Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/172

 perhaps been procured through the influence of Colonel [q. v.] (Jones's Impeachment, in Charters of Swansea, p. 193). There is a portrait of him (dated 1644) preserved at Derwydd. His eldest son, John, apparently predeceased him, and his estate therefore devolved on

the younger (1613–1676). He served in the royalist army, and when Tenby was captured by Cromwell in May 1648 he was taken prisoner and kept confined in Tenby Castle. He is described in a contemporary pamphlet as Sergeant-major Vaughan, though in his memorial inscription his rank is given as colonel (, Civil War in Wales, ii. 378; Stepney Notices, pp. 12, 84). After the Restoration Vaughan was knighted at Whitehall on 9 Jan. 1661 (, Knights, p. 149), and was sheriff for the borough of Carmarthen in 1661 and mayor in 1670. He was also elected M.P. for Carmarthen county in January 1667–8, but a question arose as to his eligibility to sit, as he ‘had been outlawed for a debt upon a bond of 1,000l.’ (Commons' Journals under 17 Feb. 1667–8). The decision was in his favour, and he retained the seat till his death on 26 Dec. 1676. He was buried at Llandebie church, where an elaborate monument was erected to his memory by his widow Elizabeth, the eldest daughter and coheiress of William Herbert of Colebrook, Monmouthshire. On the death, without issue, of his only child, Margaretta, in 1704, the Derwydd estate devolved upon his nephew, Richard Vaughan of Derllys (1654–1724), who was recorder (1683–1722) and M.P. in fourteen parliaments (1685–1724) for Carmarthen borough, as well as chief justice for Carmarthen circuit (1715–24). From the recorder's brother the estate descended in the female line to its present possessor, Alan Stepney-Gulston, esq.

Most writers have erroneously assumed the existence of only one Sir Henry Vaughan, while some (cf., Parl. Hist. of Wales, pp. 45, 52–3) have still further confounded them with a Henry Vaughan of Cilcennin, Cardiganshire, who was sheriff of that county in 1642, and was described shortly afterwards as ‘being anything for money, a proselyte, and favorite to all the changes of tymes … his motto, Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit vivere’ (Cambrian Register, i. 166; cf. , Sheriffs of Cardiganshire, p. 16).



VAUGHAN, HENRY, ‘’ (1622–1695), poet, was born at Newton-by-Usk in the parish of Llansaintffraed, Brecknockshire (Anthony à Wood MSS. Ff. 39, f. 216). He and his twin-brother [q. v.] were born on 17 April 1622 (Sloane MS. 1741). Their father, Thomas Vaughan (d. August 1658), was the representative of an ancient and honourable Welsh family, the Vaughans of Tretower Castle, descended from Sir Roger Vaughan of Bredwardine, who had fallen at Agincourt. Vaughan's mother was Denys Gwillims, heiress of Newton. [q. v.] was his cousin. ‘Their grandmother,’ Aubrey wrote of the twins, ‘was an Aubrey; their father a coxcombe, and no honester than he should be—he cosened me of 50s. once.’ Although the relationship cannot be precisely traced, Henry must indubitably have been akin in blood as well as in mental constitution to the ‘Mr. Vaughan’ (born 1605) whose nativity appears in Gadbury's ‘Collectio Geniturarum’ (1663), and who ‘was subject to believe that he conversed with angels and spirits many times in the likeness of scarabees, who informed him of unhappiness that attended either himself or his family.’

The two brothers, Henry and Thomas, always affectionately united throughout life, received their first regular education from Matthew Herbert, rector of Llangattock, and in 1638 proceeded to Jesus College, Oxford. Henry left Oxford without a degree, and spent some time in London studying law at the wish of his father, but ultimately turned his attention to medicine. When or where he obtained a medical diploma has not been ascertained, but about 1645 he began to practise as a physician in Brecknock, whence in or about 1650 he removed to his native place, continuing to practise. Writing to Aubrey towards the end of his life, he says: ‘My profession allso is physic, which I have practised now for many years with good successe (I thanke God) and a repute big enough for a person of greater parts than myselfe’ (Wood MS. F. 39, f. 227). According to Antony à Wood he became eminent for his medical skill, ‘and was esteemed by scholars an ingenious person, but proud and humorous’ [whimsical]. He suggests in his elegy on the death of ‘R. W.’ that he was present at the battle of Rowton Heath, possibly as a surgeon with the king's army.

Vaughan had published a small volume, entitled ‘Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished’ (London, 8vo), in 1646; and another volume, ‘Olor Iscanus: a Collection of some select Poems and Translations’—deriving its title from the principal poem, a eulogy on the River Usk, and accompanied with prose translations from Plutarch, Maxi-