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"protector." He built them a chapel, attended 

 by both preacher and curate, who got respec- 

 tively ^50 and ^*2O yearly good stipends for 

 those days and almshouses for the sick and 

 old. The priests must have been a great 

 boon outside the commonwealth, for in all 

 the Golden Valley, " which is seven miles long 

 and one broad," there was not one parish 

 which could afford to maintain a priest, and 

 a young "preacher" used to come over from 

 Hereford every now and then, and preach so 

 many sermons at so much a piece, charging 

 very high, Rowland hints, on account of the 

 fancied perils of the journey ! 



Other ministrations the people had none, 

 except that of an old monk, survivor of the 

 " great house of White Monks " (Abbey Dor), 

 who is evidently in Rowland's eyes a great 

 deal worse than nobody ; though I cannot 

 decide whether a Papist or a Puritan was his 

 chiefest aversion probably the latter, the 

 religion which did not allow oaths being 

 quite unfit for any gentleman. 



The poet, John Davies of Hereford, who 

 lauds his kinsman with such fervour that 

 only the knowledge that he was writing- 

 master to Henry Prince of Wales, and a 

 xvii b 



