Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume IIVaughan, Henry
General
Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II
Vaughan, Henry
Poetry
I now proceed to confirm and illustrate the pedigrees by giving such
further facts concerning Vaughan's immediate family as I have been able
with Miss Morgan's assistance, to glean. I can trace no family of Wises
in Staffordshire so early as the seventeenth century, nor any place in
that county called Ritsonhall. It is possible that the R. W. of the
_Elegy_ (vol. ii., p. 79, _note_) may have been a Wise, and also that
the connection between Vaughan and the Staffordshire Egertons may have
been through this family (vol. ii., p. 294, _note_). Vaughan's first
wife Catharine was probably dead before 1658. Thomas Vaughan, in his
diary (MS. Sloane, 1741, f. 106 (b)), makes mention in that year of
"eyewater made at the Pinner of Wakefield by my dear wife and my Sister
Vaughan, who are both now with God." The second wife, Elizabeth,
survived her husband. Administration of his goods was granted to her as
the widow of an intestate in May, 1695.[5] The fine old manor-house at
Newton was pulled down by a stupid land-agent within the memory of man,
but a stone has been found built into the wall of a house half-a-mile
from the site, bearing the inscription "H^VE, 1689." This may well
stand for H[enry and] E[lizabeth] V[aughan]. Newton probably passed to
the poet's eldest son Thomas and his wife Frances.[6] Of their
descendants, if any, we know nothing. There was a William Vaughan of
Llansantffread who, later than 1714, married Mary Games of Tregaer in
Llanfrynach. But this was probably a Vaughan not of Newton, but of
Scethrog, also in Llansantffread (_cf._ footnote to p. xxv. below.) In
1733 William Vaughan was churchwarden of Llanfrynach. In 1740 William
Vaughan of Tregaer was high sheriff of Brecknock. In 1760 Tregaer had
passed by purchase to a Mr. Phillips. The registers of Llanfrynach from
1695-1756 are now lost. Lucy Greenleafe and her sister Catharine are
quite obscure. One of them may have been the niece who was living with
Thomas Vaughan when news came from the country in 1658 of his father's
death (MS. Sloane, 1741, f. 89 (b)). Of the second family, Henry became
Rector of Penderin in 1684, and vacated the living, probably through
death, in 1713. A tablet to his memory hung during the present century
in the church at Penderin, but when the church was restored the tablets
were taken down and buried under the tiles of the chancel. His wife, a
Walbeoffe of Talyllyn, belonged to the same family as the Walbeoffes of
Llanhamlach (vol. ii., p. 189, _note_). The eldest girl, Grisill,
married Roger Prosser. The Prossers were the younger branch of a
Brecknockshire family who had become sadlers and mercers in Brecon. Many
of their tombs are in the Priory church, but Theophilus Jones states
that by his time they were extinct. Grisill Prosser was married a second
time, in 1709, to Morgan Watkins, an attorney, and was buried on August
21, 1737. The second girl, Lucy, married Jenkin Jones of Trebinshwn, a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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