LLOYD, Richard (1606-76), of Esclus Hall, Wrexham, Denb.

Richard Lloyd was descended from the natural son of David, brother of the last indigenous prince of Wales. His father, of a family long-settled in Penmachno, held lands in three counties of north Wales and was brother of Dr Richard Lloyd, vicar of Ruabon and canon of St Asaph cathedral.27PROB11/150/216; DWB. He was educated at Oxford and Gray’s Inn, being called to the bar in 1635. Thereafter he established himself as a legal officer in Wales. In November 1636 he was granted the reversion of the offices of prothonotary and clerk of the crown in Denbigh and Montgomeryshire, and in June 1638 he became king’s attorney in the same counties.28Williams, Hist. Gt. Sessions in Wales, 81, 85.

Lloyd may have owed his election for Newcastle-under-Lyme in the Short Parliament elections in 1640 to his marriage to the daughter of a Staffordshire gentleman, and it is significant that his colleague was another Welshman, Sir John Meyrick, who owed his seat to his association with the 3rd earl of Essex, and was related by marriage to Lloyd’s wife. Lloyd was probably the ‘Mr Floyd’ who is accredited with six speeches by the diarist, Sir Thomas Aston*, during this session. These interventions suggest that Lloyd followed Viscount Falkland (Lucius Cary*) and Edward Hyde* in calling for redress of immediate grievances but not wide-ranging reform. In criticising the secular policies of the crown, especially Ship Money, his ire was reserved for the judges rather than the king (‘if there be a curse upon them that remove landmarks, then a greater curse on them that give illegal judgements’) and he appeared to support the granting of 12 subsidies in return for its removal.29Aston’s Diary, 138. In religious affairs, however, Lloyd was more circumspect. He joined the ridicule of Dr John Farmerie*, the chancellor of Lincoln diocese, in committee on 21 April; but when altars were debated on 29 April he twice stressed that the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer allowed them to be retained ‘if in the convenientest place’ and they should be removed only ‘if it be contrary to late practice’.30Aston’s Diary, 88, 93, 148; Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 114.

Lloyd’s failure to gain re-election in the Long Parliament may have been the result of his appointment as attorney-general for north Wales in May 1640, and his subsequent role in the defending the prerogative courts, working with the lord president of the council of Wales, John Egerton†, 1st earl of Bridgewater.31Rymer, Foedera, ix (3), 39; Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales (2nd ed.), 65. He was called from his duties at Ludlow to put the case to the House for the sessions there, and the loss of the town’s criminal jurisdiction in 1641 was a blow to Lloyd, who had hoped to strengthen its judicial function by increasing the number of Welsh judges, and even proposed that that the prince of Wales should make it his residence.32Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales, 49, 66. Lloyd was employed at Ludlow from August 1641 until April 1642, and in the months before the civil war he encouraged the Welsh borders to remain loyal to the king.33Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales, 67. On 8 June Secretary Nicholas wrote at York

This day we understood from Mr Floyd [sic], the attorney of Wales, the loyal professions to his majesty of that principality, offering either in person or any other way that the king will intimate, to attend and secure him, and his royalty against all malignity and attempts of disaffected persons.34CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 336.

Lloyd was appointed as a commissioner of array in the summer of 1642.35Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. He entertained the king at Wrexham on 27 September, and on Charles’s return he was knighted there on 7 October.36Phillips, Civil War in Wales, i. 114, 124; ii. 268.

During the first civil war Lloyd served as a colonel of dragoons.37Newman, Royalist Officers, 138. In 1643 he was at Wrexham, where he oversaw the raising troops for the king, working closely with the sheriff of Denbigh, John Thelwall, and he was also eager to assist the royalists at Chester in their struggle against those ‘poisoned by the industry of the factious and seditious preachers’.38Cal. Lttrs relating to N. Wales, 187, 190-3, 195-6; N. Tucker, Denb. Officers in the Civil War (1964), 56-7; Oxford DNB. A report circulated by the parliamentarians in October 1643, that Lloyd had offered to change sides with 1,500 men if pardoned his delinquency, was wishful thinking.39Phillips, Civil War in Wales, i. 180. Indeed, such was his zeal that in the peace propositions of September 1644 he was among the 12 named by Parliament who ‘shall expect no pardon for life or estate’.40CJ iii. 639a. Lloyd was appointed governor of Holt Castle by the king in or before April 1645, and became involved in efforts to defend the Welsh marches and secure Chester against repeated attacks by Sir William Brereton*.41Symonds, Diary, 242, 246; Brereton Letter Bks. i. 120, 128, 300-1, 309. On 9 September an intercepted letter of his to Colonel Trevor about the prospects of assistance from Ireland for the royalists in north Wales was read in the House of Commons, and in the same month it was reported that his men had prevented royalist reinforcements from reaching the siege of Chester.42CJ iv. 268a; Phillips, Civil War in Wales, i. 326. In November it was reported that Lloyd had failed in an attempt to relieve Beeston Castle, as his men had mutinied for lack of pay.43Brereton Letter Bks. ii. 885. Over the winter Brereton learned of further royalist ‘designs’ from intercepted letters, but in February 1646 he was desired by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to offer Lloyd reconciliation and security if he surrendered Holt within a month.44Brereton Letter Bks. ii. 355-7; HMC Portland, i. 342; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 338. Such blandishments failed. Lloyd held out at Holt until 13 January 1647 when he surrendered to Thomas Mytton* on favourable terms.45Arch. Cambr. i. 42. He was allowed six months to go ‘beyond seas’ with £300, and £300 a year from his estates to his wife and family in accordance with the House’s vote of 22 December 1646.46CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 515. Lloyd was again excepted from pardon in Parliament’s negotiations with the king in October 1648.47LJ x. 548b. By this time he had settled in Calais, and he kept a low profile during the interregnum, although a later memorandum claims that he returned to England with royal permission in 1653, and suffered with other cavaliers.48Eg. 2549, f. 53.

After the restoration of the king, Lloyd regained his position as attorney-general for north Wales and was made chief justice of the Brecon circuit.49CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 142, 214. He promoted the revival of the council in Wales and the marches in 1661, failing however to recover the four English border counties for its sphere. He had the choice of Radnorshire or Cardiff for his seat in the Cavalier Parliament, choosing to sit for the former. During the session he was inconspicuous, although he was among the members appointed to purge the Journal of all references to the Long Parliament, and he was said to have spent much of his time with fellow old royalists such as Giles Strangways* and John Robinson I†.50HP Commons 1660-1690. Lloyd died intestate on 5 May 1676, and was buried in his own chapel in Wrexham church.51Arch. Cambr. 4th ser. xxiii. 266-8. In 1653 his eldest daughter had married Lewis Owen* of Peniarth.52Arch. Cambr. 4th ser. xxiii. 267. His only son had predeceased him, and in the absence of a will the estate was disputed between his daughters and grandson, with Esclus Hall eventually passing to the descendants of his son-in-law, Sir Henry Conway†.53HP Commons 1660-1690. His cousin, Humphrey Lloyd, became bishop of Bangor in 1674.