Anglesey

County

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

Background Information

No name known for 1542

Elections

DateCandidate
1545WILLIAM BULKELEY I
1547WILLIAM BULKELEY I
by 9 Dec. 1549SIR RICHARD BULKELEY vice Bulkeley, deceased1
1553 (Mar.)LEWIS AB OWEN AP MEURIG
1553 (Oct.)WILLIAM LEWIS
1554 (Apr.)SIR RICHARD BULKELEY
1554 (Nov.)SIR RICHARD BULKELEY
1555WILLIAM LEWIS
1558ROWLAND AP MEREDYDD

Main Article

Anglesey was one of the poorer Welsh shires. All the knights down to 1558 were kinsmen, but dissension within the Gruffydd family across the Menai strait at Penrhyn divided the island. The chief protagonists, Sir Richard Bulkeley and William Lewis, were cousins. Their mutual dislike was aggravated by the hostility of the families long established there towards the Bulkeleys, recent migrants to the island yet by the 1540s among the most powerful of North Wales families. When in the autumn of 1553 Lewis was returned, the sheriff was accused of misconduct and found guilty. Lewis ab Owen ap Meurig from Newborough was jealous of Sir Richard Bulkeley and his promotion of Beaumaris, and, while custos, tried with the help of his nephew, Rowland ap Meredydd, and others to re-establish Newborough as the administrative centre of Anglesey. More than in most Welsh counties kinship and amity with the sheriff seem to have been of decisive importance at elections. Intervention by the council in the marches could also have been significant: when in 1549 Sir Richard Bulkeley replaced his uncle as knight he was deputy at Beaumaris castle to the Earl of Warwick, then president of the council, and when four years later ab Owen was returned he was steward in Anglesey and Caernarvonshire to the 1st Earl of Pembroke, Warwick’s successor as president. All the knights save William Lewis from near Holyhead lived in commotes along the Menai strait, and Lewis himself was to settle there later in life.

Indentures written in Latin are extant for the Parliaments of 1542, 1547, October 1553, November 1554 and 1555 but none is in good condition. The contracting parties are the sheriff of Anglesey and between 20 and 70 named electors, with Bulkeleys often predominating: only in the autumn of 1553, when Rhys Thomas from Caernarvonshire was accused of making a false return, are no members of that family listed. Schedules sent into Chancery with the names of the knights for the island and the Members for Newborough and Beaumaris survive for the last Parliaments of the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. Until 1547 the elections were held at meetings of the county court at Newborough, thereafter at Beaumaris. The change in venue, although it strengthened the Bulkeleys’ power in the island, had little impact on the choice of knights during the 1550s.2

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes

  • 1. CJ, i. 13; Hatfield 207.
  • 2. C219/18B/115, 18C/161, 19/140, 20/173, 21/214, 23/186, 24/226.