Welsh Journals

THE WYNNS OF GWYDIR AND PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN WALES, 1604-40 Caernarvonshire's elections between 1604 and 1640 were often bitter, quarrelsome affairs. At least five of its elections were hotly fought, and the contests usually involved the county's leading family, the Wynns of Gwydir, led by Sir John Wynn, whose electoral ambitions were also felt at Caernarvon and, to a lesser extent, in the other counties of north Wales. However, the historian searching for signs that the contested elections revealed any hint of the appearance of those issues that enveloped England and Wales after 1642 will search in vain. Caernarvonshire's disputed elections grew out of family feuds, conducted on a bewildering variety of levels, employing every possible means of attack and, at least in the 1620s, linking the chief protagonists, the Wynns, and their foes, the Griffiths of Cefnamwlch, with their allies at court. Perhaps the only com- parable examples of other county contests that matched the fierce struggle in Caernarvonshire were the Wentworth-Savile feud in Yorkshire and the Phellips-Poulett battle in Somerset. But, in those contests, there are signs that broader issues-recusancy, the forced loan, possibly even the maturing crisis between 'court and country'- were occasionally part of the electoral quarrel. That was not the case in Caernarvonshire.1 Social and geographical divisions accentuated the split that developed within Caernarvonshire's leadership, and they were most clearly reflected in the elections of the 1620s. The signal honour attached to being returned as knight of the shire illustrated, more than anything else, a family's power and prestige within Caernarvon- shire's social and political milieu. The Griffiths of Cefnamwlch and their allies, the Bulkeleys, Williamses, Madryns, Bodwrddas, Thelwalls, Trevors and Glynns of Glynllifon, who later changed allegiance in the course of the quarrel, were matched against the great power of the Wynns of Gwydir, led by the redoubtable-and, at times, cantankerous-Sir John Wynn. The Wynns, thanks to ties of marriage and friendship, were supported by the Thomases of 1 J. K. Gruenfelder, 'The Electoral Influence of Sir Thomas Wentworth, Earl cCStrafford, 1614-1640', The Journal of Modern History (forthcoming); Edith Farnham, The Somerset Election of 1614', Eng. Hist. Rev., XLVI (1931), 579-99; T. G. Barnes, Somerset, 1625-1640 (Cambridge, Mass., 1961), pp. 281-98. Only Kent, Somerset and Yorkshire experienced more contested elections than Caernarvonshire, while Norfolk and possibly Essex matched it in the number of such contests. D. Hirst, The Representative of the People? (Cambridge, 1975), app. iv, pp. 217-22. Caernarvonshire had more contested elections than any other Welsh county from 1604 to 1640.