Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/212

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. iv. AUG., uw.

time of her marriage Thomas Penry, Esq.> of Llwyncyntefn, and Gregory Parry, Esq.* were the only surviving guardians and trustees appointed by John Waters, Mr. William Philips (who certainly must have been another) having died in 1721. It seems probable that Mary Waters met Sir Halswell Tynte at the house of her kinsfolk the Gameses of Newton, a fine old mansion a mile from the Guildhall, Brecon, Mrs. Hoo Games having been Miss Blanche Kemeys before her marriage, and a cousin of Sir Halswell. To the marriage articles, dated Sept. 19, 1727, the bride signed her name as " Mary Watters " ; and amongst her trustees were her kinsmen Penry Williams, Esq., of Penpont, Lewis Harcourt, Esq., of Dan-y-parc, and her cousin Anne, who was already married to Wm. Scourfield, Esq. Sir Halswell and Mary Waters were married at Llanwern Church, near Brecon. They had two daughters who died in their infancy. Sir H. Tynte, Bart., of Halswell, co. Somerset, died in Nov., 1730, and in 1736 his widow married Mr. Paulet St. John of Dogmersfield, Hants, as his second wife, by whom she had several children, the present Sir G. A. St. John-Mildmajr, Bart., being her direct descendant. Lady Tynte died in 1758. There is no evidence that Lady Tynte kept up any connexion with Brecon ; her large possessions passed to the Tynte family, and were sold by them in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Lady Tynte's name frequently appears in the discussion on the Mews or Mewys family (12 S. ii. 26, 93, 331, 419, 432; iii. 16, 52/113, 195, 236, 421, 454 ; iv. 166).

Mr. and Mrs. Scourfield's only son Henry, under a special Act of Parliament, sold his mother's Breconshire estates in 1779, to buy property in Pembrokeshire, so that by the end of the eighteenth century all the Waters lands, which were of considerable extent, consisting of manors, farms, ad- vowsons, &c., were sold to strangers, and none of their descendants remained in Breconshire.

This family of Waters had apparently no connexion with the family of Waters whose tomb is described by Churchyard in his ' Worthiness of Wales,' published in 1587, as the pedigree, ante, p. 179, shows.* Until the Reformation there was no tomb of any kind in the chancel of St. John's Church, excepting that of the builder, Reginald de Breos, Lord of Brecknock, portions of whose

p. 336.
 * See The Herald and Genealogist, vol. vii-

wooden effigy lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century. It being the monks' church as distinct from the parish church, which was the nave, no burials but that of de Breos had taken place there. When the monks departed the parishioners at once began to use the chancel for interment, and tombs of the altar type, with ten full - length figures upon them in wood or alabaster, were erected, though three effigies only have remained to the present day. Amongst those missing are " one Waters and his wife," but from Churchyard's de- scription of the arms emblazoned on their tomb, this Waters did not belong to Brecon, as none of the quarterings are those of Breconshire families. He was probably Thomas Walter, Bailiff of Brecon in 1515, or Matthew Walter, Bailiff in 1521, the last appointed by Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham and Lord of Brecknock, before his fall. It seems likely that they were of a Ludlow family of that name. Anyhow, so keen a genealogist as Hugh Thomas would certainly have mentioned the descent of John Waters from those represented on the tomb seen by Churchyard had there been any truth in the suggestion, but the Waters pedigree gives no hint of any link between them. Hugh Thomas lived in Brecon less than 100 years after Church- yard's visit, and was well acquainted with the history and family traditions of the town and county.

The following is the end of an inscription in Llansantffraed Church (St. Bride's Church) on the tomb of David Watkin, who died in 1618 (see pedigree, ante, p. 179):

" This David, his father and grandfather lived in St. Bride's three hundred years. Be not glad when thine enemy falleth, but consider, to me this day, to thee to-morrow and why ?

As I was so are yee, As I am you shaU be, That I gave that I have, Thus I end all my cost, That I left that I lost."

This is a variant of a well-known epitaph, and there may be some long-forgotten story- hidden behind it, but the reason for quoting it is to point out that, allowing that some of the years the three generations lived in the parish were concurrent, not successive, the family seem to have belonged to Llansant- ffraed for at least 200 years, which dates their settlement there from early in the fifteenth century.

Brecon.

GWENIXIAN E. F. MOBGAN.