FEW people from Powys managed to anger both sides during the English Civil War. Yet Vavasor Powell had not been like other men and had gone against both in a life which had seen him both persecuted and persecutor during a time of much unrest in the 17th century. Born in Knucklas in 1617, he worked for a while as an hostler at Bishop's Castle before being sent by his uncle, the vicar of Clun, to Oxford University. Vavasor, however, dropped out to become a schoolteacher at Clun. He went to London at the outbreak of civil war in 1642, returning to Wales after the surrender of Raglan Ca...