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 said to have illegally dispossessed the orphan daughters of his elder brother—but to the remoter house of Cae Du, Llansannan. There he is reported to have pursued his studies in a secret chamber, which, when examined a few years ago, could only be entered by climbing up the chimney.

In 1562–3 John Walley obtained a license ‘for pryntinge of the Latenye [Litany] in Welshe’, and it may be assumed that Salesbury was the translator. It was published, but no copy is known (, Cambr. Bibl. p. 10, quoting Timperley). Salesbury had ‘long desired’ a translation of the whole Bible into Welsh. In 1563 an act of parliament (5 Eliz. chap. 28), the passage of which was doubtless due to his efforts, charged the bishops of the Welsh sees and of Hereford to ‘take order among themselves’ that the whole Bible and Book of Common Prayer be translated into Welsh within a period of four years (Dr. T. C. Edwards, op. cit. pp. 54–5). The bishops seem to have entrusted the work to Salesbury (cf. his New Testament, ded.). In the same year (1563) a patent was granted to Salesbury and Walley to be sole printers for seven years of the whole Bible or any part thereof, the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and the Book of Homilies in Welsh, on condition that the books be first perused and allowed by the five bishops or any two of them (, Annals, I. ii. 88; a facsimile of this patent is in the Lansdowne MS. No. 48, fol. 175).

Salesbury probably wrote the major part of his translation at Cae Du in 1564. In the spring of 1565 he borrowed from a neighbour 100l., the bond being executed on 2 April 1565 (Arch. Cambr. 5th ser. ix. 180, where a tracing of his autograph signature is given). Having thus apparently provided for his expenses, he appears to have carried so much of his version as was finished to Richard Davies (d. 1581) [q. v.], bishop of St. David's, at Abergwili in Carmarthenshire. Davies gave Salesbury energetic aid, and, while the New Testament was still in progress, they jointly executed a rendering of the Psalms and prayer-book. Their separate contributions have not been here identified. The four years' limit prescribed by the act for the completion of the New Testament necessitated all speed. Archbishop Parker wrote to Bishop Davies ‘to despatch his lot in the Bible,’ and through him asked Salesbury, who ‘then sojourned with the bishop,’ to decipher a manuscript of great antiquity which he enclosed. Salesbury forwarded a full statement of ‘his conjectures’ on 19 May 1565, with which Parker was well pleased (, Parker, i. 418–419; C. C. C. MSS. at Cambridge, No. 114, p. 491; see, Catalogue, p. 154).

In order to finish the New Testament in time, other aid had to be summoned. Salesbury himself translated all from the beginning of St. Matthew to the end of 2 Thessalonians, together with 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, 1, 2, and 3 John and Jude. Thomas Huett, precentor of St. David's, translated the Book of Revelation, while the remainder was the work of Bishop Davies. Huett contributed 24 folios, Davies 40, and Salesbury 330. Salesbury also supplied the explanatory words in the margin throughout, translated from the Genevan Bible the ‘argument’ prefixed to every book, and wrote an English dedication to the queen and a Welsh letter to ‘all Welshmen.’ The translation (which was independent of Salesbury's earlier version of the Epistles and Gospels, published in 1551) was prepared from the Greek, the text chiefly followed being Beza's edition of 1556, and to a lesser extent the two Stephanic editions of 1550 and 1551; while reference was often made to the Vulgate, the Latin text of Erasmus, Beza's two versions of 1556 and 1565, and the two Genevan versions of 1557 and 1560, together with Beza's annotations on his text in 1565. Salesbury's portion shows numerous signs of the influence of the English Genevan versions of 1557 and 1560 (Dr. T. C. Edwards of Bala, op. cit.; Professor Hugh Williams in Y Drysorfa, 1888, new ser. xlii. 126, 163).

In order to see the whole version through the press, Salesbury ‘sojourned’ through the summer of 1567 at Humphry Toy's house in London. Henry Denham printed it ‘at the costes and charges of Humfrey Toy,’ who possessed sole rights (, Stationers' Register, i. 336–337). It was published on 7 Oct. 1567. Twenty-nine copies of the New Testament were known in 1890 (cf. list in Mr. Charles Ashton's Welsh ‘Life of Bishop Morgan,’ pp. 321–5); it was reprinted, with some of the introductory matter omitted, in 1850 (Carnarvon). Two other reprints, one of them in facsimile, were commenced in this century, but were not completed (, op. cit. p. 76).

Denham also printed Davies's and Salesbury's Prayer Book and Psalms, which was published a short time before the New Testament. A copy of the prayer-book is at the Free Library, Swansea; none is in the British Museum; a second edition was issued in 1586 (London, fol.).

Salesbury's Welsh presents an uncouth appearance owing to the general absence of the initial mutations and the writer's ten-