parliamentary representation dated, of course, from the same period. Further charters were granted by Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth. Elizabeth's charter of 1566 gave to the corporation for twenty-one years "the rectory and advowson of St. Mary, the Haverfordwest mills, certain tenements, with rights on the forests of Narberth and Coedrath".

James I granted two charters; the second being that under which the Corporation still collect tolls, etc. Most if not all of the privileges conferred or confirmed by this, the last charter, had long been exercised by the Corporation. Under it the council consisted of twenty-four common councilmen, fifteen being aldermen, the rest brethren. The mayor was chosen by the assembled burgesses out of three councilmen selected by the council.

Vacancies in the council were filled by co-optation, the office being held for life.

There is no extant list of mayors prior to 1563, but the office was then at least a century old-probably more than two centuries. Originally, the chief municipal official was called "Portreeve".

The Parliamentary franchise was exercised by freemen and occupiers paying "Scot-and-lot". The latter was equivalent to household franchise, with a ratepaying clause.

WALLS AND BOUNDARIES.

The town lay on the west bank of the Cleddau; but at some unknown date a small strip of land, chiefly marsh, on the east bank, was included in the borough limits. This extended westward for more than two miles, including a large stretch of common land, the greater part of which was enclosed about sixty years ago. This elevated ground is known as Portfield (not Poerfield, for the De la Poers had no connection with Haverfordwest). The enclosures have left as common land only the racecourse and a space of about forty

acres.

The area within the walls was not very large. There were four gates: the South Gate, near the upper end of Market Street; the West Gate, at the lower end of Dew Street, between the present Fish market and the Grammar school; the North Gate, near the "Rising Sun" in North Street; and the Red Gate on the bridge. Only in two places does any portion of the old walls remain on the North Parade, near the Wesleyan chapel, and behind the gardens of Harford Terrace in Quay Street. The strip of borough ground east of the river was bounded on the north by the causeway which led from the bridge to the foot of Prendergast Hill. On the south it extended as far as the ford, opposite the "Old Freeres", that is as far as the site of the present new bridge.

Within the walls there were only two churches, St. Mary's and St. Martin's, and St. Mary's was the principal church-was, in fact, the town church-but St. Martin's was the older.

"St. Martin's bell

Tolled many a knell

When St. Mary's was a furze hill."

St. Thomas's was without the walls, looking down from its hill-top on the large church of the Priory by the river side, the "greater church of St. Thomas the Martyr", for both were dedicated to the murdered archbishop. The Priory church was a stately structure : cruciform, with a tower rising from the intersection of the nave and transepts. The Priory of Black Canons dased from the twelfth century, having been liberally endowed and probably founded by Robert de Haverford. In Bridge Street, on the side next the river, and near the southern end of the street, stood the house of the Dominican Friars. Its site lay between the two lanes known as the Friars and the Hole in the Wall. The three churches of the town were built subsequently to the Anglo-Norman conquest, St. Thomas, the youngest, dating probably from the middle of the thirteenth

century. The church of Prendergast is dedicated to St. David of Wales. About a mile below the town are two churches on opposite banks, Uzmaston and Haroldston, both of which are dedicated to the Armorican missionary, St. Ishmael. The presumption is that these three churches occupy the sites of pre-Norman sanctuaries. Outside the castle or the churches, it would be difficult to find in the town any trace of mediæval buildings. Perhaps the havoc wrought by the French allies of Owen Glendower in 1406 is partly responsible for this. Foiled in their attempt to take the castle, they are said to have burned the town. With the suppression of the fifteen years' revolt of Owen Glendower, all danger of Welsh raids passed In the Wars of the Roses there seems to have been no actual fighting in Pembrokeshire, though many Pembrokeshire gentlemen fell on both sides. The last act of the hideous drama was opened here. In August 1485, Henry of Richmond, having landed the previous day at Dale, entered Haverfordwest amid great rejoicings, his uncle, Jasper, being warmly welcomed to his old earldom. Next day, Henry was joined by Sir Rhys ap Thomas, a fact which disposes of the fable that Sir Rhys lay under Mullock Bridge that Henry might pass over his body.

away.

Little is known of the course of the Reformation at Haverfordwest. William Barlow, prior of Haverfordwest (afterwards Bishop of St. David's) opened the campaign by violent anti-papal sermons, his most pertinacious opponent being a "Black Friar", a member of the rival establishment. The lands of the Priory were obtained on its dissolution by the Bishop's brothers, Roger and John Barlow. At the Catholic restoration under Mary, several distinguished Protestants, among them Lawrence Nowell, Dean of Lichfield, and Thomas Perrot, tutor of Edward VI, found an asylum at Haroldston, the residence of Sir John Perrot. The young knight could not, however, save his co-religionist William Nichol, the one Protestant

martyr of Pembrokeshire, who was burned on April 9th, 1558, in High Street, near the entrance to Dark Street. The place of execution was believed to be indicated by a stone which is now in the grounds of Dale Castle. Under Elizabeth, Perrot's star was in the ascendant, and his friends formed the dominant faction in Pembrokeshire aad Haverfordwest. His character reproduced, in an exaggerated form, both the vices and the virtues of his reputed father, Henry VIII, and his overbearing arrogance led ultimately to his ruin. At Haverfordwest he was a generous benefactor, and the property which he gave to the town, though greatly reduced by the thefts of local magnates (which began even in his lifetime), still form a valuable endowment available for public improvement. Much of this was originally ecclesiastical property, of which Sir John had been a large purchaser or grantee. In 1560 he attempted to wrest some of the Priory lands from the Barlows, and when the jury refused to find a verdict for the Crown, i.e., for Sir John Perrot, they were summoned before the Star Chamber. Their fate is not recorded, but it is probable that Sir John obtained the disputed fields. Soon afterwards, the Council sold the valuable communion plate and vestments of St. Mary to a Carmarthen goldsmith. Under the earlier Stuarts Haverfordwest was decidedly Puritan, in theology if not in morals. There were usually no Catholic recusants to worry, but in 1620 the young wife of one of the Pembrokeshire Haywards was sharply persecuted by the municipal authorities. The lady's maiden name was Denys, and both her father and her mother had been in the service of Mary, Queen of Scots. This fact, together with the plea that, having been born in Flanders, she was a subject of Spain, secured for her the tardy but effectual protection of James I. The county family most suspected of Popery" were the Barlows of Slebech, the holders of so much monastic property. Sir John Perrot's influence had largely descended to his illegitimate

son, Sir James Perrot, who had succeeded to the Haroldston estate. A man of great ability and accomplishments, the author of several treatises, philosophical or religious, and the intimate friend of Henry Vaughan, he was in Parliament a conspicuous opponent of the policy of the Court. He died at Haroldston

in February 1637, and was buried in the chancel of St. Mary's. All traces of his tomb have long disappeared, but within the venerable fane there rests no nobler head.

THE CIVIL WAR.

The Civil War had been raging for a year and a half before there were any serious hostilities in Pembrokeshire, Pembroke being held for the Parliament, and the rest of the county by the Royalists. In February 1644 the Parliamentarians, reinforced by Swanley's squadron, assumed the offensive. On the evening of the victory at Pill (near Milford), the Royalist scouts at Haverfordwest mistook a drove of cattle returning from their pasture on Merlin's Hill for the victorious enemy. The cry was raised that the Roundheads were coming, and the garrison abandoned the castle without firing a shot. In July, Gerard recaptured the town, but it was recovered by Laugharne in the autumn. Next April it again fell into the hands of the Royalists. On August 1, 1645, the Cavaliers were totally defeated by Laugharne at Colly Moor, six miles to the east. Next day the town was occupied, and on the 4th the castle was stormed. This practically ended the war in Pembrokeshire. In 1647 there was an Amazonian riot, the Parliamentary Commissioners of Excise being compelled to fly for their lives before a mob of infuriated women. In the second civil war the town submitted alternately to the Presbyterian Royalists and to the Cromwellians. Capt. Goffe, the future regicide, was an old "Harfat boy" and he and his men were fêted on their arrival. When Pembroke had fallen, Cromwell rode over to Haverfordwest, and was cordially received