Dear Sir,

I attempted with some pains and to little purpose, the several pedigrees of the different descendants of Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, the founder of our third Royal Tribe, but communications failing me, the design, hath ended, for the present at least, in this slight Memoir of the Princes and Lords of Powys, only.¹ Such as it is then, permit me to present it you, as to one, by whom our Antiquities have been best understood, and best illustrated. I have added the names of all the families I can find descended from this, as from the nineteen other Tribes: from that source alone, the information necessary must be sought; what we have abroad, is without anecdote, imperfect and uninteresting, and I detach this with great submission among them, on a service of better intelligence: If with success, I would report progress; for I am free to think the race of Cadwalader, more glorious than the breed of Gimcrack, and a Welsh Card, than a Newmarket Calendar.

I am, Dear Sir, with great esteem,
Your very faithful and obedient Servant

Ph. Yorke.

Erthig, April 20th. 1795.

Tho^s: Pennant Esq^r
Downing –

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Editorial notes

1. This dedicatory letter, addressed to Pennant in recognition of Yorke's sense of the latter's huge contribution to the field of Welsh antiquarianism (see 1361), prefaces Yorke's 1795 publication, The Tracts of Powys. The work focused on the descendants of Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, provided notes on the crown lordships of Powys, and argued against the anti-Galfridian view of the origins of the ancient Britons expressed by Polydore Virgil. The Tracts were expanded in The Royal Tribes of Wales, published in 1799. See ODNB; DWB.