Eldest son of Evan Lloyd of Rhiwgoch by Elen, daughter and co-heiress of Robert Salusbury of Llanwrst, Denbigh.
Educated ?Shrewsbury, 1574.
Offices Held
?Escheator, Merion. c.1586, j.p. from 1591, sheriff 1595-6, 1601-2, 1614-15, 1624-5; dep. lt. 1600.
Biography
The Lloyds of Rhiwgoch were an old family, but they had hitherto had little influence in public affairs. The election of one of them for the county in 1586 represented the victory of an intermediate group in Merioneth politics such as was taking place about the same time in other Welsh counties. Though Lloyd himself did not sit in 1597 his ‘cousin’ Myddelton did, and Lloyd sat again in 1601. But the Earl of Pembroke, as president of the council in the marches of Wales, was reluctant to accept him as deputy lieutenant, as the Privy Council urged, calling him a ‘hinderer of her Majesty’s service’ by ‘corrupt and indirect means’. Similar charges had been made against him in Star Chamber as early as 1580, and in two suits in the same court in 1603 he was accused of extortion by the purveyor of the Queen’s buttery, and, by John Salesbury of Rûg, of malversation, bestowal of liveries and misuse of his powers as sheriff. The charges no doubt arose out of Lloyd’s conduct of the musters for Ireland when he was sheriff, 1601-2. Similar allegations were made against Salesbury and a pro-Essex sheriff by the opposite faction in Denbighshire in 1602. As knight of the shire in the 1586-7 Parliament Lloyd was appointed to the subsidy committee 22 Feb., and similarly in 1601 to the main business committee (3 Nov.) and the committee on monopolies (23 Nov.).
In spite of all this Lloyd continued to play a part in county affairs. He was one of the ten men of the shire rated for the subsidy at £5; Vaughan of Cors-y-Gedol, the only one rated higher, paid £8. Lloyd was able in 1610 to emulate at Rhiwgoch, on a more modest scale, the rebuilding undertaken by his wealthier son-in-law at Cors-y-Gedol 30 years earlier. He did not sit in Parliament again, but remained in close association with the Wynns of Gwydir, and Sir John Wynn found him ‘very friendly’ at the historic Caernarvonshire election of 1620, when the forces of Gwydir were routed. The ties were drawn closer by a marriage between Sir John’s son Henry and Lloyd’s granddaughter, which resulted in Henry Wynn’s return for Merioneth in 1625, and in the use of Gwydir influence in London to secure for Lloyd a fourth term as sheriff.
The date of Lloyd’s death is unknown. He took out a pardon at the coronation of Charles I, and was considered for the shrievalty even in the ’thirties, but was written off as ‘very old’. He evidently outlived his son Elis (an active Member of the Addled Parliament), whose daughter (Henry Wynn’s wife) became heiress to Rhiwgoch, which eventually passed, through Gwydir, into the hands of another great political family, the Wynns of Wynnstay. 2
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