254 HISTORICAL MEMORANDA OF 



used as a supporter by the IMortiraers, as also a white wolf, 

 another of King Edward's badges. He likewise had a black dra- 

 gon, which he derived, through the IMortimers, from the Burghs, 

 Earls of Ulster. The faulcon and fetter-lock was a badge of the 

 house of York. The falcon seems to have been added by Richard, 

 Earl of Cambridge, grandfather to Edward IV., to the fetter-lock 

 which had previously been used by his family. The fetter-lock 

 was at first closed, it is said to shew how distant the family were 

 from the throne, but after the accession of Edward IV. it was 

 opened. The crest of the Mortimer family was a pyramid of fea- 

 thers, azure, issuing from a ducal coronet or.* The divers colours 

 were murrey and blue. 



Wigmore Castle was conveyed to the Lancastrian family by the 

 marriage of Elizabeth of York with Henry VII. It seems to have 

 continued in the crown during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward 

 VI., and Queen Mary, but Queen Elizabeth, at the instance of 

 Robert, Earl of Essex, granted, in 1591, to Sir Gelly Meyrick, 

 then Captain Meyrick, and his heirs, " the burgh of Wigmore, and 

 the dominion, honor, manor, and castle of Wigmore, in the county 

 of Hereford, part of the possession called Wigmore Land, and all 

 the lands, tenements, and hereditaments, belonging to the same ; 

 and the forest and chace of Boringswood, and the forest and chace 

 of Morktrey, and all the lands, tenements, and hereditaments, ap- 

 pertaining thereto ; and to Henry Lyndley, Esq., the other steward 

 of the Earl of Essex, divers lands, tenements, and hereditaments, 

 in the counties of Hereford, Cornwall, Cardigan, Glamorgan, Lin- 

 coln, and York.t" 



Sir Gelly (pronounced Gethley) was the eldest son of the Right 

 Rev. Dr. Roland Meyrick, and Catherine, daughter of Owen Bar- 

 rett, of Gellyswick, in the county of Pembroke, he being the second 

 son of Meyric ab Llewelyn, of Bodorgan, in the county of ^ngle- 

 sea. Esquire. He was born about the year 1556, left fatherless at 

 the age of nine, and his mother retiring afterwards to Hascard, in 

 Pembrokeshire, the early part of his life was passed in that county. 

 He seems to have entered the army in 1572, and both he and his 

 brother, afterwards Sir Francis Meyrick, were in the expedition to 

 the Netherlands commanded by Sir Thomas Norreys. It was on 

 the 1st of August, 1579^ at the battle of Rimenant, that he so dis- 



• See Williment's Regal Heraldry^ an antiquarian work of much research 

 and authority. 

 t Document in the State-Paper OfRce. 



