Flint Boroughs

Borough

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Right of Election:

in the freemen of the boroughs of Flint, Caergwrle, Caerwys, Overton and Rhuddlan

Number of voters:

760 in 16971

Elections

DateCandidate
12 Nov. 1660ROGER WHITLEY
29 Apr. 1661ROGER WHITLEY
10 Feb. 1679ROGER WHITLEY
23 Sept. 1679ROGER WHITLEY
 Sir John Trevor
7 Mar. 1681THOMAS WHITLEY
3 Apr. 1685SIR JOHN HANMER, Bt.
14 Jan. 1689SIR JOHN HANMER, Bt.

Main Article

The indentures do not always specify the names of the boroughs, but it would appear that the bailiffs and burgesses of Overton seldom attended elections in this period. The success of the Whitley interest from 1660 to 1681 is remarkable for more than one reason. The family was only recently established among the county gentry, and Roger Whitley was a younger son, who never resided in Flintshire during this period. Doubtless, as a prominent Cavalier conspirator, he would not even have been considered if the general election of 1660 had been held at the proper time. But the sheriff’s death, and the prolonged delay in issuing the new writ gave him an opportunity to improve his interest. He was elected in his absence, though not without dispute; but the name of his opponent is not known. He was re-elected to the Cavalier Parliament, and to the first Exclusion Parliament, where he abstained from the division on the bill. ‘Means honestly, but dare not show it’, an opposition pamphleteer had written of him a year or two before, and in the autumn election he was confronted with a court candidate in the person of Sir John Trevor of Brynkynallt, who had married the mother of Sir Roger Puleston. He beat off the challenge, but transferred to Chester in 1681, leaving his son to stand for Flint Boroughs. There may have been another contest, since Thomas Whitley was returned by ‘the greater part of all the burgesses’. Both father and son were discredited by their prominence during the Duke of Monmouth’s visit to Chester in 1682, and neither sat in James II’s Parliament. The borough seat was taken by Sir John Hanmer, a courtier and an army officer, in 1685, and he was re-elected after the Revolution, when Roger Whitley regained his seat at Chester.2

Author: A. M. Mimardière

Notes

  • 1. Jnl. Flints. Hist. Soc. xi. 90.
  • 2. NLW, Gwysaney transcripts 44C; True Dom. Intell. 9 Sept. 1679.