C. H. Cooper.
Cambridge, April 28. 1851.
Charles II. in Wales (Vol. iii., p. 263.).—In answer to Davydd Gam's Query, it may be observed that I have never heard of the tradition in question, nor have I met with any evidence to show that Charles II. was in any part of Wales at this period. In "The true Narrative and Relation of his most sacred Majesty's Escape from Worcester," Selection from the Harleian Miscellany, 4to., p. 380., it is stated that the king meditated the scheme of crossing into Wales from White Ladies, the house of the Penderells, but that "the design was crossed." One of the "Boscobel Tracts," at p. 137., treating of the same period, and compiled by the king himself in 1680, mentions his
intention of making his escape another way, which was to get over the Severn into Wales, and so get either to Swansea, or some other of the sea towns that he knew had commerce with France; beside that he "remembered several honest gentlemen" that were of his acquaintance. However, the scheme was abandoned, and the king fled to the southward by Madeley, Boscobel, &c., to Cirencester, Bristol, and into Dorsetshire, and thence to Brighton, where he embarked for France on the 15th Oct., 1651.
Lancaiach is still in possession of the Prichard family, descendants of Col. Prichard.
There is a tradition that Charles I. slept there on his way from Cardiff Castle to Brecon, in 1645, and the tester of the bed in which his Majesty slept is stated to have been in the possession of a Cardiff antiquary now deceased. The facts of the case appear in the Iter Carolinum, printed by Peck (Desiderata Curiosa). The king stayed at Cardiff from the 29th July to the 5th August, 1645, on which day he dined at Llancaiach, and supped at Brecon.
J. M. T.
"Ex Pede Herculem" (Vol. iii., p. 302.).—The following allusion to the foot of Hercules occurs in Herodotus, book iv. section 82.:
"Ἴχνος Ἡρακλέος φαίνουσι ἐν πέτρῃ ἐνεὸν, τὸ οικε μὲν βήματι ἀνδρὸς, ἔστι δὲ τὸ μέγαθος δίπηχυ, παρὰ τὸν Τύρην ποταμὸν."
Alfred Gatty.