Welsh Journals

Party Politics in Elizabethan Haverfordwest The purpose of this article is not to undertake a thorough and scholarly review of nearly fifty years of political change and development in Haverfordwest; it has a very much more limited scope, but one which sheds some light on the wider subject. The focus of interest is a law-suit brought by Robert Lloyd and Evan Watts, who were officers of the sheriff of the County of Pembroke, against Lewis Harries, the mayor of Haverfordwest, Clement Danyell, the sheriff of the town and George Pynde, a J.P. of the same place, for "wrongefull ymprisoninge and detayninge in prison, contempninge the Queene's Majes- ties writt of corpus cum causa sent from the Chieffe Justice of the Countie, but also with undecent tearmes abusing the Chieffe Justice." The case arose out of an incident in Haverfordwest on 9th February 1572 and was brought before the Court of the Council in Wales and the Marches. Unfortunately there is no record of the verdict in the case. Nearly all the records of the Council in Wales and the Marches were apparently destroyed when the court was abolished in 1689. It is also clear from other references that the records were not well-kept before then: there is a report in 1574, two years after the case in question, that "The Records of that Court are not so orderlie kept, but by deliverie of the same to the Councellours at the Barr, Attorneys and Clarkes out of the court and office, the same are many time imbeselled, rased or falsified". (1) The surviving records of this case consist of a large bundle of papers (2) containing statements of witnesses, interrogatories lists of questions put to them, statements by the parties involved, rejoinders, replies, replications and surrejoinders, all part of the elaborate and formal dance which seems to have been so much a part of 16th century law processes. These papers were among the records deposited in the Record Office by R.T.P. Williams and Sons, solicitors in Haverfordwest, but it is clear that they are "strays" from the Corporation records. They were probably among the Haverfordwest Borough records in the 1890s when the Rev. James Phillips saw them, and made them the subject of an article which appeared in Archaeologia Cambrensis in 1896. (3) The case is also referred to by B.G. Charles in George Owen of Henllys.(4) However, I make no apology for following where others have walked before, because I feel that these papers offer a rich vein of historical and social information which is certainly not exhausted. Briefly the affair went as follows: on Saturday 9th February 1572, which was Market day in Haverfordwest, John Wogan of Wiston, who was sheriff of Pembrokeshire, was in the town with several of his adherents and relations when Rees Morgan ap Owen, Thomas George ap Owen and Thomas Lloyd of Cilciffeth (the founder of the Grammar School) reported to him that they had seen in the town Rees Jenkin Aubrey and Rees Gwyneth, both from the Newport area, who were suspected of various crimes including horse theft in Cemais. Wogan therefore sent Robert Lloyd, the deputy sheriff and brother of Thomas Lloyd, with Watts and various others to arrest Gwyneth and Aubrey who, in company with most of the men from Cemais were getting ready to go home. Aubrey and Gwyneth were both arrested but Gwyneth eluded his escorts, John Gilbert and Oliver Skidmore, and escaped into the house of John Barker, probably along Bridge Street or in High Street where William Philipps of Picton was, with his two sons-in-law, Alban