Denbighshire

At its formation under the Henrician Acts of Union, the constituency of Denbigh Boroughs had comprised the four chartered boroughs of Denbigh, Ruthin, Holt and Chirk. Located close to the centre of Denbighshire in the Vale of Clwyd, Denbigh and Ruthin were among the county’s three main market towns – the third being Wrexham. Holt, a smaller market town near the county’s eastern border with Cheshire, was falling under the economic sway of nearby Wrexham and reverting to an agrarian community.

Early Stuart Denbighshire, rather like its western neighbour Caernarvonshire, was subject to political tensions that owed much to its topography. ‘Denbighshire’, HP Commons 1604-29. Running southwards from the Irish Sea and the county’s border with Flintshire is what was described in the 1670s as ‘a pleasant and fertile vale, reaching in length from south to north 17 miles and in breadth about five, called the Vale of Clwyd ... much inhabited by gentry’ and ‘begirt with high hills’. R.

The dominant interest in the constituency, based on control of Denbigh and Ruthin, was in the Myddelton family of Chirk Castle; and throughout this period Richard Myddelton and his son represented the constituency unopposed.

Richard Myddelton of Chirk Castle, whose family had represented Denbigh continuously since 1722, was returned unopposed until his early death in 1796, whereupon the estates and interest devolved upon his sisters and coheiresses, none of whom was then married. In this interregnum a neighbouring landed gentleman Thomas Jones of Carreghwva filled the vacancy, insisting on his independence. In 1798 Maria Myddelton, whose portion included Holt, married Frederick West, who took up residence at Chirk Castle and was returned at the election of 1802.Oldfield, Rep. Hist. vi.

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.

It seems that only Denbigh and Holt voted in the earlier elections in this period. John Carter, one of the tyrants of North Wales during the Interregnum, may have retrieved his reputation with the electors in March 1660 by superintending the slighting of Denbigh Castle, which had ‘long burdened the neighbouring gentry’, and was returned to the Restoration Convention in the following month. But the traditional territorial interests soon reasserted themselves.

This group of boroughs comprised Denbigh, Chirk, Holt and Ruthin. Denbigh, shire town of the new county created at the Union, belonged to the Crown in 1558. The governing body included two aldermen, two bailiffs and a recorder, and its privileges were confirmed by charter in 1597. Ruthin, in the Vale of Clwyd, was also in the charge of two aldermen. The small village of Holt, in the crown lordship of Bromfield and Yale near the Shropshire border, had a mayor and two bailiffs. Its baronial charter, granted early in the fifteenth century, was confirmed by Elizabeth in 1563.

After the conquest of Wales the castle at Denbigh was rebuilt by Henry, 3rd Earl of Lincoln, on the orders of Edward I. The earl established the borough by charter in 1283, modifying its privileges seven years later: with each burgage went property in Lleweni. The lordship passed by marriage to Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster, and after his fall it formed part, successively, of the earldoms of Winchester, March and Salisbury, coming to the crown in the mid 15th century.

The four contributory towns of the Denbigh Boroughs seat were all founded in the aftermath of the conquest of 1282 and prospered to varying degrees as centres of clothmaking and tanning. The boroughs gradually declined under the Tudors with the movement of the cloth industry into the countryside and the shift of the staple for Welsh cloth to Oswestry.