Anglesey

The representation of Anglesey in this period was dominated by the Bulkeleys, except in the Cavalier Parliament. There was probably a contest in February 1679, but the name of the unsuccessful candidate is not known. As a Cavalier’s son Lord Bulkeley was ineligible under the Long Parliament ordinance at the general election of 1660; but he probably purchased the silence of possible objectors by giving his interest at Beaumaris to Griffith Bodurda. He was replaced in 1661 ‘with unanimous assent’ by Nicholas Bagenall, the head of the only family of comparable fortune in the island. Bagenall seems to have been a reluctant politician, and the Bulkeleys regained the county seat in the Exclusion Parliaments. Bulkeley’s brother Henry, a courtier, was returned in February 1679 by ‘the greater part of the whole county’, but made way for the heir, Richard, in the autumn, though both had opposed exclusion. Richard Bulkeley was returned unopposed, and reelected in 1681, but in turn gave way to his father in an uncontested election to James II’s Parliament. He succeeded to the title in October 1688, and may have hesitated to stand at the first election after the Revolution. Anglesey was represented in the Convention by his uncle Thomas, a more experienced Member. In the words of the coroner Charles Bulkeley, who conducted the 1689 election, his kinsman was elected ‘unanimously with one voice and no persons gainsaying the same’.2A. H. Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales, 179.