VAUGHAN, Edward (c.1600-61), of the Inner Temple, London and

As Vaughan was the first of a well-established line of gentry to become a Member, it is significant that he was first elected for Merioneth, into which the smaller portion of the family estate extended. That county, as it did not always insist on a resident, could accommodate a Vaughan of Llwydiarth: Montgomeryshire, where the estate was located, had never done so, because the dominant Herbert interest counted the Vaughans as antagonists. In this generation, however, Herbert brides were secured for two of Edward’s elder brothers, and one of these marriages, that of Sir Robert Vaughan to Catherine, daughter of William Herbert†, 1st Baron Powis, was to overshadow Edward’s life. Sir Robert died in 1624 leaving an infant daughter Eleanor, who was at once taken hostage by her Vaughan uncles with an eye to their patrimonial interest. Her mother complained that she was denied access to Llwydiarth, but Edward Vaughan had the graver complaint to make, summarized in 1641 by Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, that she

six weeks after her husband’s death who had conveyed all his lands to his said brother, feigned herself to be brought to bed of a son (which [it] was thought she got from some poor body) and named him Herbert ... she afterwards married Sir James Palmer, got the wardship of this suppositious child and with the trained bands got possession of the lands in Wales, being about £2,000 per annum under that colour and have [sic] ever since by the power of the Lord Powis kept the possession of the same, and the said Mr Edward Vaughan could never have justice either in the court of the marches of Wales, in the star chamber or court of wards in England.15D’Ewes (N), 481n, 512.

Edward Vaughan had seized Llwydiarth by violence in 1624, allegedly killing a servant. He had sought to impugn the legitimacy of Herbert Vaughan in the court of wards in 1628, naming the boy’s mother as one Helen Gilbert.16CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 261. He had also attempted to procure a reversal, in star chamber in 1630, of the decision of the court of marches, to whom Lady Vaughan had appealed to give her possession of her late husband’s property, thus preventing him from establishing at law his title to the Llwydiarth estate. The star chamber took six years to validate the documentation for his case, and he was prevented by injunction of the court of wards from trying his title at law for 21 years. In 1640 he petitioned the king for a speedy trial, while his witnesses lived, guaranteeing the royal wardship rights over Herbert Vaughan. Ominously, however, the master of the court of wards, Sir Francis Cottington†, 1st Baron Cottington, was ‘nephew-in-law to Sir James Palmer†, who married Lady Vaughan’.17CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 356.

Because of Edward Vaughan’s place in his family, born a fifth son, he was doubtless put to the law as an avenue towards making a living. His legal expertise must have informed and intensified the dogged pursuit of his claim to Llwydiarth. His case was heard by the Commons grand committee for the courts of justice on 19 March 1641, in what D’Ewes considered a ‘very tedious’ hearing. Lord Powis sent no counsel, and the committee found in Vaughan’s favour, but the result was only a vindication, not an award of the reparations Vaughan was said to merit.18CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 505; D’Ewes (N), 512. However, evidently emboldened by this judgment, by the end of December Vaughan was at Llwydiarth, employing his legal skills to transfer the leases and allegiances of tenants there over to himself.19Cal. Wynn Pprs. 275. After civil war had broken out, the king evidently counted on Vaughan’s allegiance, and summoned him to Oxford. He duly attended, but had slipped away without permission by 21 March 1643, when articles were drawn up against him by one of the king’s courtiers. He was accused of maintaining disorderly soldiers in Montgomeryshire, and discouraging obedience to the royal commission of array.20CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 647. On 16 June 1643 he was numbered with Sir Thomas Myddelton* as a man the Caernarfonshire commissioners of array were to seek out and arrest, using their ‘utmost power and industry’.21Cal. Lttrs. relating to N. Wales, 57. In response to these warrants, Vaughan apparently petitioned the king for a fair trial, which was initially promised him before articles of high treason were directed against him.22SP28/251, pt. 1, unfol. (Mont.). Meanwhile, Herbert Vaughan, Edward’s competitor for Llwydiarth, had been active for the king, and in 1644 was targeted by the Montgomeryshire committee for sequestration. His estate in that county and in Denbighshire and Merioneth was reputed to be worth £2,500, and Edward Vaughan availed himself of the opportunity to take advantage of his rival.23Herbert Corresp. 27-8.

The sequestrations committee of Montgomeryshire, which probably doubled as a general committee of Parliament in the county, met in Powis castle, captured by Sir Thomas Myddelton from Lord Powis in October 1644. Claiming authority from the committee, Vaughan garrisoned another family house in Montgomeryshire, probably Abermarchant, Llanwddyn, and brought in provisions and other supplies, apparently initially without compulsion, from the neighbourhood. After the autumn of 1645, however, Vaughan’s soldiers began to drive away cattle and there was a report of countrymen beating off a captain of the garrison who attempted to rob them.24SP28/251, pt. 1, unfol. (Mont.). Vaughan and his men occupied Llwydiarth, and supporters of Herbert Vaughan protested against his claim to hold a committee lease of the estate at the same time as his suit at law remained in process. Appeals to Thomas Mytton*, the parliamentarian commander-in-chief in the region, made no progress; according to observers because of Vaughan’s valuable work of garrisoning.25Herbert Corresp. 27-8. As for Herbert Vaughan, by mid-February 1645 he was under arrest at Shrewsbury and was later taken in custody by Mytton’s soldiers to Nantwich. His step-father, Sir James Palmer, appealed to the 4th earl of Pembroke (Philip Herbert*), who had been Herbert Vaughan’s guardian, protesting disingenuously that Herbert had kept out of the war entirely.26Brereton Lttr. Bks. i. 40, 84; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 367. Herbert’s case evidently failed to impress, as he himself petitioned to compound for his delinquency in December 1646.27CCC 1626.

Even more than the magistracy, of which he was a member from 1643, the committee of accounts for Montgomeryshire proved the perfect vehicle for Edward Vaughan’s ambitions in Montgomeryshire, independent as it was from the main committee for the county. Local accounts committees were sub-committees reporting to the Committee of Accounts in London, which by the mid-1640s had become a vehicle for Presbyterian challenges to the domination of the committees by the Independents. Vaughan became chairman, ‘prime man’, of the Montgomeryshire accounts sub-committee which refused to release from its custody the county treasurer, Lloyd Pierce, for whom bail of £40,000 had been offered to enable him to appear before the Committee for Sequestrations. This last committee had its own suspicions about Vaughan and ordered its county committees to investigate whether ‘the said Mr Vaughan be a delinquent himself’. The standing committee for Montgomeryshire complained to the Lords about of Pierce’s imprisoment (11 June 1646), and Pierce likewise to the national Committee of Accounts, deploring Vaughan’s malice. On 25 November 1646, the standing committee again condemned Vaughan’s conduct, thanks to which ‘this committee are not only disabled to proceed against notorious delinquents, but all officers employed in the Parliament’s service are much discouraged’.28SP20/3, f. 119; CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 441, 461, 491; Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales (2nd ed.), 116.

In about July 1646, Vaughan and George Devereux* signed a petition from Montgomeryshire to Parliament, requesting the settlement of a ‘lawful magistracy’ in the county and the appointment of a new high sheriff. This in effect challenged the county committee and its allies among the soldiery, and gave an indication of Vaughan’s aspirations to a parliamentary seat.29NLW, Wynnstay ms K3/2, item 77. Despite his local notoriety, and indeed the common fame of his struggle to secure Llwydiarth, Vaughan was elected on 6 February 1647 as knight of the shire for Montgomeryshire. The first name among the electors whose names appeared on the indenture was that of George Devereux, who would himself be elected for Montgomery Boroughs two months later very plainly boosting the Presbyterian faction. On 17 February, probably even before he had arrived at Westminster, a Commons committee was set up to examine information against Vaughan by Sir Thomas Myddelton, and also by Vaughan against Myddelton.30CJ v. 90a. Myddelton had evidently compiled his charges against Vaughan on hearing that the latter had been elected to Parliament. He alleged that Vaughan had been judged a delinquent, and had manipulated chancery writs to evade imprisonment.31G.R. Thomas, ‘Sir Thomas Myddelton II, 1586-1666’ (Univ. of N. Wales MA thesis, 1968), 449-50, transcript of NLW, Wynnstay 90/16 [K2/3, item 16]. Vaughan’s accusations first attempted to show that Myddelton had complied with Laudianism before proceeding to highlight his reluctance to oppose the commission of array and his oppressive conduct when major-general. The committee was revived on 6 April, given further business on the 15th – the similar case against Vaughan’s friend and ally, Devereux – and then superseded by another committee on 8 July, no conclusions having been reached; but the career of neither Myddelton nor Vaughan was immediately damaged or called into question, and no definite outcome was recorded.32CJ v. 90a, 134a, 143b, 237b; Thomas, ‘Sir Thomas Myddelton’, 451-63, transcript of NLW, Wynnstay 90/16 [K2/3, item 16].

On 24 February 1647, 18 days after being elected, Vaughan took the Covenant with 19 other ‘recruiter’ Members.33CJ v. 97a. While the mutual denunciations of Myddelton and Vaughan were subject to committee scheduling if not investigation, he was called to consider other topics: on the ordinance for restraining malignant clergy from livings (22 Mar.) and the indemnity ordinance (10 May).34CJ v. 119b, 166a. On 12 May, the ordinance for borrowing £200,000 from the City was referred to a committee which included Vaughan, but the same day he was given his first specific responsibility in this Parliament: the drafting of a letter to be signed by the Speaker, to be sent to Thomas Mytton* requiring him to impose order in Montgomeryshire on indisciplined soldiers, en route for Ireland.35CJ v. 168b, 169b. Vaughan’s interest in the disbanding or re-allocation of the armies can also be inferred from his membership of the committee on relieving maimed soldiers (28 May).36CJ v. 190b. As a Welsh lawyer, he was naturally included in a committee on legal instruments for south Wales, a committee attended by Sir Robert Harley*.37CJ v. 220b. Vaughan was by this time identified with the Presbyterian interest, which may account for the inconclusive outcome of the investigation focusing on him and George Devereux. The ordinance to replace the holy days with days of recreation for scholars and apprentices, to which he was named on 24 June, was characteristic of the behavioural directives which appealed to the Presbyterians, but more significant and indicative was his behaviour on 15 July. A division that day on the disciplinary action to be taken against Members whose political behaviour brought them under suspicion in the eyes of their colleagues saw stark battle lines between Independents and Presbyterians. The former, who sought only disablement from sitting further in the present Parliament, were marshalled by Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire, frequent collaborators as tellers. The Presbyterians, who could only muster 17 votes against their opponents’ 77, were led by Vaughan and John D’Oyly. Four days after this, Vaughan and 12 other Members were given leave of absence.38CJ v. 222a, 244b, 245a.

Vaughan was allowed to leave a week before the Presbyterian coup (26 July) and the subsequent flight of the Independents to the army. He was back by 2 August, however, to be named to the committee investigating the disturbances, which also claimed the attention of Sir Robert Harley and Sir Simonds D’Ewes, who like Vaughan himself were clearly in the Presbyterian camp. The arrival of the New Model army in London (6 Aug.) may have driven Vaughan away, as he was not named again in the Journal until 23 December, when he and Edward Thelwall were required to bring in outstanding assessment money from north Wales.39CJ v. 250b, 265a, 400b. His appearances in the House in 1648 were infrequent. He was called to the committee on the grievances of the people (4 Jan.), and at the call of the House on 24 April his absence was excused, probably because he had been in Wales the previous month, as an associate of Archbishop John Williams in helping to disband military units in north Wales.40Cal. Wynn Pprs. 307. When discontent in Wales against the ruling powers erupted into the revolt of the second civil war, Vaughan stood firm for Parliament. On 20 May he was at Montgomery, where he signed an engagement of the ‘gentlemen, ministers and well-affected’ of the county, pledging allegiance to Parliament and promising to disarm any who would disrupt the peace.41CJ v. 417a, 543b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1126.

On 1 June he was added to the committee to receive army accounts and on the 13th another committee on the army, to consider the sums that had been paid to officers and soldiers. It is hard to believe that Vaughan was an active friend to the army in these appointments.42CJ v. 581b, 599a. He was given a further period of leave on 20 June, but only five days later he was numbered with a committee on a petition by alleged forgers of an act of Parliament, who had been imprisoned by the Lords. The committee was led by two arch-Presbyterians, William Prynne and Sir John Maynard.43CJ v. 608a, vi. 87a. It was his last service in this Parliament. Vaughan was secluded from sitting further in the House at the purge instigated by the army on 6 December, which was unsurprising given what is known of his political associations. Two Members with the surname Vaughan are identified in the sources as victims of the purge, and there seems some confusion about their identity, not entirely resolved by the most authoritative modern historian of the event. It seems likely, however, that Edward Vaughan was among the Members sent to Hell, an alehouse or eating-house, on the 6th, and on the 12th allowed on parole to stay at his inn of court, a concession afforded other lawyer Members.44Mercurius Elencticus no. 55 (5-12 Dec. 1648), 527 (E.476.4); Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1361; Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 152-3, 159, 168n., 195, 237. It was Charles Vaghan who was arrested on the 7th, imprisoned, then released on 20 December.45A True and Ful Relation (1648), 11 (E.476.14); OPH xviii. 453, 477; [W. Prynne], The Second Part of the Narrative (1648), 8 (E.477.19); Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1369.

Vaughan’s exclusion from the House was a signal for the revival by his Montgomeryshire enemies of the case against him. Apart from his forcible retention of Llwydiarth and its rents, he was now charged with withholding £1,783 17s of a sum granted him in March 1648 to disband the forces in Montgomeryshire, and this was the subject of a petition to Parliament. On 1 March 1649 the Montgomeryshire commissioners complained that Lady Palmer, Vaughan’s sister-in-law, could not pay her composition because she was denied her portion of the Llwydiarth rents.46CCAM 995. The House empowered the Committee for Advance of Money to send for Vaughan (18 Apr.), and on 27 April the serjeant-at-arms was ordered to bring him up in custody.47CJ vi. 188b. This order was repeated on 18 May, enlisting the assistance of local military governors in Wales. Vaughan could not escape this time, but he upheld his title to the Llwydiarth estate, his possession having preceded their sequestration, and on 29 June was released from detention.48CCAM 996. The county committee, from which Vaughan had been dropped, grumbled that the state had lost the proceeds of sequestration, but their efforts to remedy this were further frustrated when Herbert Vaughan died, on 22 February 1650. In September Vaughan was again detained for questioning, his personal armaments being particularly objected to, and the Committee for Compounding ordered the seizure of his estate.49CSP Dom. 1650, p. 348; CCC 1627. On 3 October he was licensed and on 13 November ordered to come to London for two months, with sureties for good behaviour.50CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 523, 560. He satisfied his interrogators on the disbandment money charge, but the Llwydiarth rents, of which Lady Palmer claimed a third, remained unaccounted for.

Vaughan fought tooth and nail to retain his advantage, but suffered a setback in May 1654 when Llwydiarth was adjudicated to have been duly sequestered in 1644 and himself answerable for its profits since. His next step was to plead his discharge under the act for north Wales of 10 August 1649, and under the act of pardon, which was refused, but his ensuing battle with Rice Vaughan, registrar to the sequestration commissioners, for stay of the arrears owing, secured him further respite. Eventually he was reputed to face a fine of £8,000.51CCC 1628; Herbert Corresp. 27-8; Cal. Wynn Pprs. 338. Through these vicissitudes, Vaughan retained some allies. In 1653 he was the dedicatee of Testûn Testament Newydd, a compilation of biblical content rendered into Welsh popular verse by Richard Jones, who until his ejection (11 June 1650) by the commissioners for the propagation of the gospel in Wales had been vicar of Llanfair Caereinion in Montgomeryshire. Jones congratulated Vaughan on having overcome the threat facing him from his own nation, doubtless an allusion to Pride’s Purge, to secure his title to Llwydiarth, the patrimony of his ancestors. The epistle dedicatory also recorded thanks to Vaughan for defending Jones, a flexible Anglican, against undeserved and destructive criticism.52R. Jones, Testûn Testament Newydd (1653), 1-3; T. Richards, Religious Developments in Wales (1923), 285; T. Richards, Puritan Movement in Wales (1920), 141.

Vaughan’s disillusionment with the cause in which he had attempted to sink his own erupted at the election of 1654 when his prosecutor Rice Vaughan was a candidate for Merioneth. He exerted himself to procure the return of John Vaughan (not a relative), after Rice had refused to drop the charges against him in return for a quiet election.53CSP Dom. 1654, p. 299. Reports notwithstanding, it seems implausible that Vaughan, ‘powerful man’ in Montgomeryshire though he was or aspired to be, would have involved himself in a plot involving the various political groups disaffected from the Cromwellian regime. However, to identify him as the Edward Vaughan who as a magistrate examined reports of a royalist conspiracy in his county in March 1655 seems unsafe.54TSP i. 749, iii. 253. His own political rehabilitation can only be dated from 1657, when he was re-admitted to the committee for the assessment. He may well have owed his re-entry into public life to his London connections. By December 1656, Bulstrode Whitelocke* was noting examples of Vaughan’s kindness to his son, and in July the following year Whitelocke was recording speculation that Vaughan might make William Whitelocke* his heir, he having no children.55Whitelocke, Diary, 452, 473, 475. By virtue of property in Denbighshire probably descended to him from his mother, he became sheriff of that county in 1658. This appointment in one county was no barrier to service in Parliament for another, it seems, as he was elected knight of the shire for Montgomeryshire to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament, athough no return survives.56A Perfect List of the Lords of the Other House, and of the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses (1659). In the 1659 Parliament he was named to no committees and made no speeches. During the summer of 1659, still serving, it seems, as sheriff of Denbighshire, he was arrested by Captain John Manley* under suspicion of complicity in the royalist rising of Sir George Boothe* and taken to Shrewsbury. The council of state ordered his appearance before them in London on bail, and his case was referred to the Council’s own committee of examinations (5 Oct.).57CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 159, 190, 193, 241. Vaughan for his part sought, through William Whitelocke, the help of the eminent Bulstrode Whitelocke - to what effect, is not known, but he was restored to Montgomeryshire committees from January 1660.58Whitelocke, Diary, 530.

Vaughan was listed by William Prynne among the Members secluded in 1648 and still alive in 1660.59W. Prynne, A Full Declaration (1660), [p. 57] (E.1013.22). The secluded Members were re-admitted to Parliament on 21 February 1660, and Vaughan was said to be among them when the Parliament dissolved itself on 21 March.60The Grand Memorandum (1660). As in 1659, however, there seems no evidence to suggest that he was in any way active in the House. In April 1660, he was arrested again as ‘dangerous to the peace of the nation’ and released by mid-May, but in the elections to the Convention would have in any case struggled to mobilize his interest for the Merioneth seat, as the county gentry fashioned an agreement to return an inhabitant.61HMC Portland, iii, 221; Cal. Wynn Pprs. 358. In November 1660, he was subjected to a further petition, this time about £1,600 alleged to remain in his hands after the process of disbanding the army in 1648. He continued to be a divisive figure of suspicion in Montgomeryshire after 1660. In February 1661 two magistrates there took a statement upon oath from an informant who insisted that Vaughan had reproved a petty constable and in doing so robustly upheld the authority of Parliament over king, privy council and deputy lieutenants.62SP29/35, f. 34. Similar allegations re-surfaced in May, fanned by Vaughan’s natural enemy, Edward Herbert, 3rd Baron Herbert of Chirbury, who had replaced him in August 1660 as custos rotulorum of Montgomeryshire. According to his enemies, Vaughan was ‘still in his discourse clearly of the opinion the Long Parliament was of … which the said Edward Vaughan hath in a very great esteem’.63SP29/35, f. 35. None of this prevented Vaughan from securing election for Montgomeryshire to the Cavalier Parliament, but his service was brief and difficult to distinguish from that of John Vaughan I*. He was buried in the Temple church on 8 October 1661, near the grave of John Selden*. His will is undated, but in it he left unidentified lands in Montgomeryshire, Denbighshire, Merioneth, Shropshire ‘or elsewhere in the realm of England’ to the heirs male of his brother Rowland Vaughan, and failing them (they failed) to those of his cousin Howell Vaughan of Glan-y-llyn, Merioneth.64PROB11/306/458, 463. Howell’s son Edward† subsequently married this Member’s great-niece Mary Purcell, and sat for Montgomeryshire, in his later years as a tory.65HP Commons 1660-1690.