Maurice Wynn, MP for Caernarvonshire

Please see Darrell Wolcott: The Muddled Pedigrees of Sir John Wynn of Gwydir; http://www.ancientwalesstudies.org/id115.html. (Steven Ferry, March 28, 2020.)

From The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981, available from Boydell and Brewer:

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/wy...

WYNN, Maurice (by 1526-80), of Gwydir, Caernarvonshire.

Constituency

• CAERNARVONSHIRE Oct. 1553
• CAERNARVONSHIRE Apr. 1554
• CAERNARVONSHIRE 1563

Family and Education

• Born by 1526, 1st son of John Wynn ap Merdydd† of Gwydir by Ellen, daughter of Maurice ap John of Clenennau; brother of Robert.

Married:

• (1) Jane (Siân), daughter of Sir Richard Bulkeley of Beaumaris, Anglesey (d.1547),
  • 3 sons including Ellis and John, 5 daughters;
• (2) Anne, daughter of Edward Greville of Milcote, Warwickshire,
  • 1 daughter;
• (3) c.1570, Catherine (d. Aug. 1591), daughter of Tudor ap Robert of Berain, Denbighshire and Penmynydd, Anglesey,
  • widow of John Salusbury of Lleweni, Denbighshire and of Richard Clough of Bachegraig, Tremeirchion, Flintshire,
  • 3 sons, 1 daughter,

Succeeded father in 1559.[1]

Offices Held

• Commissioner of:
  • goods of churches and fraternities, Caernarvonshire 1553,
  • piracy 1565,
  • subsidy 1570,
  • victuals 1574,
  • tanneries 1574;
• escheator 1553-4;
• sheriff 1554-5, 1569-70, 1577-8;
• Justice of Peace for Caernarvonshire, Merioneth 1555-d., Denbighshire 1575;
• Custos Rotulorum of Caernarvonshire by 1562-d.[2]

(Ben M. Angel notes: Custos Rotulorum is apparently "Keeper of the Roles" or the person assigned to maintain the records of a given shire, considered the highest civil office of that county.)

Biography

Maurice Wynn was the first member of his family to adopt this surname consistently (Ben M. Angel notes: marks the shift from Welsh to English naming customs).

On his father’s father’s death he came into extensive estates in the Conway valley and near Caernarvon, and others in Llanfrothen, Merioneth. Wynn enhanced his family’s family’s wealth and prestige by his marriages, notably his third, for in addition to her own considerable lands of Berain, Catherine had been left a handsome fortune by her second husband, the wealthy merchant Richard Clough. However, her first marriage had been into the Salusbury family of Lleweni, and the wardship of her son by that marriage, Thomas Salusbury, caused Maurice Wynn considerable trouble. The child was the ward of the Earl of Leicester, then at the height of his quarrel with the families of Gwynedd, and for the last six years of his life Wynn was at his wits’ end to keep on terms with his neighbours without losing the favour of Leicester.

He was involved in a number of lawsuits, and the disposition of the ancestral estates at Doiwyddelan Dolwyddelan was a cause of wrangling which persisted into the next generation.

In his own will Maurice bequeathed money for the education of poor children from Beddgelert parish at Friars School, Bangor. He died 18 Aug. 1580.

Wynn’s normal assessment for subsidy was between £7 and £12—rather less than that of his younger brother Robert, who had had to make his own way to fortune, and far less than his father’s father’s had been. This may help to explain the determination of his son Sir John to restore the preponderance of the senior branch of the family.

The only record of Wynn in Parliament in the Elizabethan period is for 24 Mar. 1563, when he received permission to depart from the Commons ‘for his weighty affairs’.[3]

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes

• 1. Griffith, Peds. 281.
• 2.CPR, 1553, p. 419; 1560-3, pp. 446-7; 1563-6, p. 31; Flenley, Cal. Reg. Council, Marches of Wales, 60, 109, 127, 132; C66/985.
• 3. Wynn, Gwydir Fam. passim; DWB, 1097-8;

Sources:

• Augmentations, ed. Lewis and Davies (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 286, 292;
• CPR, 1563-6, p. 340;
• Y Cymmrodor, xl. 1-42;
• Cal. Wynn Pprs. pp. 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15-17, 297;
• P. H. Williams, Council in the Marches of Wales, 238;
• A. I. Pryce, Diocese of Bangor in the 16th Cent. 15;
• NLW, Wynnstay mss;
• Exchequer Jas. I, ed. T. I. J. Jones (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xv), 51, 71, 74;
• Barker and Lewis, Hist. Friars Sch. 172-3;
• E179/220/133, 135, 141, 144;
• CJ, i. 70

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son of John Wynne & Ellen Lloyd

Wikipedia has an interesting article about Gwydir Castle which was built by the Wynne family.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:lOa0srU1ZSYJ:e...

Here is a second picture & a little story about the family castle build around 1500 by the Wynne family

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GoI7nSvcTEsJ:w...