EVANS
,
ARISE
(
sic
for
A-Rice
=
Ap Rice
,
Ap Rhys
)
(
fl.
1607-1660
),
prognosticator
;
b. about
1607
in
Llangelynin
parish, Mer.
[according to
Haul
,
1940
, 170, at the house of
Ynys-faig
], he was apprenticed to a
tailor
at
Wrexham
, where he was first called
Arise
(henceforth he felt there was a special message to him in every Scripture verse that contained the word). He had
seen visions
and
dreamt dreams
before he left his old home, and these were accentuated when he went to
London
in
1629
; before long he made a vain effort to give warning in person to
Charles
I
of his dangers, but succeeded in telling the
earl of Essex
to his face of his future promotions. He became highly interested in the multifarious sects that flourished under the new liberty, and flatly opposed most of them, especially the tenets of the
Fifth Monarchists
, and particularly those of
Christopher
Feake
and
William
Aspinwall
. During the stirring events of
1653-5
he managed to interview the
Protector
, but the pamphlets he wrote referred confidently to a
Restoration
; in
1653
, indeed, he gave a forecast of the course of events in
England
following
Cromwell
's death that came remarkably near the truth. His
Narrations, Voices from Heaven
, and
Echoes
of those
Voices
,
contain weird and impossible extravagances, but there are passing references of great interest, notably to
John
Jones
(
1597?
-
1660
) (q.v.)
the
regicide
's acquaintance with the
lake of Tal-y-llyn
, to
Christopher
Love
(q.v.)
speaking to him in
Welsh
, to the
Welsh
connections of
Oliver
Cromwell
, to the heresies of
William
Lilly
the
astrologer
. His works contain barbarous spellings of
Welsh
place-names, but possibly that was the fault of the
printers
. The date of his death is not known, but he lived long enough for an abnormal growth in his nose to be cured by
king
Charles
II
, not by the
king
doing anything, but by the
prophet
rubbing his nose on the royal hand in
S. James's Park
.
Bibliography:
-
Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography
;
-
J. H. Davies
,
Rhai o hen ddewiniaid Cymru
, 1901
, 11-25;
-
Catalogue of tracts of the Civil War and
Commonwealth period relating to Wales and the Borders,
National Library of Wales
, 1911
295a, 297a, 300, 300a, 301a, 305a, 306a;
-
The Thomason Tract in the British
Museum
E 224.1.
Author:
Thomas Richards, D.Litt., (1878-1962), Bangor
