farm buildings. About 1800 a rude figure of a Virgin and Child was found among the rubbish, and on the mantelpiece of the principal apartment was carved a coat, bearing a chevron between three escallops. Neither Phillips nor Bowen bore those arms, but Pollard of Devonshire did; and, as Sir John Perrot, the Lord Deputy, married for his second wife Jane Pollard of that county, and as Trellwyn was only a short distance from Carew Castle, one of her family may have occupied the house as a tenant.

As at Angle, so in the case of Trellwyn, we have the tradition of three sisters building three houses, of which this was one, Scotsborough another. About the third there seems to be some uncertainty. It may possibly have been Whitwell, which, as well as Trellwyn, were later than the old parts of Scotsborough. Trellwyn must, however, have been much larger and more important than the other two, for when the Earl of Carberry held it for the king, it contained one hundred and fifty men and forty horses. The view gives the interior, but the building to the right, and which is later, opens on it: which is rather anomalous, unless this addition was made when the ruins consisted of little more than walls. It is, however, thought that imperfect as it is, it has a certain value as being the only record of what was once Trellwyn.

E. L. B.

Obituary.

JOHN STUART, F.S.A.-The Association, in July last, lost by the death of John Stuart one of its most distinguished members as well as one of its warmest friends. A native of Aberdeenshire, and educated in the University of its capital, he entered the legal profession and practised many years as an advocate,-a term in that University equivalent to a solicitor in England. Successfully engaged as he was in his professional career, he still found time to devote to literary studies, and above all to that of archaeology. In 1853 he received an appointment much more congenial to his tastes, and became one of the Searchers in the Register House, Edinburgh, an

office he held until 1873, when his merits were properly acknowledged by his being made Principal Keeper of the Register of Deeds in Scotland. Previous to his appointment in 1853 he, in concert with Robertson, originated the Spalding Club, a society devoted to the collection and publication of MSS. bearing on the history of the northern counties of Scotland. Among the last volumes published was the curious Book of Deer, a copy of which Mr. Stuart sent to the Pope, who graciously acknowledged the present, hoping at the same time that the interest shown in the history of the early Church might lead its author to become a member of the Romish communion. His great work was, however, the two folio volumes entitled The Sculptured Stones of Scotland, which will long remain a grand monument of his learned labours and sound judgment in the more difficult archæological questions of his day.

On his arriving at Edinburgh he was at once made one of the Secretaries of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, and became the life and soul of the Society. He was so intimately connected with it that it is not easy to imagine the Society without him. He was the first among those who entered into the question of Druids and their circles, which he had done more to place in their true light than any of his contemporaries. Where the spade could throw any light he at once appealed to it; and the results of his diggings confirmed his theory that all such circles are more or less connected with burial-places, and that Druidic altars and temples existed only in men's brains. No one who has read his article on this subject, contained in the second volume of his Sculptured Stones, will have any lingering doubt on the point.

He was an uncompromising Churchman, but could deeply sympathise with religious earnestness everywhere, and his loss will be deeply felt by those who have so long been aided by his wise counsel and liberal purse. His own University of Aberdeen made him LL.D., and he was an honorary member of the Royal Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the Societies of the Antiquaries of Zurich and Di storia Patria at Palermo.

By his first wife, the only daughter of Mr. Alex. Burness of Mastrich, Aberdeenshire, he left two married daughters. By his second wife, Jane, daughter of Colonel Ogilvie of Auchines, Brechin, he had issue; but the loss of some grandchildren by his first wife, and all his children by his second wife, greatly affected his health, and probably hastened the removal of one who was a Christian, not merely by profession of words, but in genuine principle and practical work. He died at Ambleside, 19 July 1877, in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

317

Correspondence.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARCHEOLOGIA CAMBRENSIS.

IN RE COYTY CASTLE.

SIR,-In my last letter on this subject I refrained from giving a pedigree of the family of Griffith, which exists in Harleian MS. 6128, being desirous of comparing it with the original Griffith pedigree, —a fine document now in the possession of Sir Henry Somerville Boynton, Bart., of Burton Agnes, co. York. This I have been enabled to do through the kindness of Lady Boynton, who copied out for me the portion of the original pedigree relating to the subject of Coyty Castle, the Vernons and Egertons.

Ednyved Vychan married Gwenllian, daughter of Rhys ab Gruffydd of South Wales. Their second son was Griffith, who married Gwenllian, daughter of Howel ab Trahaiarn ab Gwgan, lord of Brecknock, and by her had issue, Howel, who by Tangwystl, daughter of David Goch ab Howel Vychan, was father of Gruffydd, who married Nest, daughter of Caradoc ab Gwilim, lord of Cemmaes, and had issue, Rhys ab Gruffydd, who, by a daughter of Hamon Turbeville of Penlyn (?), was father of Sir Rhys, who married Joan the daughter and heiress of Sir Philip Somerville (1377) of Wichnour in Staffordshire, which thenceforth became the seat of the family. Sir Rhys and his wife had issue, another Sir Rhys (1380), who married, firstly, Isabel, daughter and heir of Sir Richard (or Robert) Stackpoole, and by her had a daughter Joan, heiress of her mother, who, as stated in my last letter, married Sir Richard Vernon (1413), "of whom the Vernons now living are descended". Sir Rhys, however, married a second time, Margaret, daughter of Lord Zouche, and by her had issue, Thomas Griffith, Esq. (1430), and John, who was beheaded. The elder son, Thomas Griffith, married Ann, daughter of Sir William Blount, and had issue, Sir John of Wichnour and Burton Agnes, who married Katherine, daughter of Sir Robert Tyrwhitt of Ketteby, co. Lincoln; and from these descended the further line of Griffith, the Egertons of Wrinchill, and the Boyntons, the present representatives of the Griffith family.

The above account shows how the Stackpole family went out of sight when its heiress married into a family far removed from the family estates; and the issue of that marriage was only an heiress, while the main line was continued by a second alliance. How many families are thus lost, of whom an account may still remain in private archives! It is too often the case that even good authors