Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 34.djvu/8

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Llwyd
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Llwyd


character are still current in the parishes of Ffestiniog and Maentwrog, and a tall column of rock in the middle of the river Cynfael, where he is believed to have spent much of his time, is still known as 'Hugh Llwyd's pulpit.' His best-known production is a 'Poem on the Fox' ('Cywydd i'r Llwynog'), printed in 'Cymru Fu,' i. 357. Among the Peniarth MSS. is a transcript of a medical work by him, and a few of his poems are also at the British Museum (Add. MS. 14974). He is said to have died at Cynfael in 1620, and was buried at Maentwrog. Edmund Prys [q. v.], who was rector of the parish, and whose name is associated with Llwyd's in many of the local traditions, composed on the occasion an 'englyn,' which is printed in 'Hanes Plwyf Ffestiniog.' Llwyd was either grandfather or uncle to Morgan Llwyd [q. v.]

[Cymru Fu, i. 174, 357; G. J. Williams's Hanes Plwyf Ffestiniog, pp. 222-3 ; Palmer's Older Nonconformity of Wrexham, p. 11; Gossiping Guide to Wales, ed. 1892, pp. 104-5.]

D. Ll. T.

LLWYD, HUMPHREY (1527–1568), physician and antiquary, born at Denbigh in 1527, was son and heir of Robert Llwyd or Lloyd, by Joan, daughter of Lewis Pigott. His father was descended from an old family called Rosendale, which removed from Lancashire in 1297 to Foxhall, near Denbigh, and acquired the name of Llwyd by an intermarriage with the Llwyds (or Lloyds) of Aston, near Oswestry. Llwyd was educated at Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1547, being then or soon after a member of Brasenose College (Wood, Fasti, i. 125), and he proceeded M.A. in 1551 (ib. p. 132). After studying medicine he was admitted into the family of Lord Arundel (chancellor of the university) as his private physician, and held that office more than fifteen years. In 1563 he returned to Denbigh, and took up his residence within the castle there. Besides practising as a physician, he devoted much time to music and other arts, and became a 'person of great eloquence, an excellent rhetorician, a sound philosopher, and a most noted antiquary' (Wood, Athenæ, i. 353). His fellow-townsman, Richard Clough [q. v.], who was long resident at Antwerp, brought him into communication with Ortelius. In his 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum' Ortelius describes Llwyd as 'nobilis et eruditus vir.' He was returned as M.P. for East Grinstead, probably through the influence of the Earl of Arundel, on 7 Jan. 1558-9, and also sat for the Denbigh boroughs from 1563 to 1567 (List of Members of Parliament). On his way home from London in 1568 he caught a fever, but was able to reach Denbigh, and while there on his deathbed he wrote, under date of 3 Aug. 1568, to Ortelius, dedicating and sending to him maps of England and Wales and the manuscript of his 'Commentarioli' (Hessels). He died, according to a note of Ortelius on his letter, on 31 Aug. 1568. He was buried in a vault adjoining that of Richard Clough's family in the parish church of Denbigh, called Whitchurch, 'with a coarse monument, a dry epitaph, and a psalm tune under it' (Yorke, Royal Tribes, p. 105); he is represented in Spanish dress, kneeling at an altar, beneath a small range of arches.

Llwyd married Barbara, sister (and heiress) of John, last lord Lumley (1534?-1609), and by her he had two sons and two daughters. One of the former, named Henry, settled at Cheam in Surrey, and his great-grandson, the Rev. Robert Lumley Lloyd, rector of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, made an unsuccessful effort to claim the barony of Lumley in right of his descent from Llwyd's wife (Nicolas, Historic Peerage, p. 304; Granger, Biog. Hist. ed. Noble, iii. 125). After Llwyd's death his wife married William Williams of Cochwillan, Carnarvonshire (Dwnn, Visitations, ii. 169). There is an original portrait of Llwyd preserved at Aston, the seat of the elder branch of the Lloyds of Foxhall, and an engraving of it is in Yorke's 'Royal Tribes of Wales.' There is also a mezzotint portrait of him by J. Faber (1717) in the Cardiff Museum, with Llwyd's motto thereon: 'Hwy pery Klod no Glayd' (Fame is more lasting than wealth). His hair is described as red, but his countenance was handsome, and his expression intellectual. He collected many books for Lord Lumley, which were subsequently sold to James I, and now form a valuable part of the British Museum (Granger, i. 270).

Llwyd was the author of: 1. 'An Almanack and Kalender, containing the Day, Hour, and Minute of the Change of the Moon for ever;' in the preface the author refers to this as his first published work, but the date and place of publication are not stated. 2. 'De Monâ Druidum Insulâ, antiquitati suæ restituta … et de Armamentario Romano:' a letter dated 5 April 1568, and addressed to Ortelius; it was printed by Sir John Price at the end of his 'Historiæ Britannicæ Defensio,' London, 1573, 4to, and again at the end of his 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum,' Antwerp, 1603, fol. An English translation was published in London, 1606, fol. 3. 'Commentarioli Descriptionis Britannicæ Fragmentum,' Cologne, 1572, 8vo, completed just before Llwyd's death, and dedicated to Ortelius. An English