LLOYD, Evan (d.1587), of Bodidris, Llanarmon yn Iâl, Denb.

The Lloyds of Bodidris, descended on the female side from the princes of Powys, had been, since the thirteenth century, among the more important families of what became east Denbighshire; the surname had been stabilized for four generations. Marriage into the powerful family of Salusbury extended their influence into west Denbighshire. Lloyd himself inherited a substantial estate, to which in his father’s lifetime he had added leases of crown land in the lordship of Denbigh, and in 1574, by royal letters patent, grants of further land in Iâl, where the ancestral estates lay. The latter naturally involved him in legal disputes with counter-claimants. Lloyd was a strong protestant. As special commissioner for the trial of those found ‘hearing of masses and using other superstitions contrary to the present state of religion’, he took part in 1582 and 1584 in the trials of Richard Gwyn (or White), the local schoolmaster whose propaganda for Rome ended in the latter year in his martyrdom. Gwyn’s friends accused Lloyd of bribing witnesses. As knight of the shire in the 1584-5 Parliament, Lloyd was appointed to the subsidy committee 24 Feb. In 1586 Lloyd’s religious zeal led him abroad to fight for the Dutch under the Earl of Leicester. He died in London on his way home, as a knight banneret, the following year, and at his request his remains were conveyed to his native parish for burial on 3 Mar. 1587. His prowess was sung in at least nine odes and elegies by different local bards.3DWB, 569-70; CPR, 1560-3, p. 538; Augmentations, ed. Lewis and Davies (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 90 310, 317; RCAM Denb. 83; Lloyd, iii. 136, 142-3, 145; NLW, Jnl. vi. 21; NLW, Peniarth 112/225, Brogyntyn 3/353, 527, 531, 536, 540, 545, 548, 569; Lansd. 43, anon. jnl. f. 171; 89, f. 37.