ciiAi'. II. .MKI.VIIANT AI>VKNTU:KI!. i<>:. 



At a comparatively advanced age, Myddelton took t<> 

 lii nisei f a wife; and the rank and fortune of the lady 

 lie married afford some indication of the position he had 

 thru attained. She was Miss Elizabeth Olmstead, the 

 daughter and sole heiress of John Olmstead of Ingate- 

 stone, Essex, with whom the thriving goldsmith and 

 merchant adventurer received a considerable accession 

 of property. That he had secured the regard of his 

 nciirli hours, and did not disdain to serve them in the 

 local offices to which they chose to elect him, is apparent 

 from the circumstance that he officiated for three years 

 as churchwarden for the parish of St. Matthew, to which 

 post he was appointed in the year 1598. But he had 

 public honours offered to him of a more distinguished 

 character. He continued to keep up a friendly con- 

 nection with his native town of Denbigh, and he seems 

 to have been mainly instrumental in obtaining for the 

 borough its charter of incorporation in the reign of 

 Elizabeth . In return for this service the burgesses elected 

 him their first alderman, and in that capacity he signed 

 the first by-laws of the borough in 1597. On the back 

 of the document are some passages in his hand-writing, 

 commencing with " Tafod aur yngenau dedwydd " [A 

 golden tongue is in the mouth of the blessed], followed 

 by other aphorisms, and concluding with some expressions 

 of regret at parting with his brethren, the burgesses 

 of Denbigh, whom he had specially visited on the 

 occasion. 



On his next visit to the town he appears to have 

 entered upon a mining enterprise, in the hope of being 

 able to find coal in the neighbourhood. In a letter 

 written by him in 1625 to Sir John Wynne, he thus 

 refers to the adventure : " It may please you to under- 

 stand that my first undertaking of publick works was 

 amongst my own people, within less than a myle of the 

 place where I hadd my first beinge (24 or 25 years 



