caster, and he was not long in obtaining from Rhys assurances of support in the same cause.

It was rather more than eleven years after the decisive battle of Tewkesbury, when Henry, Earl of Richmond, afterwards Henry the Seventh of England, landed at Milford Haven, with a small band of French auxiliaries, to make a desperate, and, as it should then seem, with such inadequate means, a fruitless effort to dethrone the tyrant of York, and to seize for himself the sceptre and crown of Britain. Rhys ap Thomas no sooner heard of the arrival of the French fleet in the bay, than, true to his promise, he ordered the beacon fires to be lighted on all the neighbouring hills, as the preconcerted signal of the event, and hastened himself, with a noble band of chosen followers well mounted and armed, to greet him. The rendezvous of the partizans of the House of Lancaster was at Shrewsbury, whither Rhys repaired with a select body of two thousand horse, chosen from the flower of his attendants. The armies of the contending parties marched to meet each other, and the important day was fast approaching which should lay for ever one of the contending factions in the dust. It was Sunday morning when Richard moved his long array through the streets of Leicester, to the sound of martial music, with the kingly crown upon his head, and pitched the tents of his disciplined troops, in the evening of the same day, on the field of Bosworth. Richmond was already in the field, and so nearly encamped to his enemy, that many of the disaffected in the tyrant's army came over, and joined him in the darkness of the night. The gathering hosts had mustered by early dawn at their appointed posts. The war cry of the conflicting Roses was once more raised on the peaceful plains of merry England; and a fearful contest, such as when men fight for a crown and kingdom, marked the progress of that fatal day.

Richard, in the heat of the battle, made a desperate plunge at the Earl of Richmond; Brandon, and Cheyne, and many a

SIR RHYS AP THOMAS.

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high-born gentleman, fell before the shock of his fierce encounter. Nothing could resist the fury of his onslaught. He had nearly reached the spot where Richmond stood, when Rhys saw the peril which the earl's life was in, and mounting his favourite charger, Grey Fetterlocks, which he always reserved for great emergencies, with Sir William Stanley, flew to his rescue. The gallant Welshman encountered the King hand to hand, and, after a desperate struggle, slew him.

Richmond was hailed King on the field of battle by his victorious army, and Stanley placed the crown of England on his brow. It was in the calm evening twilight of that tumultuous day when Rhys, Stanley, and the King met together in the tent of the fallen tyrant.

"You have both done bravely, my gallant friends," said the King, "this well-fought field is yours. This day, will heal, I trust, the distractions of this unhappy country. Rise, Sir Rhys ap Thomas," he said to the kneeling warrior, “the honour of knighthood is justly thine; and hereafter, in token of this day's service, and the life that I owe to thy valour, I shall call thee Father Rhys." The two knights divided the spoil of the tyrant's tent.

Sir Rhys ap Thomas maintained the fame of his high character in all the bitter conflicts of the reign of Henry the Seventh. He was created a Knight Banneret, loaded with honours, and had conferred upon him the government of Wales. He attended his sovereign in the expedition to France, and took part with the besieging army at Boulogne. When peace was concluded with Louis XI. that artful monarch sent a pension of two hundred marks to Sir Rhys, as he had done to most of Henry's counsellors. Sir Rhys, considering it only in the shape of a bribe, indignantly spurned the offer. "Tell thy master," said he to the messenger, "that if he intends by this to relieve my wants he has sent too little; but if he proposes to corrupt my mind or stagger my fidelity, his kingdom would not be enough."

The reign of Henry VII., though comparatively peaceful, gave rise to two extraordinary impostures, in the pretensions of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck to the crown of England. In the severe conflicts of Stoke and Blackheath, which were the consequence, Sir Rhys bore a distinguished part. In the first, the eager valour of the Welsh hero had nearly cost him his life; for, pressing forward before his men in an encounter with one of the Irish commanders, he was beset by several of the enemy, and only rescued from destruction by the timely aid of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who flew to his assistance. After the battle the King, who had been informed of his narrow escape, addressed him jocularly"How now, Father Rhys, how likest thou the entertainment here? Whether is it better, eating leeks in Wales, or shamrocks among the Irish?" "Both, certainly, but coarse fare,” replied Rhys, "yet either would seem a feast with such a companion," pointing gratefully to the earl who had rescued him.

In the succeeding reign of Henry VIII. he was equally distinguished. He possessed the Justiciaryship of the Principality, and gained great honours at the sieges of Tiruenne and Tournay, where he commanded the light horse. On his return he was invested with the office of Seneschal and Chancellor of the manors of Haverford West and Rhos, in Pembrokeshire. The latter days of the old warrior were spent in the peaceful retirement of Carew Castle, amidst the mimic exhibitions of those martial spectacles the sanguinary realities of which had engaged and delighted his active life, and in the pageants and festivities of St. George, the patron saint of the order to which he belonged, which he celebrated with a splendour and magnificence that has become matter of history. In the year 1527 the veteran knight sunk to rest, and the holy fathers of the Priory of Carmarthen chaunted "requiescat in pace” over the mortal remains of

Sir Rhys ap Thomas.

CHAPTER XV.

PEMBRE HILL-LLANELLY-SWANSEA-NEATH-MARGAM-BRIDGEND

COWBRIDGE-LLANDAFF-CAERPHILLY.

WHEREE'R we gaze around, above, below,

What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found!

Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound,

And bluest skies that harmonize the whole:

Beneath, the distant torrent's rushing sound

Tells where the volum'd cataract doth roll,

Between these hanging rocks that shock, yet please, the soul.

Childe Harold.

THE heavy mists were still lingering over the stream of the Gwendraeth when I took up my light scrip, and departed from Kidwelly over the dreary swamp that interposes between that little town and the elevated district of Pembre Hill, the highest mountain range in the south of Carmarthenshire. Having crossed Spudder Bridge, and ascended the hill immediately beyond it, I stood for a while upon its summit, to contemplate a scene the most expansive and enchanting that could fall within the range of the human vision. The thick vapours had rolled away from mountain, dale, and river, and the bright rays of a morning sun had lighted up

every object of interest far and near. On one side stretched Carmarthen Bay, glittering in radiant sunshine, with the distant points of Caldy Island and Giltar Head, and farther out the wide expanse of the Bristol Channel; on the south, looking over the peninsula of Gowerland and the Bay of Swansea, the bluff coast of Devon and Somerset, formed the extreme line of the horizon. North easterly lay the length and breadth of Carmarthenshire, with its quiet vales and shining rivers, having in the back ground the broken chain of mountains which skirts the borders of the county from Brecknockshire to the sea. I know not how it is, and it does not enter into the philosophy of a wanderer upon the earth's surface, like myself, to explain it, but I always feel the current of pleasant thought repulsed when I turn from the delightful survey of that which is grand and beautiful in nature, to the contemplation of scenes in which the strength and ingenuity of man is taxed and wasted for the acquisition of sordid gain, and that too, it may be, amid the poisonous exhalations of the mine, or the no less injurious vapours of the heated furnace; and so it was in this case. I slowly and lingeringly withdrew from the enchantments of Pembre Hill, and threaded my way through the dirty streets of Llanelly, amidst the smoke of coal pits and smelting houses that almost darkened the air. I stopt not to examine the miserable ruins of its castle, or the embattled tower and tapering spire that at once arise from its single church, or the traces that are still left to identify it as the ancient Roman Station of Leucarium; but pursued my way across the ferry of the Loughor, that here empties itself into the Burry Creek, till I reached, in somewhat of a fretful and melancholy mood, the busy port of Swansea, that stands in the dip of its beautiful bay.

Swansea, or, as it was anciently called, Abertawe, from the junction of the Tawe with the sea, "or, in Saxon, Swinesey, of the sea-porkes," stands on the western side of that river,