the middle gate. Also he repaired the chapel, and brought water into the Castle, and did much in the way of general repairs, and of buildings and enclosures, to facilitate the business of the council and the custody of its prisoners. The keep, called then the porter's lodge, was the prison, and the inner ward their court for exercise. Sir Henry

died in May 1586. Whatever the council may have been in his time, it became, in the reign of James, a source of great expense and scandal, and Richard Baxter has left on record the condition, moral and social, to which the purlieus of this provincial court were reduced during his youth. It fell, and it was time, with the surrender of the Castle to the parliamentary army in 1646. The place was dismantled, and in 1651 the furniture and fittings were inventoried and put up for sale. At the restoration an attempt was made to revive the council, but the actual revival was nominal only, and even this was abolished on the coming in of King William. The Crown appointed a governor of the Castle, and it would seem, by an inventory of goods there in 1708, that part of it at any rate was in very tolerable repair, especially the rooms of state. The final ruin was commenced under an order by George I, when the lead was removed from the roofs. Buck, whose account was published in 1774, speaks of many of the apartments as still entire, and probably it was not absolutely roofless until the end of the century. In 1811 a lease held by the Powis family was converted by the Crown into a freehold.

G. T. C.

193

HISTORY OF THE LORDSHIP OF MAELOR GYMRAEG OR BROMFIELD, THE LORDSHIP OF IAL

OR YALE, AND CHIRKLAND,

IN THE PRINCIPALITY OF POWYS FADOG.
(Continued from p. 116).

GRUFFYDD AB RHYS of Maes--Margaret, daughter of Robin ab Gruffydd mor, ab David ab Howel ab | Goch of Llys Bryn Euryn in the parish of Gruffydd ab Owain ab Bleddyn Llandrillo Uwch Dulas; descended from ab Owain Brogyntyn Marchudd. Argent, a griffon passant guardant gules, for Gruffydd Goch, lord of Rhos and Rhufoniog

1 Ancestor of the Wynns of Plâs Isaf in Edeyrnion.

2 Thomas ab Robert, of Llwyn Dedwydd, married Elizabeth Anwyl, daughter and heiress of Morgan ab John of Cynllwyd, by whom he had an only daughter and heiress, Jane, who married

Pyers Maesmor of Maesmor, 1636

Robert Maesmor of Maesmor

John Maesmor of Maesmor

Margaret, d. of John Aer Conwy of Bodrhyddan, and Margaret his wife, d. of Pyers Mostyn of Talacre, and Elen his wife, d. of Thomas Gruffydd of Pant y Llwyn Du in Tegeingl

Jane, d. of Nicholas ab Edward of Garth Llwyd in the parish of Llandderfel in Penllyn, ab John Wynn ab Ieuan ab Maredydd ab Tudor ab Goronwy of Penllyn, ab Howel y_Gadair of Cadair Benllyn, ab Gruffydd ab Madog ab Iorwerth ab Madog ab Rhirid Flaidd, lord of Penllyn

Catherine, d. of Humphrey Hughes of Gwerclas and Bryn Tangor, Baron of Cymer in Edeyrnion, and High Sheriff for Denbighshire in 1670

John Wynn ab Cadwaladr of Plâs yn Rhiwlas; by which marriage the Rhiwlas family became possessed of Llwyn Dedwydd and Cynllwyd. By his wife, Jane, John Wynn had a son and heir, Cadwaladr Wynn, who was the ancestor of the Prices of Rhiwlas. Morgan of Cynllwyd was the son of John ab Ieuan ab Rhys ab leuan ab Gruffydd ab Madog ab Iorwerth ab Madog ab Rhirid Flaidd. See Mont. Coll., Oct. 1876.