Cylchgronau Cymru

EDWARD GREY, LORD POWIS (d. 1551); THE LAST MEDIEVAL LORD OF POWYS1 W. R. B. ROBINSON, M.A., B.LITT. The position of the nobility in sixteenth-century Welsh society has been little discussed by modern historians, whose studies have con- centrated on the rise of the gentry as the dominant class in post- medieval Wales.2 The role of the nobility does, however, merit careful examination, since some of the greatest Welsh landowners were members of the peerage3 and they exerted an influence on Welsh affairs which was far from negligible. Most of the noblemen with Welsh estates were non-residents who rarely visited Wales and entrusted the routine management of their Welsh interests to local officials and agents, but in the early Tudor period there were two noble families whose involvement in Welsh affairs was particularly close because their principal residences were in Wales. One of these was the Somerset family, whose households at Chepstow and Raglan have been studied elsewhere.4 The other family was that of Grey of Powis, represented from 1504 until his death in 1551 by Edward Grey, Lord Powis, whose residence at Powis Castle near Welshpool remains one of the great houses of Wales. The sources relating to Lord Powis's career and domestic affairs do not provide a completely satisfactory view of his position as a marcher lord or of his involvement 1 I am greatly indebted to Mr. T. B. Pugh for valuable comments on this article and to Mrs. J. C. Shepherd of the Shropshire Record Office for her assistance in answering enquiries about relevant documents in several collections deposited in the Office. 2Cf. G. Dyfnallt Owen, Elizabethan Wales: The Social Scene (Cardiff, 1962), p. 12; W. Ogwen Williams, "The Social Order in Tudor Wales" Cymmrodorion Society Transactions, 1967, Part II, pp. 167-78. 3W. R. B. Robinson, "The Marcher Lords of Wales, 1525-1531", Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, xxvi, pt. 3 (1975), pp. 342-52, hereafter cited as Robinson, "Marcher Lords". *W. R. B. Robinson, "Patronage and Hospitality in Early Tudor Wales: The Role of Henry, Earl of Worcester, 1526-1549", Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, li, no. 123 (1978), pp. 20-36.