MOSTYN, John (c.1603-75), of the Inner Temple, London, Llys Maesmynan, Bodfari, Flint. and Tregarnedd, Anglesey.

John Mostyn was a favoured, perhaps a spoilt, grandson of Sir Thomas Mostyn† and the recipient of a chain of gold upon Sir Thomas’ death. His maternal grandfather was Sir John Wynn†, 1st bt., of Gwydir, and it was doubtless through the Wynn family that Mostyn was placed as secretary to John Williams, kinsman to the Wynns, while he was dean of Westminster and shortly before he became lord keeper and bishop of Lincoln. This appointment opened other doors for Mostyn. He secured the reversion of a clerkship in the court of wards in February 1622 and was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn six months later at the request of William Noye†, a member of Prince Charles’s council.8LI Admiss. 191. He owed his place in the 1624 Parliament to his father, who had bestowed on him a reversionary interest in the 660-acre estate of Tregarnedd on Anglesey. While his profile in that Parliament was slight, he was faithful to his master, Williams. In the summer of 1624 he was expected to thank the gentry of the county at Beaumaris for electing him, and to remit his parliamentary wages, but his father ruined the occasion by refusing to allow Mostyn to attend, on the grounds that no-one else had been available to take the seat. Owen Wynn thanked Mostyn’s supporters on his behalf instead, but some took the whole episode as a slight, and Mostyn forfeited any chance of a seat in the Parliament of 1625. When Williams was dismissed as lord keeper in 1637, Mostyn stuck with him and was arraigned in star chamber, charged with subornation of perjury.9HP Commons 1604-29, ‘John Mostyn’. He was absolved, though he was obliged to endure a lecture from Archbishop Laud; and fell back on the clerkship in the court of wards, which in January 1637 had become his after the death of his predecessor.10SP29/13, f. 100; CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 76-7. Later that year he was admitted to the Inner Temple, where he kept chambers until October 1643.

When elections were announced for a Parliament to be held in 1640, Mostyn did not venture to put his name forward in Anglesey. In December 1639, his kinsman, Robert Ravenscroft of Bretton, canvassed his name as knight of the shire for Flint.11NLW, Gwysaney Group I/36 (NLW Facs. 371). His was not the only name in contention, but he was successful in the elections for both the Short and Long Parliaments. He made no mark at all on the Short Parliament, and not until the spring of 1641 did his name appear in the Journal for the Long Parliament, as one who took the Protestation (3 May). He was named to the committee for Irish affairs (1 Sept.); this and a committee on 8 April 1642, for creating a new parish of Christchurch, Tuthill Fields from St Margaret, Westminster were his only committee appointments during the Long Parliament.12CJ ii. 133a, 279b, 517a. He was in north Wales in October 1641, passing on news he himself had received from London, and returned there on 9 November, avoiding a fine for absence at a call of the House had it gone ahead.13Cal. Wynn Pprs. 274; NLW, 9063E/1694. When he wrote to his father on 11 November, his letter was full of news of the Irish rebellion, which must have made a deep impact upon Mostyn: soon after this (21 Nov.) he was among the Members who offered £40 security to the City for a loan in order to raise a punitive expedition to Ireland.14NLW, 9063E/1694; Procs. LP i. 232. On 14 December he was given leave to go the country, suggesting that his residence in London was far from continuous.15CJ ii. 342b. A year later, with only a single committee appointment to indicate that Mostyn remained at Westminster during the mounting political crisis, he was allowed to go to Flintshire, but only after listing for the Speaker’s use the servants and others that would accompany him, suggesting that his political associations rendered him suspect in the eyes of the leadership of the Commons at the outbreak of civil war.16CJ ii. 843a.

Mostyn took the side of the king in the civil war, but there is no evidence that he ever took up arms in the royalist cause. On 21 October 1643 his chambers at the Inner Temple were raided, and his papers seized, evidently because he was known to be in the king’s service in some capacity, probably as a secretary or counsellor to his nephew, Col. Roger Mostyn, who as governor of Flint appears to have surrendered the town to Sir William Brereton* and Sir Thomas Myddelton* in November 1643.17CCC 1200; Kingdom’s Weekly Intelligencer 33 (21-28 Nov. 1643), 257 (E.77.10); Lord Mostyn and T. A. Glenn, The Mostyns of Mostyn (1925), 196. The parliamentarian occupation of Flint was brief, and in any event John Mostyn had made his way by January 1644 to Oxford, where he sat in the king’s Parliament and lent his name to the overture to the 3rd earl of Essex, suing for peace.18A Declaration of the Lords and Commons (Oxford, 1644), 22; The Names of the Lords and Commons (1646), 3. The inevitable consequence was that Mostyn was disabled from sitting further at Westminster for ‘deserting the service of the House’ and ‘being in the king’s quarters’.19CJ iii. 389b. A further penalty paid by Mostyn was the loss of his clerkship in the court of wards, the court itself soon to undergo the process of abolition by parliamentary ordinance. An ordinance to replace Mostyn was sent to the Lords just two days after his disablement, and passed the House on 25 April.20CJ iii. 391b, 453b, 470a. He was then subjected to the attention of the Committee for Advance of Money, which assessed his estate at £1,000.21CCAM 434. In April 1646, his chambers at the Inner Temple were awarded by the Commons to Roger Hill II*.22CJ iv. 515b.

By April 1646, Mostyn had petitioned the Committee for Compounding at Goldsmiths’ Hall, probably to beg to compound for his delinquency.23CCC 1200. The question of his delinquency fine hung over him during 1646 and 1647. In November 1646, Robert Eyton, lobbying in Westminster on behalf of himself and Thomas, Viscount Bulkeley, reported how the Committee for Advance of Money had issued warrants for a number of north Walian royalists, including Mostyn to be brought in to pay ‘fifths and twentieth parts’ on their lands and goods, and on 17 December Mostyn begged consideration for the contribution he had made to the articles signed on 14 June 1646 for the surrender of Anglesey.24Univ. of Bangor Archives, Baron Hill 5387; CCC 1200. Around the time of Mostyn’s plea the Committee of Advance of Money noted that he had collected money on behalf of the king, although where and when is not clear. On 21 January an order passed the Commons freeing Anglesey from sequestration, but John Bodvell* was uncertain whether he and Mostyn would benefit from it.25CJ v. 59b; NLW, 9063E/1814. Mostyn was allowed to compound, but was simultaneously subject to an order distraining his goods for payment of his assessment by the Committee for Advance of Money (12 Feb. 1647).26CCC 1200; CCAM 434. Meanwhile, the wit had been moved for a by-election for his seat (11 Sept. 1646).27CJ iv. 667b. Bodvell reported to his uncle, Maurice Wynn (30 Apr. 1647) that Speaker Lenthall had written to the north Wales committee to the effect that Mostyn’s Flintshire estate should not be sequestered, which suggests that by then Mostyn was regarded as on his way to reconciliation with Parliament.28NLW, 9063E/1823. He certainly seems not to have involved himself in the revolt of Sir John Owen in north Wales in 1648.

Like many royalist gentry, Mostyn kept out of politics during the 1650s, devoting much time to staving off further intrusions by the state into his financial affairs. He was an active member of gentry society in north Wales, however, helping arrange the marriages and funerals of his extensive kinship network across the region.29Cal. Wynn Pprs. 327, 331, 348-9, 352. In 1654 he was obliged, once again, to plead the benefit of the Anglesey articles, insisting that he had done nothing to prejudice his position: it is unclear whether this was sufficient to deflect further enquiries into his circumstances.30CCC 1200. At the restoration of the monarchy, his reward was modest. In a petition to the king, he explained how his clerkship in the court of wards had been sequestered from him by Parliament, and asked for a new patent for a comparable position in the court of chancery, since feudal tenure and therefore wardship had been abolished. His request, for the clerkship of custody of ‘lunatics and idiots’, was granted in the sense that the position he was given in chancery, for making writs and commissions, was comparable to his old job.31SP29/13 f. 100; CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 203, 498. His role in the local government of north Wales had never been significant, and he played no further part in it beyond a place in the commission for indigent army officers of 1662. In 1674 reversion of his clerkship was granted to his kinsman Henry Wynn(e), who had for some time executed it for him.32CSP Dom. 1673-5, p. 329. Mostyn died on 26 December 1675 in his 73rd year, unmarried, and was buried at Bodfari on New Year’s eve. The diffuse provisions of his will, with numerous beneficiaries, were a disappointment to his nephew Sir Roger, who had suffered materially for his loyalty to the royal cause and who expected more from his uncle.33Bodfari par. reg.; PROB11/350, f. 317v; Cal. Wynn Pprs. 415. Mostyn was evidently conscious of his family history, and nurtured a strong commemorative sense. His house at Maesmynan was a re-erection on the site of the llys (palace) of Gruffudd ap Cynan, the eleventh century king of Gwynedd; his tomb in Bodfari church was of his own devising. A marwnad (elegy) written after his death set his achievements, mostly far from north Wales, in the context of the Mostyn dynasty.34Evans, thesis, 123-4.