Welsh Journals

THE HARLEYS AND THE BATTLE FOR POWER IN POST-REVOLUTION RADNORSHIRE FOR very many, the Glorious Revolution was also expected to be a glorious restoration-both to office and influence, both nationally and locally. Leading families in Radnorshire and Herefordshire were no exception. Distinguished familes such as the Harleys and Foleys, a major figure such as Sir Rowland Gwynne, had all sacrificed office and position in their stand against James II when they had supported his exclusion from the throne in the years 1679-81. They had been the victims of various Court purges after the dissolution of the Oxford parliament in 1681. Sir Edward Harley had been dismissed from the county commissions of the peace and had lost his much prized office of custos rotulorum for Radnorshire. At the time of the Monmouth rebellion he had been placed under arrest, though not in too uncomfortable circumstances. Sir Rowland Gwynne had made even greater sacrifices, going into exile to Holland in 1683. Both families reasonably expected that with William's accession they would be restored to power and influence. However, by December 1688 a second and very different group also had expectations; the group was personified by Sir John Morgan. Morgan had been the leading Tory and Court supporter during the Exclusion crisis, and he subsequently benefited from, and no doubt promoted, the purges of his Whig opponents. Along with his brother James, he emerged as a major figure in both Radnorshire and Herefordshire. Made an alderman in the remodelled Hereford Corporation, he had been elected one of the Herefordshire county members in 1685. Yet by 1688 he, too, had broken with the Court. A strong Anglican, he had resisted pressure to support the repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws, and he was eventually forced to resign his commission in the army.2 Both he and the Harleys must have resented the inclusion, in the revised local commissions of the peace, of minor county and essentially Catholic figures.3 Although bitter rivals locally, and on opposite political sides during the 1680s, Morgan and the Harleys took to arms in December 1688 and, following James's flight, they subscribed to a loan to the Prince For biographical details of these families, see my biographies in B. D. Henning (ed.), The Commons, 1660-1690: History of Parliament (1983) (hereafter The Commons, 1660-1690). See my biography of Sir John Morgan, The Commons, 1660-1690, p. 11. The revised commissions of the peace are to be found P.R.O., P.C. 2/71, 367.