Carmarthen

Borough

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Right of Election:

in the freemen

Number of Qualified Electors:

over 100

Number of voters:

unknown

Elections

DateCandidate
3 Mar. 1690RICHARD VAUGHAN
4 Nov. 1695RICHARD VAUGHAN
8 Aug. 1698RICHARD VAUGHAN
20 Jan. 1701RICHARD VAUGHAN
29 Nov. 1701RICHARD VAUGHAN
3 Aug. 1702RICHARD VAUGHAN
21 May 1705RICHARD VAUGHAN
10 May 1708RICHARD VAUGHAN
16 Oct. 1710RICHARD VAUGHAN
31 Aug. 1713RICHARD VAUGHAN

Main Article

‘An ancient, but not a decayed town . . . well built and populous’, Carmarthen borough no less than the rest of the county was in thrall for most of this period to the Vaughans of Golden Grove, and was represented in every Parliament by the head of a cadet branch of the family, Richard Vaughan I of Cwrt Derllys, who was also recorder of the corporation. Vaughan’s connexion with the borough went back to 1683, when he was first elected to the recordership as a Tory and in all probability a client of the 1st Duke of Beaufort (Henry Somerset†). Vaughan had skilfully survived the Revolution and the political demise of Beaufort, turning, or perhaps reverting, to Golden Grove for patronage; and throughout the changes in the corporation he had held onto office. Little is known of the politics of the restored corporation after 1689: the one address from the borough to be printed, congratulating Queen Anne on her accession, was mildly Whiggish in tone and presented by the ubiquitous Vaughan. The evidence suggests a comfortable oligarchy, municipal affairs being conducted with ‘harmony and good agreement’, and certainly with no political equivalent of the ‘dreadful earthquake’ reported to have shaken the town in 1690.1

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

  • 1. Defoe, Tour ed. Cole, ii. 455; Carmarthen Antiq. iv. 32; London Gazette, 11–14 May 1702; J. E. Lloyd, Hist. Carm. ii. 17; HMC Hastings, ii. 220.