It is uncertain how “pro-English” were the locally-recruited Austin Friars in those houses; is it recorded, for example, that on 10th August 1333 King Edward III of England had the political power to order that all Scottish members of mendicant orders must be sent away from Berwick, just above the England-Scotland border.
In Wales, the only house (convento) of the Order of St Augustine (Austin Friars) was located at Newport (also called Trefdrath, or Ivefdrath) in the County of Pembroke and in the Diocese of Llandaff, across the bay from Bristol, England.
The house was founded not long before the year 1377 (and most probably after the year 1372) with the assistance of Hugh, the second Earl of Stafford.
The Austin Friars were the only mendicant order in the town, and locally were called Blackfriars because of the colour of the Augustinian habit. This fact has caused some historical confusion because the name Blackfriars usually reserved throughout Europe for more numerous members of the Dominican Order.
For example, in 1538 in the document of suppression written in London that granted the buildings and arable land of the Austin Friars to a local citizen of Newport, is mistakenly presumed that the confiscated Augustinian property had belong to the Dominican Order.
