CHAP. VI. 



MINIMI KNTF.IMMIISK IN WALKS. 



151 



buttons, which she hnlh in her custody and uscth 

 to wear at festivals. an<l the deep silver basin, spout pot, 

 maudlin cup, and small bowl ;" as well as " the keeping 

 and wearing of the great jewel given to him by the 

 Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, and after her 

 decease to such one of his sons as she may think most 

 worthy to wear and enjoy it." By the same will Lady 

 Myddelton was authorised to dispose of her interest in 

 the Cardiganshire mines for her own benefit ; and it 

 afterwards appears, from documents in the State Paper 

 Office, that Thomas Bushell, " the great chymist," as he 

 was called, purchased it for 400/. cash down, and 400/. 

 PIT annum during the continuance of her grant, which 

 had still twenty-five years to run after her husband's 

 death. 1 Besides these bequeathments, and the gifts of 

 land, money, and New River shares, which he had made 

 to his other children during his lifetime, Sir Hugh left 

 numerous other sums to relatives, friends, and clerks ; 

 for instance, to Richard Newell and Howell Jones 30/. 

 each, " to the end that the former may continue his 

 care in the works in the Mines Royal, and the latter in 

 the New River water- works," where they were then 

 respectively employed. He also left an annuity of 20/. 

 to William Lewyn, who had been engaged in the New 



1 Bushell is said to have made a 

 la r;4< fortune out of the mines after 

 Sir Hugh Myddelton's death. He 

 \vns authorised under an indenture 

 with Charles I., dated the 30th July, 

 1G37, to erect a mint in the Castle of 

 Aberyslwith, where he coined the 

 ln 11 ion drawn from the mines into 

 half-crowns, shillings, sixpences, half- 

 groats, ami halfpence. When the 

 civil wars broke out, P.ushell was not 

 ungrateful to the King presenting 

 him \\itli a loan, or rather gratuity, of 

 40,000/., and raising a regiment for 

 the royal service amongst his miners, 

 which he continued to maintain until 

 a late period in the contest between 

 the King and the Parliament. On 

 the- defeat of the former, he took re- 



fuge in the Isle of Lundy. Numerous 

 wild traditions are still related of 

 Bushell by the country people in the 

 neighbourhood of Lodge, where he 

 resided. There is a curious old well 

 in Lodge Park, known as " Bushell's 

 Well," where he is said to have killed 

 and thrown in his wife ; and the 

 people still believe that her headless 

 corpse haunts the wood round the 

 well. Fifty or sixty years after Sir 

 Hugh Myddelton's time the mines 

 wen- worked by Lewis Morris, the 

 well-known Welsh antiquarian writer. 

 Most of them are now abandoned. 

 An advertisement of a new company 

 torcoix-n those which had ceased to be 

 worked; recently appeared, but the de- 

 sign seems to have been abandoned. 



