The Vaughan family of Llanelli

Francis Vaughan was the elder son of Walter Vaughan of Llanelli and his wife Anne Lewis the heiress of Talyclun near Hendy. He succeed to his father’s estate but his tenure was brief. He married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir John Pryse of Aberbychan, Montgomeryshire, by his wife Mary (Bromley), their marriage settlement was dated 27 October 1634.

Some difficulties arose concerning the will of his father Walter Vaughan (d. 1635), and after Michaelmas 1636 a plea of ejectment was entered at the courts involving Francis and his wife, and their daughter Frances, and John Vaughan (younger brother of Francis). However, Francis died in 1637, and afterwards further trouble arose between the two widows, Mrs Anne Vaughan and Mrs Elizabeth Vaughan, and later in that year the Council of Wales and the Marches decreed that the former (Mrs Anne Vaughan) should enjoy certain lands in the parishes of Llanelli and Llangyndeyrn, until she was paid £800 or until those lands were recovered at common law for her younger son, John.

Francis Vaughan’s only child, Frances, died in infancy. Elizabeth was still a widow on 20 January 1639-40 when her mother-in-law granted her a lease for 21 years of a water corn grist mill called ‘Melin Gelli Avar’ in Llanelli parish. After this, Elizabeth married again, to Charles Stepney, son of Sir Thomas Stepney, Baronet, of Prendergast, Pembrokeshire, by his wife Jane (Mansel).

As Francis Vaughan died without male issue, the estate passed to his next brother, John, under the terms of the entail created in their father’s will.