CHAPTER XV
NEWTOWN
Manufacture of cloth and flannel—Fine screen and ugly modern church—Sir John Pryce—Aberhafesp Church—S. Mark’s Eve—Bed of an ancient lake—Caersws—Legend of Swsan—Obligations of a chieftain—How a tribe would increase—How to reduce the difficulty of providing land—Llanwnog—S. Gwynnog—Consequences to his family of the publication of the letter of Gildas—View from Llanwnog—Llanidloes Church—Richard Gwynn—Chartist riots—Poetical description of them—Robert Owen—Henry Williams—Richard Davies.
NEWTOWN is new in every particular except in its manufacture, and that of cloth and flannel was old enough in Wales, if we may judge by the spindle-whorls and shuttles found in camp and cairn; but the business once spread over the Principality is now concentrated at Newtown.
The ugly white brick church has taken the place of one that was old, and contained a magnificent screen. This has not been destroyed, but is preserved in a barn at the rectory. There is some talk of placing it once more in the church, where it would be like the proverbial jewel of gold in a swine’s snout.
Sir John Pryce, fifth baronet, of Newtown Hall, was born in 1698, and succeeded to the title and estates on the death of his father in 1720. He married first his first cousin Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Powell. She died in 1731.
One day Sir John was overtaken by a storm of rain whilst out shooting, and took refuge under a tree, and to the same shelter ran a girl, Mary, daughter of a small farmer of Berriew, named John Morris. As the rain continued to fall, Sir John Pryce was given plenty of time to make the girl’s acquaintance, to fall in love with her, and to propose. This led to a second marriage.
But the humble origin of Lady Pryce led to much spiteful comment, and some people would assert that she had not been married to Sir John. This was absolutely untrue, but falsehood is believed if venomous. Whether it were this, or that she could not accommodate herself to her new situation, or the fact that the first Lady Pryce was kept, embalmed, by the bedside, or perhaps all together combined to weigh on her spirits, and she died of despondency after two years of married life. This was in 1739.
In July, 1741, the Rev. W. Felton, curate of Newtown, was dying, when, two days before his death, he received a long letter from Sir John Pryce, from which a few passages may be extracted:—
“Dear Mr. Felton,—I waited an opportunity yesterday of conferring with you in private; but, not finding the room in which you sat clear a minute, I am forced to communicate this way my thoughts. I have abundant reason to believe that you will immediately enter upon a happier state when you make an exchange, and I desire that you will do me the favour to acquaint my two Dear Wives, that I retain the same tender Affections and the same Honour and Esteem for their Memories which I ever did for their persons, and to tell the latter, that I earnestly desire, if she can obtain the Divine permission, that she will appear to me, to discover the persons who have wronged her, and put me into a proper method of vindicating those wrongs which robbed her of her life and me of all my happiness in this world.
“I heartily wish you the Divine protection and assistance, and am