EVANS (YEUANS), David (by 1523-68), of The Great House, Neath, Glam.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1523, 1st s. of Evan ap David of Gnoll, Neath by Lucy, da. of Morgan Gwyn ap John ap Gruffydd of Cefn Iorwerth. m. Catherine, da. of Sir William Vaughan of Porthaml, Brec., 2s. 5da.2

Offices Held

Jt. (with William Herbert I, 1st Earl of Pembroke) attorney-gen., Glam. 30 Sept. 1555-d.; attorney-gen. Card., Carm., Pemb. 19 Dec. 1559-d., j.p.q. Glam. 1558/59-d.; sheriff 1562-3.3

Biography

David Evans made his career in the law, but if he studied at an inn of court there is no trace of him in its surviving records. After an early glimpse of him practising as an attorney at the great sessions in Cardiganshire in 1544, he is next found in association with the Earl of Pembroke, whose tenant he was in Glamorgan. He eventually followed the deceased John Bassett II in sharing with the earl the office of attorney-general of Glamorgan; both this patent and its confirmation in 1559 were to be in force during the Queen’s pleasure, but Evans retained his share of the office until his death and from 1559 there was added to it the attorney-generalship of the three south-western counties.4

It was as a client of Pembroke that Evans was returned to Parliament. He is known to have sat in the first and second Parliaments of Mary and the first of Elizabeth, and he had almost certainly done so in the second of Edward VI, when the damaged indenture contains his christian name but not his surname. On each occasion he was joined in the House by his brother-in-law Sir Roger Vaughan as the knight for Breconshire. As he is not included among the Members who in the first Marian Parliament ‘stood for the true religion’, that is, for Protestantism, Evans may be thought to have followed Pembroke in accepting the restoration of Catholicism, but he later accommodated himself sufficiently to the Elizabethan settlement to be put on the Glamorgan bench and pricked sheriff.

Evans made his will on 2 Feb. 1568, and it was proved three months later.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: P. S. Edwards

Notes

  • 1. The indenture (C219/20/205), is defaced; OR gives ‘David (Edwards), gent’ citing Index 16763.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. G. T. Clark, Limbus Patrum Morganiae, 82.
  • 3. CPR, 1555-7, p. 136; 1558-60, pp. 36, 247; 1560-3, p. 445.
  • 4. NLW ms Wales 18/4, m. 2.
  • 5. PCC 8 Babington.