INTRODUCTION 



those of Sir Henry Sidney against the 

 O'Desmond. 



Here he spent three or four years ; but 

 this time it was his body that was "too 

 tender," and the standing waist (or, to use 

 his own expression, "twist") deep in the 

 bogs, combined with fasting and ill diet, 

 sent him home invalided to Bredwardine. 



That Bredwardine was a place of some 

 pretensions, we learn from some seventeenth- 

 century manuscript notes for a History of 

 Herefordshire. First in a list headed " Where 

 appeare any tokins of great old houses now 

 done desolated " we find " Castells within 

 the shire on the south side of Wye the 

 Castel of Bredwardine." Then in an account 

 of the different parishes comes, " Bredwardine 

 had a faire castel called the Castel of Grone, 

 and another at the place called the Court of 

 Vaughans, called also the Radnor; the first 

 held by appearing at Brecknocke Castle gate 

 on horseback completely armed with his 

 speare, and there to wait all day on the 

 day of . It is now honoured with a 



family of the Vaughans, of the second house, 

 whose ancestors by a match with one of the 

 co-heirs of the Parrys had by her great 

 viii 



