THELWALL, Lumley (aft. 1620-75), of Plas-y-Ward, Llanynys, Denb.

Lumley Thelwall was in the classic position of a younger son of the gentry, needing to seek employment. The circumstances of the younger Thelwall children was more straitened than those of many contemporaries, since his father only succeeded to his own patrimony in 1661, no more than two years after the death of Simon Thelwall†, grandfather of both Lumley and his elder brother, Simon. Lumley’s inheritance in 1663 from his father was a mere £20 a year.7PROB11/312, f. 145. Nothing is known of Lumley Thelwall’s early life before he joined the army. He was probably the Captain Thelwall who was at Montgomery Castle with Sir William Myddelton in July 1645, and probably the Captain Thelwall who in August 1647 was given responsibility by Thomas Mytton* for escorting a prisoner to Westminster to be examined by the Commons’ committee of complaints, and was rewarded by the House for his service.8SP28/31, pt. 4, 365; CJ v. 265a, 272b. He retained his army commission, and by November 1648 had been marked for despatch to Ireland in the horse regiment of the radical John Reynolds.9CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 37. On his way to Ireland in the following year he was conducting his troop through Shropshire when he was fallen upon by a crowd led by Robert Clive*. Thelwall’s men were abused and despoiled by ambushers, their horses being sold in the open market. The matter was taken very seriously by the council of state. Clive had been a stalwart of the Shropshire county committee, but was hostile to the new government. He was imprisoned afterwards, and subsequently asserted that he was acting in the interests of the late king, but he had been at the centre of friction between the committee and Mytton, Thelwall’s former commander.10CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 52, 77, 79, 261, 282, 316, 327, 343, 346, 347, 364, 372, 376, 524, 529, 546, 550 ; E113/12 (Salop), answer of Robert Clive, 15 Jan. 1663.

Thelwall’s journey across the Irish Sea survived this setback. In September 1650 the council of state, which evidently thought well of him, recommended him as sword-bearer in Ireland, and by December 1651 he was established in Dublin as a commissioner for revenue there.11CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 364, 430; CSP Ire. 1669-70, p. 368. He was surely the Captain Thelwall who acted as intermediary between these commissioners and the parliamentary commissioners for Ireland, among them John Jones I*, who was evidently his patron.12Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 260; Cal. Wynn Pprs. 346. By May 1653 he was acting as a commissioner for taking depositions on the Irish rebellion of 1641. Thelwall’s territory was counties Roscommon and Galway in the west of Ireland, and the purpose of taking the depositions of witnesses was to prepare cases for prosecutions of rebels in high courts of justice.13TCD, 1641 Depositions website. Thelwall must have returned from Ireland before 1656, presumably after the advent of the Cromwellian protectorate and perhaps with Jones. In July 1656, his grandfather wanted one of his grandsons to represent Denbighshire, a choice between Lumley and one of his surviving younger brothers. Simon Thelwall* was by this time dead. Col. John Carter had other ideas, proposing himself and John Jones I. Thelwall’s grandfather, acknowledging the latter’s favours, would not put up a family member against Jones, but the Thelwall interest seemed divided for and against Carter.14Cal. Wynn Pprs. 345-6. In the event, Jones and Carter were elected, but Jones opted to sit for Merioneth, his native county. At the subsequent by-election, Thelwall was returned for Denbighshire.

Between March 1657, when he was first noticed in the Journal, and the end of the following June, Thelwall was named to eight committees. Five of these were in the company of John Jones I. The first three were on petitions by individuals and on the bill to settle Irish lands on Sir Hardress Waller*.15CJ vii. 505a, 505b. He was among the MPs listed as voting to offer the crown to Cromwell under the Humble Petition and Advice.16Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 23 (E.935.5). Subsequently, he was among the additions (3 Apr.) to a committee revived to attend the lord protector on the new constitution, and to two further committees on the Humble Petition and Cromwell’s protracted scruples over kingship.17CJ vii. 519b, 520b, 521b. With Jones he was called to work on a bill to confirm titles in Ireland, and to another on the postal service in England and Wales. His final parliamentary activity was to act as teller with Jones in a division to bestow 2,000 acres of Irish land on Roger Boyle*, Lord Broghill, a prominent supporter of the government. Jones and Thelwall were successful in the division in Broghill’s favour.18CJ vii. 537b, 542a, 546a. This was the end of Thelwall’s career at Westminster: he served on no committees during the short session of 1658.

Thelwall successfully negotiated the restoration of the monarchy, unlike his patron Jones, for whom it proved fatal. He returned to Ireland, spending the rest of the 1660s pursuing claims to lands there. He had acquired an estate in Kilkenny, which passed to James Butler, duke of Ormond, in the generous compensatory settlement bestowed on the latter by Charles II. Lands in county Carlow were allocated to Thelwall instead, but he was still petitioning for them in 1667.19Bodl. Carte 60, ff. 404, 406, 406v, 407; 144 ff. 78, 100, 103v. In 1673 he was living in Dublin, but was afflicted with ill-health and battling a lawsuit launched against him by Arthur Jones*, Viscount Ranelagh, in collusion with his own brother, Robert Thelwall.20NLW, MS 12403E. Declaring himself ready to start afresh, he was granted little time to change course. He is said to have been drowned in 1675, on his way back from Ireland.21Hist. Powys Fadog. iv. 310. Certainly his sister, Frances Thelwall, declared herself in May 1676 to have outlived all her brothers.22PROB11/353, f. 202. Lumley Thelwall is not known to have married.