Welsh Journals

Worcester was the last great feudal lord prepared to act in such a high-handed manner. Nor did he stop there. The arrested were bound over to appear at Monmouth quarter sessions, 'where a Jury was impannell'd out of the Lord Marquis's own Tenants', and the judge refused to allow any jury challenges.47 Although Rogers maintained that the trial was illegal, since the case should have been heard in Caldicot hundred, where Wentwood lay, the defendants were found guilty of riot, and he and Edward Kemeys were among those committed to the ignominious custody of the jailor's saddler, threatened and then released. Others were fined. By now it was May. On the 25th Worcester obtained a certificate that he had taken the sacraments according to the rites of the Church of England (along with five other peers).48 He then persuaded the House of Lords to arrest seven of those most active against him in Wentwood, on the grounds that they had breached his parliamentary privilege by raising a riot. It was extremely difficult for anyone to defend himself against breach of privilege, which is why, no doubt, Worcester's lawyers decided to invoke it. The warrant was issued on 10 June. The 'Wentwood Seven', as they would be known today, were Edward Kemeys, John Kemeys, Nathan Rogers, Thomas Blethin (a younger son of the Dinham family), Nathaniel Field of Penhow (grandson of a bishop of Llandaff), Philip Edwards of Millbrook, Llanvaches, and Meredith Howell, also of Llanvaches and a large-scale offender at the Wentwood speech court of 1669.49 Edwards and Howell are described as 'yeomen', the rest as 'gentlemen'; they seem to have formed the supervising party at the removal of the unguarded wood. They were not, however, 'sav'd harmless' as promised. Officers of the sergeant at arms of the house of Lords came down to Monmouthshire, arrested Field, Edwards and Howell, and took them back to London. Nathan Rogers and Edward Kemeys went to London, too, presumably of their own accord, but once there they absconded and successfully avoided capture. Edward Kemeys and Thomas Blethin seemed to have been ignored. Excitement increased when William Morgan drew up a petition to the House of Commons, asking it to assert its own privilege against that of the Lords. Whether the petition was ever presented is not clear, but the presence 47 Canning, op. cit., p. 190, quoting David Lewis. 48 H.M.C., Eleventh Report (London, 1887), Appendix II, p. 155. 49 Lords Journals, vol. 13, p. 244b. For Howell's and Edwards's activities in Wentwood, see my 'The Speech Court of Wentwood' in The Monmouthshire Antiquary (forthcoming). Edwards was a substantial farmer, called a 'gentleman' in a survey of 1691. He left money to a Llanvaches charity. N.L.W., Tredegar Papers 53/2, 67/112; MSS. 97 and 169; Gwent CRO, D.668.25 and 26; and Bradney, op. cit., vol. IV, part II, p. 190.