Research Notes:

Lord of Hergest, Llanvihangel, Blethvaugh and Nash

Known commonly as the "Black Vaughan," during the War of the Roses he fought originally on the Lancastrian side but switched his allegiance to the Yorkist cause and was subsequently killed at the Battle of Banbury.

Tradition says he was an incredibly evil man, although the lack of documentary evidence backing this up leads many to believe his nickname of 'Black Vaughan' may easily be attributable to his black hair, rather than his demeanour.

According to local legend, after his headless body was brought back and buried in Kington, Black Vaughan was a restless spirit who wreaked havoc amongst the townsfolk after his death.

Legend has him appearing in many forms, namely as a fly which tormented horses, a dog and a huge black bull that entered the church.

Eventually 12 local clergymen were summoned to lay the spirit - despite encountering difficulties during the ceremony, they are alleged to have shrunken the spirit of Vaughan, sealed it in a snuff box and buried it beneath a large stone in the bottom of Hergest Pool. ²

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The first of the Vaughans to reside [in Hergest] was THOMAS AP VAUGHAN, son of Roger Vaughan of Bredwardine, who was killed at Agincourt. His mother was Gwladys, daughter of Dafydd Gam. He was, therefore, a full brother of Watkin Vaughan of Bredwardine, and Sir Roger Vaughan of Tretower, and a uterine brother of Sir William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and of Sir Richard Herbert . His wife was Ellen Gethin , daughter of Dafydd ap Cadwgan ap Phylip Dorddu, one of the Vaughans of Tyle Glas . The earliest record of him is that he was constable of the castle of Huntingdon (some two miles from Hergest ) in 1422 . He was receiver of the three lordships of Brecknock , Hay, and Huntingdon in 1453-4. At the Coventry Parliament of 1457 , he was granted a general pardon, with others of his kinsmen and neighbours, an indication that Henry VI 's advisers hoped to prevent them from throwing in their lot with the Yorkist party. Again in 1460, he was placed on a commission to seize, in the king's name, the castles and manors of the duke of York and the earl of Warwick in Elvell, Melenith, Gwerthrynion, and on the Herefordshire border. In 1461, he was appointed receiver of the three lordships during the minority of the heir to the duchy of Buckingham. Like his brothers, however, he joined the Yorkists. He is found with them on commissions of oyer and terminer in North Wales in 1467, and it was with their forces that he marched to his death at the field of Edgecote, near Banbury, in 1469 . There is some uncertainty about the date of his death. Evans (Wales and the Wars of the Roses, 177), on the grounds of an allusion by Guto'r Glyn, believed that he fell in a preliminary skirmish on Monday, 23 ( recte 24) July. From Lewis Glyn Cothi 's elegies upon his death it could be argued that he fell in the main battle on the 26th, and there was a tradition in the family in the time of Dr. John David Rhys that he, and not Sir Richard Herbert, was the hero of that battle. His body was brought home for burial at Kington, and, despite much renovation, the alabaster tomb, which his widow had erected in that church, survives to this day. He is said to have been 69 years old when he died. In the pedigree books, he is described as lord of Hergest, Blethvaugh, Nash, and Llaneinion. His widow was living at Nash , near Presteign, in 1474, when she obtained an indulgence for those who would pray for her husband's soul. There is a tradition that she slew, with her own hand, her cousin Siôn Hir ap Phylip Fychan, to avenge the death of her brother, Dafydd Fychan of Llinwent in Llanbister, whom he had killed . Thomas and Ellen had three sons, Watkin Vaughan, Richard Vaughan, who died shortly after his father, and Roger Vaughan, and one daughter, Alice, wife of Robert Whitney, upon whose wedding Lewis Glyn Cothi composed an epithalamium. The heir, WATKIN VAUGHAN, maintained the tradition which made Hergest a resort for the greatest Welsh bards of the 15th cent. For three generations Welsh culture found a home at Hergest . There were preserved the ‘ Red Book of Hergest,’ which is now at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the ‘ White Book of Hergest ,’ the collection of Welsh prose and verse (believed to have been largely transcribed by Lewis Glyn Cothi ) which was lost in the Covent Garden fire of 1808 . Watkin Vaughan m. Sybil , daughter of Sir John Baskerville , and grand-daughter of Sir Walter Devereux .... ³