A Book of North Wales

by S. Baring-Gould

As time passed, and Henry showed no inclination to release them, Gruffydd became desperate, and contrived a plan of escape along with his devoted wife, who had obtained a reluctantly granted permission to visit her husband and son in prison. He cut up the tapestry of his chamber, as also his sheets and table-cloths, into strips, which he twisted and plaited into a rope, and one night, by means of this frail cable, attempted to descend from his window, assisted from above by his son Owen, whilst Senena waited below. But the great weight of Gruffydd strained and ravelled out the cable; it broke, and he fell from so great a height that his head, striking the ground, was driven to the chin into his breast, and he was killed on the spot.

Owen was thenceforth kept in closer durance than before.

The lovely Llyn Cynwch is under the mountains, and reflects Cader Idris on its glassy surface. Nannau, the old residence of the Vaughan family, is near the Precipice Walk, and in the grounds, where now stands a sundial, was formerly the “Spirit’s Blasted Tree,” alluded to in Marmion. Nannau was the seat of Howel Sele, a cousin of Glyndwr; he had rendered himself obnoxious to his relative by the zeal with which he had espoused the cause of King Henry IV. The Abbot of Cymmer, desirous of effecting a reconciliation, contrived that the cousins should meet. Howel had the reputation of being an excellent archer, and as he and Glyndwr were walking in the grounds of Nannau the latter pointed out a deer for the purpose of trying his kinsman’s dexterity. Howel bent his bow, adjusted the arrow, but abruptly turned its point on Glyndwr and discharged it at his breast. Happily the latter wore a suit of chain mail under his kirtle, and the purpose of the assassin was foiled. Howel was instantly seized by the followers of his intended victim and thrown into the hollow trunk of an oak that stood by, and was there left to perish. His skeleton was not discovered till forty years later. Glyndwr burnt the house of Nannau, and committed other devastations on the domain of his treacherous relative.

CADER IDRIS

The tree fell on the night of July 13th, 1813. Out of it has been fashioned a table now at Hengwrt.

Hengwrt is an interesting old house, and stands in woods that are famous among entomologists as the haunt of many rare moths; and the traces of these latter may be noted on the trees, where they have been smeared with ale and sugar; and the lanterns of these eager scientists wander about the shades of the oaks at night like wills-o’-the-wisp.

Dolgelley was the native place of John Thomas, Bishop of Salisbury. He was born in 1681, and was the son of a porter in the service of a brewer. His father’s employer, seeing that he was a bright, clever boy, paid the expenses of his education at school and college. He was ordained and went as chaplain to the English factory at Hamburg, and owing to the fluency with which he could speak German, acquired during his residence in the capacity of chaplain at that seaport, he attracted the notice of King George II., who took Thomas along with him whenever he visited his electorate of Hanover. Thomas married a Danish woman, and on her death married a niece of Bishop Sherlock of Salisbury. He was made rector of S. Vedast’s, Foster Lane, London, and then prebendary of Westminster and canon of S. Paul’s. In 1743 he was nominated to the bishopric of S. Asaph, but before he was consecrated he was offered and accepted the bishopric of Lincoln, and was consecrated in 1744. He was translated to Salisbury in 1761, and died there in 1766.

“He is,” says Cole, who wrote during his lifetime, “a very worthy and honest man, a most facetious and pleasant companion, and remarkably good-tempered. He has a peculiar cast in his eyes, and is not a little deaf. I thought it rather an odd jumble, when I dined with him in 1753; his lordship squinting the most I ever saw anyone; Mrs. Thomas, the bishop’s wife, squinting not a little; and a Dane, the brother of his first wife, being so short-sighted as hardly to be able to know whether he had anything on his plate or no. Mrs. Thomas was his fourth wife, granddaughter, as I take it, of Bishop Patrick, a very worthy man. It is generally said that the bishop put this poesy to the wedding ring when he married her: ‘If I survive, I will have five’; and she dying in 1757, he kept his word.”