Some of the domestic offices remain, and in one of these is a Decorated window of rich and original design. Three lights filled in with flamboyant tracery are surmounted most strangely by bold, uncusped tracery richly sculptured with foliage.
Plas Eliseg is one of those delightful old timber-and-plaster houses of which there are so many, and all so charming and so peculiarly English, in Shropshire and Montgomeryshire; it is a gem of its style and quite unspoiled, in an exquisite situation, and rich with oak panelling and ancient furniture. It contains Lely’s portrait of Cromwell, mole and all, as well as one of his mother. The house belonged to Colonel Jones, the regicide, who was executed at the Restoration; it has passed out of the possession of his descendants.
THE PILLAR OF ELISEG
VALE CRUCIS ABBEY
The place has earlier associations. Hither Owen ab Cadwgan, a wild blood of the twelfth century, carried off the Helen of Wales, Nest, daughter of Rhys ab Tewdwr. Her story is worth recording.
Cadwgan was king of Powys and lord of Ceredigion. His son Owen “possessed the best and the worst characteristics of the Cymric princely families.” On Christmas, 1108, Cadwgan held a great eisteddfod at Cardigan, to which he invited all the kings, princes, and chiefs of the three kingdoms of Wales. To this gathering came Nest, daughter of Rhys, king of Deheubarth, who had been sent as a child as hostage to the English court, and Henry I. had basely taken advantage of her unprotected position to seduce her. He, however, quickly married her to Gerald of Windsor, whom he appointed Governor of Dyfed, with his residence at Pembroke. She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, and Owen, son of Cadwgan, seeing her at his father’s court, fell desperately in love with her.
Assembling some wild fellows, he went with them to Pembroke, attacked the castle and set it on fire. Gerald had only time to escape by a drain, and so save himself, but Nest and his two children were taken by Owen, who carried them off to Plas Eliseg. This created a great commotion. King Cadwgan, fearing for the consequences, went promptly to his son and commanded him to restore at once the fair Nest to her husband. But the turbulent and enamoured Owen refused to give back the lady, and only reluctantly returned the children to their father.