PRICE (PRYS), THEODORE (1570? - 1631), prebendary of Westminster

Born at Bron-y-foel, Llanenddwyn, Meironnydd, son of Rees ap Tudor ap William Vaughan of Kilgerran and Margery, daughter of Edward Stanley, constable of Harlech castle (see note by bishop Humphrey Humphreys in Bliss's edition of Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses). He entered All Souls College, Oxford, as a chorister (B.A. 16 February 1587/8, M.A. 9 June 1591, became Fellow of Jesus College, and proceeded D.D. from New College, 15 July 1614). From 1604 to 1614 he was principal of Hart Hall (now Hertford College), Oxford. He was instituted, 18 October 1591, to the living of Llanfair-juxta-Harlech; ten years later he became sinecure rector of Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch (not Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant as stated in D.N.B.). In the meantime he was receiving prefermen's in England - from 9 September 1596 he was prebendary of Winchester, from 1609 rector of Launton, Oxfordshire, from 1621 prebendary of Leighton Buzzard in Lincoln cathedral, from 1623 prebendary of Westminster. John Williams (1582 - 1650), then dean of Westminster, who was his kinsman, arranged for Price to act as sub-dean for the Westminster chapter; he also tried to arrange (as did Laud) for him to have a bishopric - see D.N.B. and Cal. of Wynn Papers, No. 968. It was Williams also who nominated Price as one of the commissioners who were to inquire into the political and ecclesiastical condition of Ireland (Cal. of Wynn Papers, nos. 1002 and 1003). The bard Siôn Phylip, who was a Merioneth neighbour and a distant kinsman, expressed in a cywydd ('o waith John Phillip i fychniaethwr ef' - NLW MS 3047C ), the hope that Price would become a bishop. Subsequently the dean and his sub-dean became estranged and, when the latter died (15 December 1631) Williams told the prebendaries that Price had died a Roman Catholic; after a delay of six days, however, the sub-dean was buried in Westminster Abbey. William Prynne (Canterburies Doom) says that Price lived a professed un-preaching epicure and Arminian, and died a reconciled papist to the Church of Rome. Besides the cywydd to Price written by Siôn Phylip there is one by another neighbour, Edmwnd Prys, archdeacon of Merioneth (B. M. Add. MS. 14874; see also T. R. Roberts, Edmwnd Prys). E. D. Jones (in N.L.W. Jnl., v, 234-6) shows that N.L.W. Brogyntyn MS. 2, a ' Book of Welsh Kowydde,' was written by Humphrey Davies, vicar of Darowen, for Theodore Price, then a canon of Winchester and incumbent of Bletchingley, Surrey, and nephew of the copyist.

Author

• Sir William Llewelyn Davies, (1887 - 1952)

Sources

• Heraldic Visitations of Wales and Part of the Marches between the years 1586 and 1613, under the authority of Clarencieux and Norroy, two kings at arms (Llandovery 1846), ii, 223
• Y Genedl Gymreig, 10 May 1929

Further Reading

• Wikipedia Article: Theodore Price

Additional Links

• VIAF: 76185925
• Wikidata: Q7781956

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-RUU/1.0/