Today in Welsh history... 15 October 1584, Saint Richard Gwyn was martyred by being hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason. He was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Richard Gwyn was born c. 1537 in Montgomeryshire and studied at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Douai, before returning to Wales as a teacher. He taught at illegal ‘underground’ Catholic schools and was a Bard who wrote both Christian and satirical poetry in the Welsh language.

Richard Gwyn was indicted for high treason in 1583 and despite his defence and objections to the dubious practices of the court, Gwyn was executed by hanging, drawing and quartering, at the Beast Market in Wrexham on 15 October 1584. His last words, in Welsh, were reportedly "Iesu, trugarha wrthyf" ("Jesus, have mercy on me").

Cardiff woman enriched https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/man-arrested-connection-alleged-attempted-30137573

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Cardiff enrichment https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/drug-dealers-who-travelled-round-30090565?int_source=mantis_rec_top&int_medium=web&int_campaign=more_like_this_top

Today in Welsh history… 8 October 1945, Rudolf Hess, former Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler, was flown to Nuremberg, ending 3 years of imprisonment at Maindiff Court Military Hospital in Abergavenny.

Hess had made a dramatic night flight to Scotland in 1941, in an attempt to negotiate peace between Britain and Germany. He spent several weeks in the Tower of London (the last man ever to be imprisoned there) and then at ‘Camp Z’ in Aldershot.

On 26 June 1942 he was transferred to Maindiff Court, where he had his own room, was allowed to keep journals, take walks around the grounds and often taken on drives around the local countryside. At the Nuremberg trial he was found guilty, but unlike so many others, he was spared execution and was sentenced to a long and solitary life imprisonment at Spandau Prison in Berlin where he died at the age of 91 under more than mysterious circumstances in 1987.

Today in Welsh history… 4 October 1904, James Lewis Thomas, from Brecon, architect and Chief Surveyor to the War Office, died.

Thomas studied architecture under Sir James Barry at the building of the Houses of Parliament and after being appointed to the Civil Department of the Royal Engineers was stationed at the Tower of London where he designed and superintended the building of the officers’ quarters and made restorations of the towers and ancient walls. Later as Deputy Surveyor to the War Office he lay out the army encampment at Aldershot and was the architect for the Royal Victoria hospital at Netley, and the Royal Herbert hospital at Woolwich. In 1882 he became Chief Surveyor,,an office he held until his retirement in 1890.

Wrexham enrichment https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/barber-sexually-assaulted-15-year-30057226?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Today in Welsh history… 27 September 1857, for action on this day, during the Indian Mutiny, at the Siege of Lucknow, bombardier Jacob Thomas from Llanwinio, near Carmarthen of the Bengal Artillery, was awarded the Victoria Cross. His citation reads:

For distinguished gallantry at Lucknow on the 27th September, 1857, in having brought off on his back, under a heavy fire, under circumstances of considerable difficulty, a wounded soldier of the Madras Fusiliers, when the party to which he was attached was returning to the Residency from a sortie, whereby he saved him from falling into the hands of the enemy.
The Siege of Lucknow was the prolonged defence and subsequent evacuation of the Residency (political offices) within the city of Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich, England.

Treforest enrichment https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/face-murderer-who-killed-dad-30012392