What struck contemporary commentators on Cardiganshire was evidently the sparse pasture of the county’s uplands, ‘horrible with the sight of bare stones’. In the eyes of those who measured prosperity by the extent and quality of farming practices, the landscape was rendered even less tolerable by the relative absence of animal husbandry. The Itinerary in Wales of John Leland ed. L. Toulmin Smith (1906), 121, 123. This impression of a desolate environment had lingered in the mind of the visitor in spite of the gentler and more productive cattle-raising pastures of Teifi-side, in the south of the county where it bordered Carmarthenshire. The cattle trade was probably the most prosperous and stable industry of the county: the metalliferous mineral reserves were of sporadic interest both to entrepreneurs from beyond Wales and to the governments of the seventeenth century. The silver recovered from the refining of other metals was particularly attractive, and from 1637 a short-lived attempt was made to establish a mint at Aberystwyth, fed by silver from the mines of Thomas Bushell of Worcestershire, who promised to transform ‘Welsh rocks into Welsh Indies’. T. Bushel [sic], The First Part of Youths Errors (1641); A Just and True Remonstrance of His Majesties Mines-Royall (1641); S.K. Roberts, ‘Card. and the State, 1540-1689’, in Card. County Hist. Vol. 2 ed. G.H. Jenkins, R. Suggett, E.M. White (Cardiff, 2019), 436-8.
The Cardiganshire seat had been securely held by the family of Sir Richard Price (Pryce) of Gogerddan, who had been knight of the shire in four Elizabethan Parliaments, building on the achievements of his father, who had sat in five Parliaments after 1553. HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629; G. Morgan, ‘The Growth of Gentry Estates’, in Card. County Hist. Vol. 2, 403-5. His son-in-law, John Lewis of Abernantbychan, replaced him in 1604 because he was a serving sheriff. Lewis never stood again, but from 1624 his son, James Lewis, sat in Parliaments with the same regularity as his grandfather had. When the indenture for the first Parliament of 1640 was made out on 1 April, the sheriff was Richard Price of Gogerddan, and Lewis again was returned, though he made no impression at all on proceedings at Westminster. C219/42/2/5/104; List of Sheriffs (List and Index ix), 242. In the election for the Long Parliament, held on 11 December 1640, Walter Lloyd of Llanfair Clydogau was returned, evidently with the consent of James Lewis, whose named headed the freeholders, at least 27 in number, listed in the body of the indenture. C219/43/6/5/163. Lloyd had married the daughter of Thomas Pryse of Glanffrêd, Llanfihangel Geneu’r Glyn: his bride was more importantly a niece of the late Sir Richard Price, and his election thus prolonged the grip of the Price family on the Cardiganshire seat.
Lloyd was unambiguously in support of the king during the first civil war and was duly disabled from sitting further at Westminster on 5 February 1644. Cardiganshire remained solidly royalist during the war. An incursion into the county by Major-general Rowland Laugharne† on behalf of Parliament in 1644 proved to be temporary, and not until 14 April 1646 did Aberystwyth castle surrender to Colonel Rice Powell. Roberts, ‘Card. and the State’, 443. Two months later, on 5 June, the writs for both Cardiganshire seats were moved in the Commons. CJ iv. 566a,b. Even before the county was secured for Parliament, Parliament had on 5 December 1645 appointed a sheriff, James Lewis, the Member of April 1640. CJ iv. 366a. His appointment is likely to have been promoted by Laugharne, and it doubtless helped determine the outcome of the recruiter election for the county on 19 August 1646. While in other counties the partisans of either Presbyterians or Independents sought to extend their influence, in Cardiganshire the result secured the old order, as Sir Richard Pryse, grandson of the Elizabethan paterfamilias of Gogerddan and first cousin of the sheriff, was returned, no doubt on his own local interest. C219/43/6/5/165. Pryse’s standing in the eyes of Parliament could only have been enhanced by his link by marriage with Sir Thomas Myddelton*, a Welsh general, but his own civil war history was ambiguous at best. Suspicions of his loyalty grew during 1648, and he was listed among those secluded at the purge of the Commons in December that year.
Under the Instrument of Government, the county of Cardiganshire was entitled to two seats in Parliament, the entity of Cardigan Boroughs having been removed. By this time, there was no immediate prospect of a resurgence of the Pryse interest. In the election for the 1654 Parliament, on 12 July that year, two reliable supporters of the Cromwellian government were returned. There is no evidence of a competition for the places. James Philipps of Cardigan Priory had sat in the Nominated Assembly of 1653. Jenkin Lloyd of Llandysul was a fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and as a clergyman was a most unusual choice, though as a reliable servant of interregnum governments his suitability to those at Whitehall was apparent. The election was held at Lampeter, near the home of the sheriff, Thomas Evans, at Peterwell: previously elections had alternated between Aberystwyth and Cardigan, venues of the county court. C219/44/3. Heading the list of around 20 named electors were James Lewis, evidently by no means retired from public life, and Hector Philipps, either the brother of the newly-elected Member (who sat for Cardigan Boroughs from 1679), or his father.
In 1656, the election was held around August, though the writ and indenture have not survived. Philipps was returned again, along with another reliable government supporter, John Clerke II, who had served the government in Ireland and was thought a useful placeman. He probably owed his seat at least in part to James Philipps and in larger measure to Philip Jones*, whose influence in south Wales was paramount. Philipps was also returned for Pembrokeshire, however, and chose to sit for that county, precipitating a by-election in Cardiganshire. It was held on 12 November at Llanbadarn Fawr, the parish in which Aberystwyth borough was situated. Sir Richard Pryse was now sheriff, and the seat was bestowed on his cousin, the veteran James Lewis, seemingly without a contest. Some 19 names were recorded as electors on the indenture. C219/45.
The election of 1659 was held according to the pre-1654 electoral arrangements, so the county was reduced again to one seat. This was taken by Philipps, though the return has not survived. Pryse reasserted his family’s interest in 1660, but the seat from 1661 became the preserve of the Vaughans of Trawsgoed until 1689, when John Lewis, grandson of the six times elected James Lewis, defeated John Vaughan in a three-day contest. HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Cardiganshire’; D. Huws, ‘The Lewes Fam. of Abernantbychan’, Ceredigion, vi. 159.
