He lived quietly with his wife and children, keeping a school, at one time at Overton Madog, then at Wrexham, Gresford, and again at Overton; and had many scholars, as he led an exemplary life, and was well known for his learning and scholarship. He does not seem to have been mixed up with any seditious movements, or to have been associated with the Jesuits. Nevertheless he was arrested in 1580 and cast into prison, and kept there for four years; he was treated with great harshness, and frequently tortured to force him to accept the Queen’s supremacy. After several trials he was finally brought up at Wrexham Assizes in 1584 and condemned to death for high treason. The sentence was as follows:-- “Richard White (_i.e._ Gwynn) shall be brought to prison from whence he came, and thence drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, where he shall hang half dead, and so be cut down alive, his members cast into the fire, his belly ripped into the breast, his bowels, liver, lungs, heart, etc., thrown likewise into the fire, his head cut off, his body be parted into four quarters.” “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.