LLOYD, Charles (c.1600-78), of London, and Moel-y-Garth, Guilsfield, Mont.

Lloyd’s ancestors were in possession of Moel-y-Garth, Montgomeryshire, in the early thirteenth century and his grandfather, Humphrey Lloyd of Leighton, was the county’s first sheriff in 1540.20Mont. Colls. ii. 217; xxvii. 354. Charles Lloyd’s father was a crown forester and magistrate who was also a draper of Shrewsbury. On the early death of his father, Lloyd moved to London and was apprenticed to a Draper. He was made a freeman of the Drapers’ Company in 1622.21Drapers’ Co. ed. Boyd, 117. In 1634 he married the daughter of a London Haberdasher with Warwickshire connections and moved to St Stephen’s Walbrook, where his children were baptised.22Soc. Gen., Boyd’s Inhabitants 15645. In 1640 he was listed as one of the principal inhabitants of Cheap Ward.23Principal Inhabitants, ed. Harvey, 12. By this time Lloyd was a major player in the cloth trade. He was elected to the livery of the Drapers’ Company in 1635 and in the same year he was a member of a consortium that sought restitution for cargo seized by the Dutch.24CSP Dom. 1635, p. 413; 1636-7, p. 282; Add. 1625-49, p. 547. In 1637 he was involved in another case heard before the admiralty court.25CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 26. In April 1642 he was wealthy enough to invest £600 in the Irish Adventure.26Bottigheimer, English Money and Irish Land, 186. On 21 February 1645 Lloyd was one of five merchants appointed commissioners of customs who were expected to advance money for the state service, including two prominent London merchants, Samuel Avery* and Christopher Packe*. In the four years until they were discharged in July 1649, it was claimed that the commissioners lent £140,000 to Parliament.27CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 253. In 1649 Lloyd was elected as common councillor for Cheap Ward.28Guildhall Studies in London Hist. iv. 158.

Alongside his mercantile and financial interests in London, during the later 1640s Lloyd was able to re-establish his connections with his native Montgomeryshire – a link that Lloyd’s would-be electoral patron in 1646-7, the Presbyterian MP Francis Buller I, was keen to strengthen for political reasons.29Supra, ‘Montgomery Boroughs’. Lloyd inherited the family estate in the shire on the death of his brother, John, and became a justice of the peace there in March 1648 and a member of the assessment commission a year later.30Mont. Colls. xxvii. 354; A. and O. After his term as customs commissioner came to an end in 1649, Lloyd seems to have concentrated his attentions on Wales rather than London. Although he was elected to the court of assistants of the Drapers’ Company in 1650, he accepted no more apprentices after that year, and when he was chosen as a London alderman, for Bishopsgate ward in September1651, he chose to pay a fine of £600 rather than serve.31Beaven, Aldermen of London i. 39. During the same period he purchased sequestrated property in his native county, notably that of William, Lord Powis.32Mont. Colls. xiii. 256, 279; xix. 264; CCC 2197-9. At Parc Mathrafal in the manor of Caereinion, which he bought in 1651, he set up the county’s first iron forge. Having no more than covered his purchasing outlay by the sale of felled timber, he sold the manor a year later.33Mont. Colls. xlvi. 31, 40. From 1653 Lloyd was involved in the allocation of land in Ireland to adventurers, drawing the lots on behalf of some London merchants such as his former colleague, Samuel Avery, and buying up the stakes of others.34CSP Ire. Adv. pp. 3, 202, 347, 351; CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 412, 549, 553. He was allocated over 2,400 acres in Queen’s County and Co. Limerick in return for his initial investment.35Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 186, 206. In August 1654 he was appointed a member of the committee for adventurers, which settled disputes over Irish land allocations.36A. and O.

Lloyd was returned for Montgomeryshire in 1654, probably on his own local interest and with the support of his cousins of Llwydiarth. He was also one of 47 nominees for one of the six London seats.37Harl. 6810, ff. 164-5. Lloyd seems to have confined himself to commercial committees during this session: he was named to the committee to consider how to encourage the trade in corn and dairy products on 6 October, alongside his old colleague Samuel Avery and other MPs with London interests such as Edmund Harvey I and Andrew Riccard; and he joined the recorder of London, William Steele, as a member of the committee on the business of the merchants of the intercourse (4 Dec.).38CJ vii. 374b, 395a. In 1655 he became master of the Drapers’ Company, in succession to his old associate on the customs commission, Christopher Packe. It was probably on Packe’s invitation that Lloyd had become deputy governor of the Merchants Adventurers’ Company a year later.39CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 334; TSP v. 126. This promotion embroiled Lloyd in controversy, however. Packe had become governor only by supplanting Avery, and this may have been the trigger for a long-lasting feud between the two men, centred on the question of who was liable for over £20,000 of arrears left by the customs commissioners when their employment ended in 1649. Avery petitioned the protectoral council in August 1656 begging that he, as treasurer, would not become a scapegoat for his colleagues. Packe and Lloyd sent in their own rival petition in the following January, and by a council order of February 1657 (confirmed the following September) their accounts were allowed to pass while Avery was held liable for the whole sum.40CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 84-5, 253-4, 291; 1657-8, pp. 8, 94, 106. The on-going row, and the need for Lloyd to win official favour, provides the background for his activities during the second protectorate Parliament.

Lloyd was re-elected for Montgomeryshire in August 1656, and although one source lists him among those MPs excluded sitting by the council of state, he had taken his seat by 3 October, when he was named to the committee on the petition of William Jervis alongside Packe and another London MP, Thomas Foot.41Little and Smith, Cromwellian Protectorate, 304; CJ vii. 433a. These three men would work as a team throughout the first sitting of this Parliament. In the autumn of 1656, Lloyd’s principal interest appears to have been in commercial affairs. He was named to committees to review the laws on wages (7 Oct.), to consider a bill against abuses in the wine trade (9 Oct.) and to improve the excise on beer and ale (25 Oct.).42CJ vii. 435a, 436b, 445b. He was also involved in religious affairs, including committees on the estates of Catholics (22 Oct.), the maintenance of ministers in England and Wales (31 Oct.) and legislation for convicting and suppressing ‘popish recusants’ (3 Dec.).43CJ vii. 444a, 448a, 463b. In these six committees, Lloyd was listed with Packe four times and Foot five times, suggesting that the three men shared religious as well as business interests. Lloyd was recorded as having spoken only once during the debates on the James Naylor case in December, but that intervention, on 6 December, demonstrated his conservatism in religion and politics. Naylor’s actions, Lloyd claimed, were ‘against the law of God, of nature, and of nations too. Though the bishops be taken away, the law against blasphemy is not taken away’. His only qualms concerned the right of the Commons to conduct judicial proceedings – ‘that you may keep your legislative power, and proceed judicially’ – and he recommended a separate court be established to deal with the case.44Burton’s Diary i. 38.

In the final fortnight of December 1656, Lloyd was preoccupied with business affecting commerce and the City of London. When the bill for encouraging trade received its second reading on 18 December, Lloyd was one of those who proposed that it should be considered by the trade committee.45Burton’s Diary i. 168. The following day, the Commons received a London petition demanding that non-residents who did not pay for the City government should be barred from election as freemen. The petition was supported by Packe and Foot, who called for it to be committed; but the motion provoked a hostile response from the Dorset merchant, Denis Bond, who denounced the petition as ‘mischievous’. At this point, Lloyd intervened, saying that ‘the intent of the petition is to bring an equality of burden, as well as profit’, and then reminded MPs that ‘the City has served you faithfully; nay, more than any city in England. You owe them now £300,000. They pay a fifteenth part of the assessment. You may have occasion to use them afterwards’.46Burton’s Diary i. 176-7. Later on the same day the debate moved on to the assessment arrears owed by the City. Foot argued that the burden should not fall on the merchants of the intercourse, and he was supported in this by Lloyd.47Burton’s Diary i. 180. On 23 December Lloyd and Foot argued that these arrears should be abated.48Burton’s Diary i. 213. Lloyd also seconded the efforts of Packe in upholding the rights of the Merchant Adventurers against the clothworkers when the dispute was considered by the committee for trade on 18 and 23 December.49Burton’s Diary i. 175, 221. On 6 January 1657, Packe ‘spoke at least thirty times’ on the same business and Lloyd ‘helped him as much as could be’ although the ‘sense of the committee’ was against them.50Burton’s Diary i. 308. On 13 January the pair tried the patience of their fellow committeemen when they returned to the matter, and ‘would have unvoted what was voted on the 6th of January for free trade’.51Burton’s Diary i. 345. Lloyd’s alliance with Packe and Foot can also be seen in his committee appointments over the following few weeks. On 27 January Lloyd was named with Packe and Foot to the committee to consider the dispute between Sir Sackville Crow and the Levant Company; on 2 February the three men were named to a committee to consider the petition of the former London MP, Samuel Vassall*; and on 9 February they were also appointed to the committee to consider the plight of the family and creditors of the failed Scottish financier, Sir William Dick.52CJ vii. 482b, 485a, 488b. On 13 February Lloyd again joined Packe and Foot on the committee to consider levying a fine on new buildings in London and its suburbs, designed to fund the war with Spain.53CJ vii. 491a. At the end of February and early March the three were also named to committees to receive and account of the condition of Naylor from the authorities at Bridewell prison, and to divide the parish of St Andrew’s, Holborn.54CJ vii. 497b, 498b

A new, civilian constitution, initially known as the Remonstrance, was introduced to the Commons by Packe on 23 February, and Lloyd was soon involved in the scrutiny of its contents. On 16 March he was named to the committee to consider the 8th article, concerning the appointment and powers of the new privy council.55CJ vii. 505a. On 25 March he joined Packe and Foot in voting in favour of retaining the offer of the crown to Cromwell in the first article.56Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 23 (E.935.5). Two days later, Lloyd was among the MPs appointed to attend the protector asking him to set a time and date for the new constitution, renamed the Humble Petition and Advice, to be presented to him by the Commons.57CJ vii. 514b. Cromwell’s refusal to immediately accept the crown led to a hiatus, and Lloyd was named to committees to attend the protector again to ask for meetings on 7 and 9 April.58CJ vii. 521a, 521b.

During the kingship debates, Lloyd found time to engage with other business in the House. He was named with Packe to the committee on a bill for purchasing church impropriations on 31 March and on 1 April he joined Foot on a committee to consider a further petition from the City of London.59CJ vii. 515b, 516b. On 30 April, when non-parliamentary ordinances were considered for confirmation, Lloyd followed Packe and Foot in opposing the ratification of an ordinance of May 1654, which cancelled a bond signed by the 4th earl of Pembroke for money borrowed for public use from the City of London, asking MPs to ‘consider how in justice you can do this, to stop proceedings at law upon a just debt’.60Burton’s Diary ii. 83. The bill for levying fines on new buildings in and around London received its second reading on 9 May, and Lloyd was named to the committee alongside Foot and Packe.61CJ vii. 531b. A few weeks later he was teller in favour of allowing citizens their traditional right to build on Moorditch and Townditch on payment of a separate fine to the City corporation.62CJ vii. 565b. On 29 May Lloyd was involved in the debate about the postage bill and was named to the subsequent committee, and he spoke in the debates on tonnage and poundage and writs of delivery on 1 June.63Burton’s Diary ii. 156, 168-9; CJ vii. 542a. On 8 June he joined Foot as teller in favour of a motion to read a proviso in a naturalisation bill that prevented those being naturalised from receiving the benefits of natives when it came to customs duties.64CJ vii. 549b. According to Thomas Burton*, in the same division ‘Packe was appointed to be a teller, but he stood up and said nobody knew whether he should go out or no, and Mr Lloyd was appointed in his stead’.65Burton’s Diary ii. 193. The loss of this vote, despite arguments that such a measure would cost the nation dear, caused Lloyd great annoyance, and he was unwilling to let the matter go. ‘I will find you farmers to give £40,000 for this strangers’ custom’, he told the House, ‘I rise up to disabuse you in it, for I know you are misinformed’.66Burton’s Diary ii. 194. In a rare example of Lloyd’s involvement in Welsh affairs during this Parliament, on 17 June he was teller with Colonel Philip Jones in favour of a motion to abate the assessment to be paid by Pembrokeshire.67CJ vii. 559b. Lloyd was once again involved in constitutional matters at the end of the sitting. On 30 May he was named with Packe and Foot to the committee to consider how to raise the revenue stipulated in the Humble Petition.68CJ vii. 543a. On 25 June the three men were appointed to a committee of eight ‘to consider of the best way to improve the revenue’.69CJ vii. 575a.

Throughout this period, Lloyd was also involved in efforts to settle Ireland. He was named to committees on the cases of Sir Theophilus Jones* (16 Feb.) and Sir Hardress Waller* (17 Mar.), and on 30 March he was named to the committee on the bill of attainder of the Irish rebels.70CJ vii. 491b, 505b, 515a. His interest in such matters was probably influenced by his own stake in Ireland, which had not yet been finalised. On 1 May the bill ‘for settling of Charles Lloyd … in his lands in Ireland, in lieu of other lands fallen to him by lot, as an adventurer’ was read for the second time and sent to a committee consisting of, among others, Foot and Packe.71CJ vii. 529a. Lloyd’s bill was not universally popular, however, not least because it greatly increased his land allocation. Edward Whalley* voiced the concerns of many when he asked ‘how it is that, instead of 1,500 acres, which he was disappointed of, upon his lot as adventurer, he should have set out 3,500 acres’.72Burton’s Diary ii. 95. Lloyd’s own case depended on other legislation passing through the Commons. On 11 May he was teller with Bennet Hoskins in favour of a motion for the immediate reading of the general bill on the Irish adventurers – but their failure to secure a majority led to a series of postponements for this legislation.73CJ vii. 532b. On 22 May Lloyd was added to the committee on the Irish land settlement bill when it considered the attainder bill.74CJ vii. 537b. He continued his efforts to get a reading for the adventurers’ bill on 29 May, when he demanded that the investors received ‘the common justice of the House’, and moved to postpone the rival bill to settle land on the pre-1649 ‘Old Protestant’ officers, ‘for it takes away what the adventurers should be satisfied with’. The main sponsor of the Old Protestants’ bill, Anthony Morgan*, reacted with a personal slur on Lloyd: ‘I could tell something of that gentleman’s allotment, how unreasonable it is, though it be twice read’, and other MPs had to intervene to prevent ‘reflections and responses between Major Morgan and Mr Lloyd’.75Burton’s Diary ii. 157-8. On 4 June Lloyd was appointed to the committee on the bill to allow Viscount Moore of Drogheda to sell lands in Ireland.76CJ vii. 545a. The next day he again called for the adventurers’ bill to be considered.77Burton’s Diary ii. 179. On 15 June he was named to the committee to consider a clause in the Additional Petition and Advice concerning the status of the Old Protestants of Munster, although in debate he was dismissive, telling MPs to ‘leave out the whole clause and provide for this in the bill for settling the distribution of Members’.78CJ vii. 557a; Burton’s Diary ii. 249.

Little is known of Lloyd’s activities in the 18 months after the adjournment of the second protectorate Parliament in June 1657. He attended the second sitting in January 1658, but was named to only one committee: that to consider the marriage bill on 3 February.79CJ vii. 591a. In the elections for the third protectorate Parliament in 1659, Lloyd switched from the county, which chose his cousin Edward Vaughan*, to the borough seat. In this Parliament, Lloyd appears to have taken more interest in Welsh affairs. On 3 February he was named to the committee on the provision of a pious ministry for Wales, and on 5 February he resisted attempts by English MPs to widen the scope of a committee for the maintenance of minister in Wales to cover both nations, saying ‘I move, particularly, for north and south Wales’ and adding, sarcastically, ‘Beggarly poor gentlemen are of that commission. Let it be helpful to their beggarly friends’.80CJ vii. 600b; Burton’s Diary iii. 83. Yet it was the foreign policy debates – with their obvious commercial overtones - that stirred him to his greatest eloquence. After a long speech by Martin Noell on 21 February, Lloyd warned MPs that war between Sweden and Denmark would threaten to stop all trade through with the Baltic, which supplied items essential for shipping, such as masts and tar.

This concerns not only our well-being but our very being. But by this care, no materials can you have for shipping. We are islanders, and our life and soul is traffic. Your cloth trade will be lost ... Take time by the forelock. A wise man sees things afar off. This is the spring, defer it not. The Hollanders furnish our enemies of Spain with shipping, and better an open than a close enemy. Our war with Spain has destroyed all our trade.

Lloyd was pragmatic, rather than partisan, in his arguments and religion was only a secondary reason for intervention.

For my part I would no sooner trust Sweden than the Dane; but I hope you will secure your interest … The Swede cannot keep it [the Sound] without your ships, no more than the Dane can do without Holland ... I shall not speak of the interest of religion; but this nation has ever been looked upon as the head of the Protestant interest.81Burton’s Diary iii. 392-3.

On 24 February he returned to the same theme

The bottom is the Dutch ... The Spanish could not offend us at sea without the Dutch. They are worse than enemies, secret enemies. If we were enemies we could meet with his prizes, as well as he does with us. I vow I speak it tremblingly. If this opportunity be lost, I dread the consequence... Let it be expressed, that you will send a fleet to the Sound. The Dutch have a long time declared their resolution. The more public, I think, the better, and more for your service.82Burton’s Diary iii. 465; Schilling thesis, 115.

Later in the Parliament, Lloyd was named to the committees on the Durham enfranchisement bill (31 Mar.), and to consider yet another petition by Samuel Vassall (1 Apr.).83CJ vii. 622b, 623a. He was also named to the committee of Irish affairs, when it was created on 1 April.84CJ vii. 623a. The debate on customs and excise later in the same month naturally drew Lloyd’s attention. When the brewers appeared at the doors of the House on 11 April to complain about the City levy, he objected to giving them a hearing: as one of the contracting commissioners he played down the importance of the money raised: ‘We did not depend so much upon these persons as upon the security of one Holt, a goldsmith in Lombard Street’. He also argued that the Commons should ‘keep them [the customs farmers] to their contracts’ from now on, as they had already obtained relief from the government, and ‘it was said that some of them were so strict that they would flea a flint’.85Burton’s Diary iv. 398. Two days later, in the debate on arrears owed by one of the excise farmers, Martin Noell, Lloyd objected to writing them off, as Noell had previously been so indulged over the silk excise. He disapproved of the salt excise altogether, and suggested a revision of the dating in Noell’s lease to remedy his shortfall. Above all, no exceptions must be made, for ‘you will find this will disjoint all your contracts. All England will expect an abatement’.86Burton’s Diary iv. 418. In advocating strictness against the customs farmers, Lloyd was perhaps influenced by the increasing tension between Parliament and the army. He did not shy away from controversy. On 12 April Lloyd was named to the committee to consider the controversial motion that the former major general for Northamptonshire, William Boteler*, should be impeached.87CJ vii. 637a. On 21 April in the crucial debate on the control of the militia, Lloyd pointed out the vulnerability of Richard Cromwell*:

If distractions come, who shall head us? Let us not flatter ourselves. Consultations are held without. Some, in power, have the ammunition in their power. You have today, but are not sure of tomorrow ... I would have a speedy course taken, for some to grant commissions.88Burton’s Diary iv. 475.

The fall of the protectorate in the weeks that followed left Lloyd exposed, but it was several months before his enemies caught up with him. In September 1659 the question of the liability of the former customs commissioner for arrears due to the state was raised in the Rump. The orders of the protectoral council of two years before were overturned, and it was resolved that the total of £22,246 must be paid by Lloyd and his former colleagues by 1 November 1659.89CJ vii. 782a-b. By the time that deadline was reached, the Rump had been turned out by the army, and it is doubtful whether the outstanding sum was ever paid. Lloyd’s position improved after the restoration of 1660, but there were still ambiguities. He had at one time been suspected as a covert royalist, ready to act as one of their London treasurers if Cromwell accepted the crown; but he failed to secure re-election for Montgomery in the Convention of 1660, despite a petition.90TSP i. 750. In 1661 he was allowed to purchase a baronetcy, at the cost of £1,095.91CTB 1660-7, p. 595. Royal patronage was necessary to him in the next few years to make good his claims on the Irish adventure lands, which were challenged by Avery and others.92CSP Ire. 1660-2, p. 468; 1663-5, pp. 430-1, 541-2. Lloyd lost his London residence in the Great Fire of 1666, and renewed his lease to rebuild; but a few years later he seems to have retired to Shrewsbury, where he died intestate, and was buried at St Chad’s church on 12 January 1678.93The Fire Court, ed. P.E. Jones, ii. 68-71, 75, 149, 362; Mont. Colls. vii. 236. The baronetcy became extinct with the death of his grandson in 1743.94CB.