LEWIS, James (c.1602-68), of Abernantbychan, Penbryn, Card.; later of Coedmor, Llangoedmor, Card.

As knight of the shire in the 1620s, Lewis may have been his father’s proxy, and proved an inconspicuous figure.27HP Commons 1604-1629. He was certainly under his father’s thumb financially in the years that followed, complaining in 1632 that ‘he hath no estate saving what Sir John Lewis his father pleases to confer upon him for the time, and which he may at his pleasure abridge’.28E178/5938. By the middle of the decade Lewis had joined his father in property investments in the county, notably the purchase of the boroughs and manors of Cardigan and Aberystwyth, and he went on, on his own account, to acquire other lands in the county and also in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire.29NLW, Ty Llwydd 301, 325; Bristol RO, 13458/1; Longleat, Devereux MS iv, f. 100. In the same period he made a lucrative match with a local heiress which brought him considerable landed and lead-mining interests in the Aberystwyth area but ended in 1637 with divorce.30E112/271/22; E134/12Chas.I/Mich.38; NLW, Peniarth Estate NA70. Lewis was elected as MP for Cardiganshire during the elections for the Short Parliament on 1 April 1640, but there is no evidence that he was active in the House.31C219/42/104. He did not sit in the Long Parliament. Lewis’s second marriage to a kinswoman in 1641 gave him a stake in Pembrokeshire, and he was sheriff there when the civil war broke out.32Huws, ‘Lewes Fam.’, vi. opp. p. 164.

Although, as it was later alleged, Lewis had promised to assist Sir Hugh Owen* in the implementation of the Militia Ordinance, in the summer of 1642 he sent to the king for a commission of array, and set about raising men and money for the local royalists, imprisoning or distraining the recalcitrant, signing instruments and warrants, and speaking openly against Parliament at the quarter sessions. He then joined the king at Oxford, obtaining the wardship of the heir of David Parry, said to be worth £10,000, and the rental of one Mr Dockwray, an absentee parliamentarian.33CCAM 1020. His career as an active royalist ended abruptly when he was taken prisoner by Rowland Laugharne† during the parliamentarian advance into Pembrokeshire.34Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales, 132; Huws, ‘Lewes Fam.’, vi. 155. After six or seven months’ detention, Lewis ‘took a commission from Laugharne, by virtue of which’ it was later claimed, he ‘supported and promoted many delinquents, and though he had only 60 men and 30 horse he cost the state £50,000’.35CCAM 1020. Lewis’s doubtful allegiance and his depredations in the region were not held against him. He was added to the committee for the association of south-west Wales on 12 January 1645, and as a newly-minted colonel went on to play a prominent role in taking Newcastle Emlyn for Parliament in December of that year.36Phillips, Civil War in Wales, i. 276; ii. 121, 274; SP19/121/106. It was only in the spring of 1648 that his unreliability became more apparent. He had been included in the assessment commissions for Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire in February and appointed a commissioner for disbanding the forces in south Wales in the same month, and disbanded his own company shortly afterwards; but a few weeks later, at his father’s instigation, he sought the protection of Laugharne, promising to support his efforts on behalf of the king during the second civil war.37A. and O.; LJ x. 63b; Phillips, Civil War in Wales, i. 395; ii. 351. Once the insurrection was suppressed, Lewis was investigated, with such other members of the county committee as Roger and Sampson Lort and John Elliot.38CCAM 1020.

Despite twice flirting with royalism, Lewis managed to retain his position under the commonwealth. He was appointed as a sequestration commissioner for south Wales, and remained an assessment commissioner, reinforcing the impression that his main aim throughout this period was to preserve ‘himself, and kindred and friends’ from sequestration.39CCAM 1020. He retained his local offices throughout the 1650s, and in August 1654 became one of the commissioners for scandalous ministers.40A. and O. Soon after his father’s death, Lewis was elected knight of the shire on 12 November 1656, in a by-election to replace James Philipps*. Lewis is not mentioned in the Journals or the diary of Thomas Burton*, and he was not listed among the Welsh MPs who voted for kingship on 25 March 1657.41Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 23 (E.935.5). Despite his apparent willingness to engage with the protectoral regime, Lewis was careful to maintain his royalist connections, and in 1659 James, the eldest son of his second marriage, married into a staunch royalist family.42Huws, ‘Lewes Fam.’, 158. The author of some character-sketches of the west Wales gentry summed up his character

James Lewis a person of inoffensive, facile constitution, from a royalist forced to act a colonel for king and Parliament: seldom out of public office: though somewhat averse to undertake any: loved more for doing no wrong than for doing of any good, his body being a lazy instrument for so good a mind.43Huws, ‘Lewes Fam.’, 158.

Unsurprisingly, the pragmatic Lewis survived the restoration of the monarchy unscathed, but did not benefit from it. He was nominated as a knight of the royal oak in 1660, but the scheme was not implemented.44Burke’s Commoners, i. 693. In 1663 his Coedmor estate was made liable for a debt to a London creditor incurred long before by his father, for which he had acted as surety. He died in 1668. His son James, who died a year later, left a widow who married James Philipps* and a boy heir, John, who went on to serve as MP for Cardiganshire from 1685.45Huws, ‘Lewes Fam.’, 155-9.