WYNN, Sir Richard, 2nd bt. (c.1588-1649), of Brentford House, Isleworth, Mdx.; Church Lane, The Strand, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, and Gwydir, Caern.

One of the great landed families of north Wales, the Wynns of Gwydir, in eastern Caernarfonshire, traced their ancestry to the twelfth century Welsh prince, Owain Gwynedd.61J. Wynn, Hist. of Gwydir Fam. table 1; Jones, Wynn Fam. 7-8. Wynne’s grandfather, great-grandfather and great-uncle had served as knights of the shire in the three decades or so following the county’s creation in the 1530s.62HP Common, 1509-1558, ‘John Wynn ap Meredydd’; HP Commons 1558-1603, ‘John Gwynne II’; ‘Morris Wynn’. But it was his father, Sir John Wynn – MP for Caernarvonshire in 1586 – whose ‘aggressive pursuit of land, administrative power and electoral influence’ had established the family’s ‘unquestionable supremacy’ in the county by the early seventeenth century.63HP Commons 1558-1603, ‘John Wynn’; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Richard Wynn’; Jones, Wynn Fam. 52-60. Indeed, with an estate worth approximately £3,600 a year in 1617, the Wynns were among the wealthiest families in the entire principality.64Jones, Wynn Fam. 59-60, 242.

Having followed his elder brother to Lincoln’s Inn, Wynn was thought sufficiently handsome and gentlemanly by his uncle and father to gain preferment at court, and in 1608, he was secured a place in the household of the lord chamberlain, Thomas, 1st earl of Suffolk.65Cal. Wynn Pprs. 77, 79. Wynn decided to stand for Caernarvonshire in the elections to the 1614 Parliament, relying on his father to canvass the shire and secure his return, while he himself remained in attendance upon Suffolk.66Cal. Wynn Pprs. 102; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Richard Wynn’. The death of Wynn’s elder brother in 1614 left him first in line to succeed his father, prompting Sir John to put much thought and effort into arranging a suitable match for him. After several years of wrangling between father and son, they finally settled upon the co-heir of a Yorkshire knight who lived at Brentford House, or Little Syon, Middlesex, which lay adjacent to the Percy, earls of Northumberland’s residence of Syon House and would provide Wynn with a convenient base for his burgeoning court career.67Cal. Wynn Pprs. 110; Jones, Wynn Fam. 125-6; VCH Mdx. iii. 111; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Richard Wynn’; N. Tucker, ‘Sir Richard Wynn of Gwydir, 2nd baronet’, Caern. Hist. Soc. Trans. xxii. 10-11. In 1617 – a year before his marriage – he had entered Prince Charles’s household as a gentleman of the privy chamber.68Cal. Wynn Pprs. 127.

Wynn’s gradual estrangement from his native county in pursuit of a career at court was exacerbated by his disastrous attempt to secure re-election for Caernarvonshire to the 1621 Parliament. Concerted opposition from the Llŷn faction in the west of the county, and Sir John’s failure to secure the appointment of a sheriff friendly to the Gwydir interest, resulted in the return of the Wynns’ great rival John Griffith I.69Supra, ‘John Griffith I’; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Richard Wynn’. During canvassing for the shire seat in 1640, Wynn would wryly remark that ‘for this twenty years I had reason to believe I was no freeholder there, for my voice (it seems) was not worth the desiring’.70Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales (2nd ed.), 180. His defeat in Caernarvonshire late in 1620 contributed considerably to the Wynn family’s marked decline in power and influence thereafter. Moreover, his apparently nonchalant conduct during the election campaign was a revelation to his father of how little he valued what the latter prized.71Cal. Wynn Pprs. 146, 147, 148; Jones, Wynn Fam. 4, 220-4, 233.

Defeated on home soil, Wynn looked elsewhere for a seat, and in the spring of 1621 he was returned for the Somerset borough of Ilchester. His electoral patrons were probably Sir Robert Phelips* and the latter’s principal court contact Nathaniel Tomkins*, who was one of Wynn’s colleagues in the prince’s service.72HP Commons, 1604-29, ‘Richard Wynn’. Wynn made little impression on the proceedings of this Parliament, or of those held in 1624 and 1625, to which he was again returned for Ilchester. Nevertheless, his correspondence reveals that he feared for the survival of Protestantism on the continent and was eager for English military intervention there to recover the Palatinate.73NLW, 9057E/959, 1282, 1362; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Richard Wynn’; L. Bowen, The Politics of the Principality: Wales, c.1603-42, 92. Having had the ‘ill fortune’, as he put it, to be among those sent to attend Prince Charles and the duke of Buckingham in Madrid in 1623, he left an account of his time there, which included ‘many unflattering references to his hosts and their religious practices’. Anxious not to offend the Spanish, the duke gave him leave to return home early, ‘because that place [Madrid] was not agreeable to his disposition of body or mind’.74NLW, 9057E/1118; Cal. Wynn Pprs. 173, 179, 180; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Richard Wynn’; Oxford DNB, ‘Sir Richard Wynn’.

Wynn’s prospects at court improved following Charles’s accession to the throne in 1625. Not only did he retain his post as a gentleman of the privy chamber but in 1626 the king promised him the lucrative office of receiver-general and treasurer to Queen Henrietta Maria – a pledge that Charles renewed when the place was then granted to the elderly earl of Totnes.75Cal. Wynn Pprs. 223, 231; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Richard Wynn’. With the death of his father in 1627, Wynn added a baronetcy to the knighthood he had received in 1616 and was bequeathed lands in Sir John’s will worth £3,000 a year.76PROB11/152, f. 495v. But he showed no interest in returning to north Wales to manage his patrimony in person – a task he delegated to his brother Owen.77Jones, Wynn Fam. 92, 97. Wynn does not appear to have stood for election in 1626, and although his Middlesex neighbour Algernon Lord Percy† (the future 4th earl of Northumberland and parliamentarian grandee) supported his candidacy in a by-election at Hertford in 1628, the Commons ruled against him on a technicality.78HP Commons 1604-29, ‘Richard Wynn’.

In March 1629, Wynn finally succeeded to the post of receiver-general to the queen, writing contentedly to his brother the following month that he was now settled in his new post and enjoyed continual access to both the king and the queen in the royal bedchamber.79LR5/57, ff. 30v-31; Cal. Wynn Pprs. 245. He seems to have divided much of his time thereafter between the queen’s palace of Wimbledon House (on the south bank of the Thames), his townhouse on Church Lane, The Strand – which lay close to the queen’s main London residence, Somerset House – and his father-in-law’s mansion at Brentford.80WCA, STM/F/2/360; VCH Mdx. iii. 111; Tucker, ‘Sir Richard Wynn’, 11, 14; Oxford DNB, ‘Sir Richard Wynn’. In 1633-4, he financed the building of a family chapel in Llanrwst parish church, supposedly designed by Inigo Jones, although there is no firm evidence for the latter’s involvement.81Wynn, Hist. of Gwydir Fam. xv; Jones, Wynn Fam. 134-5; Oxford DNB, ‘Sir Richard Wynn’. As receiver-general for the queen, he was involved in handling payments for her Catholic chapel at Somerset House (designed by Jones) and for her ‘secret service’.82CSP Dom. 1635, pp. 21, 74, 492; 1635-6, p. 171; 1636-7, p. 549. His friends at court may have included another member of the queen’s circle, Northumberland’s brother-in-law Robert Sidney†, 2nd earl of Leicester, for whom he stood as a surety in 1639 to raise £10,500 as a marriage portion for the earl’s eldest daughter.83C6/106/95; Oxford DNB, ‘Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester’.

In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, Wynn was returned for three constituencies – Andover in Hampshire, Bodmin in Cornwall and Newton in Lancashire – and was recommended, though without success, to at least two more: Carlisle in Cumberland and Lostwithiel in Cornwall. His patron at Carlisle was the queen’s council; at Lostwithiel, and very probably Bodmin, it was the duchy of Cornwall council; and at Newton it may well have been Lancashire’s lord lieutenant James Stanley†, Lord Strange (the future 7th earl of Derby).84Supra, ‘Andover’; ‘Bodmin’; ‘Carlisle’; ‘Newton’; DCO, Letters and warrants 1639-43, f. 44v. He opted to sit for Andover – perhaps because it was the closest to London.85CJ ii. 3b. Court office and electoral patronage came at a price, however, for on 18 April, the lord treasurer William Juxon, bishop of London, wrote to inform him that the king had given ‘peremptory direction to call upon certain persons ... to lend him money ... for supply of his great occasions’ and that Wynn was expected to advance £3,000 within ten days.86Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, i. 402; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, 234. Wynn was named to the committee of privileges (16 Apr.) and three other (minor) committees in the Short Parliament, but made no recorded contribution to debate.87CJ ii. 4a, 8a, 18b.

In the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640, Wynn was returned for the Lancashire boroughs of Liverpool – where he probably crown patronage exercised by the duchy of Lancaster – and Newton and opted to sit for the former.88Supra, ‘Liverpool’; ‘Newton’. Once again, the duchy of Cornwall council recommended him to Lostwithiel, but again the borough rejected its patronage.89DCO, Letters and warrants 1639-43, ff. 66v-67. As in previous Parliament, he cut a relatively insignificant in the House, receiving a mere 11 committee appointments before the outbreak of civil war in the summer of 1642.90CJ ii. 39b, 57a, 73b, 75b, 87a, 87b, 103b, 253b, 305b, 327a, 517a. His nomination to committees relating to the prosecution of the earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) and to investigate the perceived abuses associated with the council of the north, the council of Wales and the Welsh Marches (of which he was a member) and the court of wards, suggests that he was not unsympathetic to some elements of the reformist cause.91CJ ii. 39b, 57a, 75b, 87a, 253b. Nor did he stint when it came to pledging money towards the supply of the armies encamped in northern England after the second bishops’ war, giving his security in November 1640 to provide £2,000 and in March 1641 a further £1,000.92Procs. LP i. 228; ii. 654. However, he parted company with most of the more fervent reformers in the House by voting on 21 April against Strafford’s attainder.93Procs. LP iv. 42, 51. Wynn, or possibly one of his brothers, was sufficiently alarmed at the prospect of impending civil war by this point to start stockpiling arms and ammunition at Gwydir.94Cal. Wynn Pprs. 272. If Wynn’s taking of the Protestation on 3 May represented a vote of confidence in the Commons’ proceedings it was not reciprocated by the House, which resolved on 6 May that he and several other gentlemen be removed from the Westminster commission in the subsidy bill on the grounds that they habitually under-assessed themselves and over-assessed others.95CJ ii. 133a, 137a; Procs. LP iv. 233. On 7 July, the House ordered him to cease making any payments from the queen’s revenues to Sir Francis Windebanke*, Henry Jermyn* and Walter Montagu, and he informed a Commons committee on 16 July that he had detained Jermyn’s court pension but had no responsibility for paying Windebanke.96CJ ii. 201a; Procs. LP v. 675.

Wynn’s involvement in the House’s response to news of the Irish rebellion that autumn seems to have consisted in little more than receiving appointment to a committee on 4 November 1641 for raising troops for Ireland.97CJ ii. 305b. On 30 November, he was included on a twelve-man Commons’ delegation for presenting the Grand Remonstrance to the king; and, when these Members waited on Charles at Hampton Court the next day, it was Wynn who was sent to request a royal audience.98CJ ii. 327a, 330a. On his return to the House that day (1 Dec.), he presented evidence sent by his fellow Member for Liverpool, John Moore, about a supposed recusant plot in the town.99D’Ewes (C), 222-3. When questioned in the Commons on 21 December about the king’s attempt to bribe the lieutenant of the Tower to surrender his office using £3,000 channelled through the queen’s revenues, Wynn denied that he had received any order for this money.100D’Ewes (C), 330; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 439. However, the queen’s accounts reveal that he had handed this £3,000 directly to Henrietta Maria the previous day.101LR5/57, f. 50v. Before leaving England for the continent in February 1642, the queen ordered Wynn to take care of Wimbledon House in her absence.102LR5/57, f. 51.

Wynn received only one Commons’ appointment during 1642 – to a minor committee on 8 April – and otherwise made no impression on the House’s proceedings during the first eight months of that year.103CJ ii. 517a. He evidently spent much of this period away from Westminster, for on 2 September the Commons suspended him from sitting pending investigation by its committee for absent Members.104CJ ii. 750a. Following a report from this committee on 20 September, the House voted to re-admit him, whereupon he affirmed his willingness to ‘live and die’ with Parliament’s commander-in-chief, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex in defence of the ‘true Protestant religion and the liberty of the subject’.105CJ ii. 774a. His decision to side with Parliament may have owed something to his concern for the Protestant cause – especially given the new threat to north Wales from Catholic-dominated Ireland – and perhaps also to his likely association with Northumberland, Sir Henry Vane I* and other parliamentarian grandees as a parishioner and pew-owner in St Martin-in-the-Fields (although his property dealings in Brentford had brought him into legal dispute with Northumberland by 1641).106PROB11/210, f. 37; VCH Mdx. iii. 112. But whether grounded in principle or expediency, his adherence to Parliament undoubtedly helped to preserve Wimbledon House and its contents from sequestration until after his death.107Cal. Wynn Pprs. 315, 433; Tucker, ‘Sir Richard Wynn’, 14, 17. Wimbledon probably became his main country residence that autumn, when his house at Brentford, which had passed to his wife on her father’s death in 1641, was partially destroyed by the king’s troops during the royalist advance on London in November.108Harl. 164, f. 245; Tucker, ‘Sir Richard Wynn’, 15-17.

Wynn’s only appointment in the Commons during 1643 was to a committee set up on 13 February to consider how Parliament should respond to news of the queen’s imminent return to England.109CJ ii. 963b. On 16 March, he was one of four Members ordered to attend a committee for the supply of Parliament’s northern army – the queen having landed on the Yorkshire coast a few weeks earlier.110CJ iii. 5b. More peremptorily, on 28 September, the Commons ordered him to attend the committee for sequestering absent Members in order to explain his neglect of the House’s service.111CJ iii. 256b. Having satisfied this committee as to the reasons for his absence, he was allowed on 10 October to resume his seat, and on 16 October he took the Solemn League and Covenant.112CJ iii. 271b, 275b. His next appointment in the Commons was not until 22 May 1645, when he and four other Members were ordered to press the excise commissioners for a loan towards maintaining Parliament’s garrisons in Pembrokeshire.113CJ iv. 151b. The following spring (28 Mar. 1646), he was included on a five-man committee to be sent to north Wales for reducing the region to parliamentary authority – although there is no evidence that he participated in this mission, in spite of the despoiling of his house at Gwydir by royalist troops late in 1645.114CJ iv. 493b, 522a; Cal. Wynn Pprs. 297. On 16 November 1647, he was named to a committee for investigating Leveller agitation in the army, and he was appointed on 16 June 1648 to a committee on a bill for abolishing deans and chapters and selling off their property.115CJ v. 360a, 602b. When his ‘near kinsman’ John Williams, archbishop of York, described him in 1648 as a ‘constant Member of the House’, he was almost certainly referring to Wynn’s loyalty to Parliament rather than to the regularity of his attendance in the Commons.116Cal. Wynn Pprs. 306. That he was not among those secluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648 was probably a consequence of his absenteeism rather than a reflection of the army’s confidence in him.

Wynn died on 18 or 19 July 1649, reportedly of a ‘surfeit of water’, and was buried in St Mary’s, Wimbledon on 6 August.117Cal. Wynn Pprs. 314; Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Surr. i. 107; Mems. of the Verney Fam. i. 449. He died without issue, and in his will he left the bulk of his estate to his brother Owen – who was his heir to Gwydir and succeeded him as third baronet – and charged it with legacies amounting to approximately £1,800. He bequeathed the lease of his house on The Strand and his pew in St Martin-in-the-Fields church to his younger brother Maurice, together with several properties in Caernarfonshire and the reversion of Brentford House after the death of Lady Wynn.118PROB11/210, ff. 36-7. Wynn’s younger brother Henry* and his nephew Richard*, who had been returned as a ‘recruiter’ for Caernarvonshire in 1647, would represent Merioneth and Caernarvonshire respectively in the Cavalier Parliament.119Supra, ‘Henry Wynn’; ‘Richard Wynn’.