Archbishop Williams hasted to Conway and fortified the castle for the King, and Charles, by letter from Oxford, “heartily desired him to go on with the work, assuring him that whatever moneys he should lay out upon the fortification of the said castle should be repaid him before the custody thereof should be put into any other hand than his own.”
The good people of Conway town placed all their valuables in the castle for security.
PLAS MAWR, CONWAY
In 1645 Sir John Owen, a colonel in the King’s army, obtained from Prince Rupert the appointment to the command of the castle. This the archbishop angrily resented, as the King had assured the governorship to him till the money he had dispensed should be repaid. Charles could not raise the requisite sum, and the castle was too important not to be placed under a soldier instead of a churchman. He accordingly went over to the side of the Parliament, and with the assistance of Colonel Mytton, the Parliamentarian officer, forced the gates and secured that stronghold for the faction against which he had hitherto contended.
Williams, in fact, had been keen-sighted enough to see that the King’s affairs were falling into ruin in all quarters, and he characteristically joined the winning side.
But if Williams had reckoned on retaining his archbishopric and other emoluments as the price of his treachery, he was mistaken. The rest of his life was spent in seclusion, in vain regrets, and it is said in sincere repentance, rising from his bed at midnight and praying on his bare knees, with nothing on but his shirt and waistcoat. He died at Gloddaith, near Conway, in 1650, and was buried in Llandegai Church, where a monument was erected to him by his nephew, Sir Griffith Williams.
Conway Church is good, with a fine tower and an Early Decorated chancel that has a Perpendicular east window inserted. But the greatest treasure of the church is its magnificent rood-screen; and there are good stalls in the choir.
Plas Mawr is a specimen of a Welsh gentleman’s house of the sixteenth century, with panelled rooms and quaint plaster ceilings. The house has fifty-two doors, as many steps up the tower, and 365 windows.