Denbigh Boroughs

In the early eighteenth century Ruthin was dominated by the Myddeltons of Chirk Castle, Tories, and Holt by the Cottons of Lleweni, Whigs. These two families contended for supremacy in Denbigh till 1715, when it passed under the control of the Myddeltons, whose candidate defeated the sitting Member John Wynne of Melai, previously returned on the Cotton interest. Thereafter the Myddeltons faced no opposition until 1741, when Sir Watkin Williams Wynn of Wynnstay retaliated for John Myddelton’s standing against him in the county by putting up first Sir Robert Cotton of Lleweni, on whose withdrawal he put up another candidate against the Chirk Castle nominee, John Wynn, a government supporter. Some 1,500 non-resident voters were created at Holt,1NLW, Chirk Castle mss E. 945, 4055-60, C. 31. but at the poll the returning officers ruled, contrary to precedent, that the right of election was confined to residents, excluded non-residents, and declared the Chirk Castle candidate elected. On a petition, which was not heard until 1744, the House of Commons, after a protracted struggle between the Administration and the Opposition, sustained the ruling by declaring the right of election to be in the resident freemen only, thus consolidating the Chirk Castle hold on the borough.2CJ, xxiv. 28, 347, 486. 549-50, 554-7, 565-6, 570-1, 578-80, 584-5.