“What is all this?” said Gwynn. “Is it any more than one death?”
The sentence was carried out on October 15th, 1584.
Llanidloes was the scene of a Chartist outbreak in 1839. The weavers armed and requisitioned contributions from the neighbourhood. Lord John Russell, who was Home Secretary, sent down three police officers to cope with hundreds of rioters well armed with fowling-pieces, pistols, and hand grenades. The magistrates then, unsupported properly, took the matter into their own hands and swore in special constables. The crisis came on April 30th. A man blowing a horn summoned the Chartists to assemble on the Bridge, and three men were captured on their way to the assembly, and were conveyed to the “Trewythen Arms.” The crowd now rushed to attempt a rescue, but was held at bay by fifty special constables. However, by weight and numbers, the rioters drove them away after a struggle, entered the inn, and wrecked it; they liberated the three men who had been taken, and caught the ex-mayor, who appealed to the mob to spare his life, as he was a doctor who had brought many of them into the world. They let him go, and he left the town to give the alarm. For five days Llanidloes was ruled by mob law, but the Chartist leaders saw that no gross outrages were committed.
Matters had now become too serious to be dealt with in the mild manner Lord John Russell had thought might suffice. Military aid was sent. An old lady has recorded her reminiscences of the time.
“The town,” she says, “was in an uproar. The Chartists had been drilling in the Dingle. The news came that a regiment of soldiers was coming to put down the riots, and I can remember watching their arrival. I was standing in a crowd on the Bank, and the soldiers in red coats and brass helmets came up the Pool road, the band playing before them. I shall never forget the scene. The women and children were crying like wild things, they thought everybody was going to be slaughtered. The soldiers proceeded to Newtown Hall, followed by a great and excited crowd. Here they were met by George Arthur Evors, the chief magistrate, who gave instructions to fire. But the officer in charge refused. ‘What,’ he said, ‘fire upon a lot of women and children? Certainly not.’ The soldiers, after all, did no harm, but in the course of a row one man was killed with clubs. After that we did not hear much about the Chartists. Many of them left the country, and never returned. Some were arrested and put into gaol, others managed to hide till things had quieted down, and then came back. But poor Frost, Jones, and Williams were transported.”
A schoolmaster of Newtown named George Thomas wrote a Hudibrastic poem on the riots, containing allusions and sly hits at local characters that were much relished at the time.
According to him—
“The rebels had a bullet mould,
A pistol rusty, crack’d and old,
Some bellows, pipes, and lucifers,
Tweezers, card-plates, and goose-oil cans,
With dust and other nameless pans,
Hot water, soapsuds, toasting prongs,
With cat-calls, horns, and women’s tongues.”
All ended with much noise and little harm done.