29 



gone by. This derivation is certainly weU bome out by the abundance of yew 

 trees growing at this time throughout the whole district— that is, yew trees apart 

 from churchyards— and it was their free and general growth in the woods and on 

 the hill sides here and in some parts of Monmouthshire that gave the Rev. Mr. 

 ■Woodhouse an argument in favour of the yew tree as being truly indigenous to 

 Britain, in the paper he read before the Club in 1866. The only other combination 

 in which "Ewyas" occurs is " Teflfont-Ewyas " (spelt here Evias) in Wiltshire, and 

 this Mr. Edmunds thinks may be explained by the fact that the Norman Lords often 

 carried with them the names of their chief property appended to their Saxon 

 names, and a knight "de Ewyas" may have removed to Teffont, in Wiltshire. 

 In this instance a lady may possibly have taken the name there, for it is curious 

 that Ewyas Harold has so distinct a connection with Wiltshire that the name 

 there may possibly be thus explained. The male descent of the Lords of Ewyas 

 ended with the third lord, whose heiress, Sibille or Sybilla Ewyas married Robert 

 de Tregoz, of Lydiard-Tregoz, in Wiltshire. 



The difficulty with the other half of the name Ues in an opposite direction ; 

 there are too many sources of derivation. Harold is clearly from the Lord of the 

 Castle, but there are several Harolds in the field. He was the natural son of 

 "Kynge Harold" according to Leland, of Fitz-Osborne Earl of Hereford, 

 according to Dugdale, of Ralph Earl of Hereford, according to Gough, and lastly 

 Mr. Freeman, the talented author of " the Historyof the Norman Conquest," makes 

 him to have been the son of Drogo Fitz-Pontz, mentioned in the Domesday Survey 

 as owning considerable property in the Hundred of Vlfei (Wolphey), in this 

 county. Whoever he was, he was a natural son, as is proved by the frequent use 

 in old documents of the word "Map-Harold," from " Mab," a natural son, the 

 British equivalent of the Norman "Fitz." The fact of iUegitimacy was always 

 clearly marked from most ancient times, but its stigma has been greatly changed. 

 William the Conqueror himself was but the son of Arietta, the tanner's 

 daughter, who captivated his father, Duke Robert of Normandy, when washing 

 her pretty feet in the stream of Falaise, and he hesitated not occasionaUy to sign 

 himself " Guliemus bastardus," nor is there any proof even of the existence of 

 the bend sinister in Heraldry untU the fifteenth century. The stigma of IUegi- 

 timacy would not therefore stand in the way of any man of mark in those times, 

 but none of those last named Harolds seem to have been men of mark or to have 

 done anything worthy of giving their name to the lordship,-and it seems more 

 probable therefore to beUeve with Leland-whose minute description is of great 

 value-that this Harold was the natural son of " Kynge Harold, and of this Harold 

 part of Ewis was named Ewis Harold" (Itin. vol. viii. p. 84). The son of King 

 Harold, and it may be (to throw a Uttle poetry on the dry facts of history) of the 

 fair Edith, Edeva pulchra, of the old Saxon writings, the swan-necked and 

 beautiful Edith descended from Royal Norse blood, his second cousin, and there- 

 fore "ower sibbe," as the Saxons say, that is "too near akin " for the church to 

 permit of marriage. " The fame is," says Leland, "that the castle of Map-Herald 

 was buildedof Harold afore he was Kynge ; and when he overcame the Walsche 



