PARRY, Richard (1559/60-1623)

Parry’s family were of gentry status, claiming descent from the pre-Conquest lords of Eglwysegl; the bishop was cousin to the lawyer Simon Parry. Educated first at Westminster school under William Camden, and then at Christ Church, Oxford, Parry returned to Ruthin in 1584 as master of the grammar school. (After he returned to the area as bishop of St Asaph, it was said that he visited the school twice weekly to examine the progress of its students.)23 Griffith, 387; Al. Ox.; CCEd; V[iri] Cl[arissimi] Gulielmi Camdeni et illustrium virorum ad G. Camdenum Epistolae (1691) ed. T. Smith, 247; NLW, 466E/642. In 1592 he was collated as chancellor of Bangor Cathedral – Ruthin lay in a detached portion of that diocese – but he held this position only briefly, securing a more lucrative preferment as vicar of Gresford, in eastern Denbighshire, in the following year. In 1599, Parry succeeded Henry Rowlands^* as dean of Bangor after the latter became bishop of Bangor, but he was not mentioned as a contender for the diocese of St Asaph in 1601. However, by the summer of 1604 the incumbent, William Morgan^*, was ailing, and, within days of the latter’s death in September, Parry secured letters of nomination for the vacancy from the gentry of the diocese and the council in the Marches, both of which recommended him ‘for his gravity, good life, discreet government and painful preaching, as well in the Welsh tongue as in the English’. The king, who was probably not personally acquainted with Parry, presumably endorsed the sentiments expressed in this testimonial, as he announced his decision to appoint the latter just three weeks after Morgan’s death, an interval so short that it precluded the possibility of any rival bids.24 NLW, Ruthin 1414; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 314; Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, ii. 33.

As St Asaph was a poor diocese, worth less than £200 p.a., Parry was allowed to hold the archdeaconry of St Asaph in commendam, and from 1609 he lived in the archdeacon’s house at Dyserth. He also held a series of rectories to augment his income, including (from 1616) the wealthy living of Llanrwst in western Denbighshire, long coveted by its resident squire, Sir John Wynn^‡ of Gwydir; his annual income may ultimately have been over £400.25 Roberts, 14; CCEd; SP14/61/10; J.G. Jones, ‘Bp. William Morgan’s Dispute with John Wynn of Gwydir in 1603-4’, Jnl. Hist. Soc. of the Church in Wales, xxii. 49-66; NLW, 9055E/692. Parry held his first diocesan visitation in the summer of 1605, when he reported that the number of recusants had grown rapidly since the beginning of the new reign, and warned that Catholics ‘little fear the words, until they feel the smart of the laws’. Taking advantage of a royal decision to reverse the earlier suspension of the recusancy laws, he indicted over 160 recusants at the Denbighshire great sessions in May 1605.26 G.D. Owen, Wales in the Reign of Jas. I, 10, 85-6, 93; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 374; C.M. Griffiths, ‘Glimpses of Denb. in the Recs. of the Ct. of Great Sessions’, Trans. Denb. Hist. Soc. xxii. 104. He apparently admitted defeat over the activities of Catholic pilgrims at Holywell in Flintshire, but recruited the services of the London Alderman Sir Thomas Myddelton^‡ in his proceedings against the Catholic Edwards family of Chirk, where Myddelton’s main Welsh estate lay. With the encouragement of the local magnate Sir John Wynn, he also contributed to the evangelization of Wales by revising Bishop Morgan’s translation of the bible, which he published in 1620 and which remained the standard Welsh language edition until modern times.27 Owen, 95-6, 105-6; W. Morgan and R. Parry, Y Bibl Cyssegr-Lan (1620); NLW, 5054E/543.

Parliament, which had first assembled in March 1604, reconvened in November 1605. Parry, while assiduous in his attendance, left little trace on the records of his first session, being named to committees for only three bills: one to confirm the endowment of the Regius professor of divinity at Oxford University; another to revoke the clause of the Henrician Act of Union which purported to allow the crown to make statute law for Wales by proclamation; and a third for a bill to regulate the manufacture of Welsh cloth.28 LJ, ii. 386b, 406b, 408b. He was considerably more active in the 1606-7 session, being included on a range of committees, including those for bills to confirm defective titles, preserve timber, and regulate cloth manufacture. He was also one of those named to scrutinize the bill to prevent nonconformist ministers from being deprived for refusing to subscribe to the 1604 Canons, a measure the bishops ensured never emerged from committee.29 Ibid. 471b, 473a, 494a, 503a, 514b, 528b.

Parry attended the first two months of the spring session of 1610, at the start of which he was included on the large delegation which heard the lord treasurer, Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury, give a lengthy exposition of the crown’s financial woes. He was also ordered to attend a conference at which the Commons complained about the allegedly absolutist views of the civil lawyer John Cowell.30 Ibid. 550b, 557b. Parry made one recorded speech, on 2 Apr., at the start of the debate on the bill for restoring in blood the Essex rebel Sir John Davies. He opposed this bill for the example it offered in forgiving a man who refused to communicate in the Church of England: ‘divers … do come to church to save penalties, and then cry to the matter of receiving’ [the sacraments].31 Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, ii. 61, 205. Davies should not be confused with the Irish attorney general, Sir John Davies^‡. Parry was licensed to absent himself from the session on 24 Apr., leaving his proxy with Richard Bancroft^*, archbishop of Canterbury. He reappeared for the autumn session, when he held the proxy of Bishop Rowlands of Bangor. He attended two conferences with the Commons, at which MPs were pressed to give a definitive answer to the Great Contract, whose terms had been provisionally agreed in July, but which proved unpalatable to both crown and subjects on closer analysis.32 SO3/4, unfol. (Apr. 1610); LJ, ii. 548a, 666a, 671a, 678a.

In 1614, Parry again attended almost every day of the brief parliamentary session, although he was only included on two bill committees: one regarding lawsuits relating to bequests of land, the other for the preservation of timber.33 LJ, ii. 694a, 697b. The session ultimately failed over the Commons’ insistence on debating the legality of impositions on trade, which discussion the king and Privy Council were determined to prevent. Almost all the bishops supported the crown, including Parry, who, speaking on 24 May, acknowledged the need to keep ‘a correspondency’ with the Commons but warned ‘we dare not deal in this matter till we know the king’s pleasure’. At the end of this debate, the Lords voted 39-30 to decline a conference on impositions – the decision was swayed by the bishops, all but one of whom voted with the crown.34 HMC Hastings, iv. 258; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 533. MPs naturally took offence, and four days later, the Commons made a formal complaint about the slanders uttered by their most outspoken critic, Richard Neile^*, bishop of Lincoln (later archbishop of York). The Lords, having failed to censure Neile when he spoke, were initially embarrassed by this complaint, but Parry was one of those who observed that jurisdiction over such matters belonged to them, a viewpoint which allowed the Lords to exonerate themselves from any blame.35 HMC Hastings, iv. 269; RICHARD NEILE.

While St Asaph was not a wealthy see, Parry’s lengthy tenure enabled him to raise large sums as entry fines for leases of ecclesiastical estates, which enabled two of his daughters to marry younger sons of the local gentry: Francis Herbert of Dolguog, Montgomeryshire; and the younger son of Sir John Wynn’s cousin Sir William Thomas of Caernarvon.36 Roberts, 47, 67. By January 1616 the bishop had amassed capital amounting to £3,000, which he lent to William Salesbury^‡ of Rûg, Merioneth for two years. (During this time a marriage between one of his daughters and Salesbury’s heir was apparently discussed.)37 NLW, Bachymbyd 641-2; Cal. Salusbury Corresp. ed. W.J. Smith (Bd. of Celtic Studs., Hist. and Law ser. xiv), 143, 145, 175-7; G. Soden, Godfrey Goodman, Bp. of Gloucester, 419-20. The financial provisions of Parry’s will, drawn up in September 1616, should be interpreted in the light of this investment. Parry voided an earlier trust to raise portions for his three youngest daughters, who were now assigned portions of £800 apiece from other lands he had recently purchased. The original trust was assigned to the maintenance of his underage son Richard, who was required to bestow £100 on land for his elder brother Edward, and a further £100 to endow a scholarship at Jesus College, Oxford, as conditions of his inheritance.38 PROB 11/143, ff. 65-6v.

Parry attended the Lords regularly during his final Parliament in 1621, and shared in the proxies of four absentee bishops.39 LJ, iii. 3b-4a. He left little trace on the first two months of the session, when he was named to a single committee, which considered two bills, one to modernize militia arms, the other to restrict the export of iron ordnance.40 Ibid. 13a. After Easter, the House was divided over the fate of the former attorney general Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, who, during questioning, had slandered the favourite, George Villiers^*, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham. On 16 May, while debating Yelverton’s punishment, Parry urged leniency, citing the example of the Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who had (according to Plutarch) ordered that the citizens of Syracuse were not to be molested following the storming of their city in 212BC.41 LD 1621, pp. 89-90; Plutarch, ‘Life of Marcellus’, ch. 19-20. However, he was ignored. As a Welsh bishop, Parry was included on committees for several measures of local interest, one for the controversial Welsh cottons bill, another to revoke restrictions on the wool trade, and a third to repeal a clause in the Henrician Act of Union which theoretically allowed the crown to promulgate laws for Wales by proclamation rather than by statute.42 LJ, iii. 101b, 130a, 136b. Parry arrived late for the autumn sitting in November. He was named to a single committee, for a bill to regulate the export of Welsh butter, and left several days before the prorogation, by which time the session was obviously on the verge of collapse.43 Ibid. 185b.

In February 1623, Parry made one final gain from his ecclesiastical estates. He bought the final years of a long lease of the tithes of Bodfari held by the Salusburys of Lleweni, Denbighshire, which he then leased out at a low rent, securing an entry fine of £300. This presumably helped to complete his daughters’ portions, as, in a codicil to his will written only days before his death, Parry arranged to divide £500 between his surviving children and grandchildren. He died at Dyserth on 26 Sept. 1623, and was buried, as requested, in his cathedral two days later.44 PROB 11/143, ff. 65-6v; Roberts, 89-90, 95. His widow, who proved the will on 20 Feb. 1624, married Thomas Mostyn of Rhyd, the younger brother of Sir Roger Mostyn^‡, in the following November.45 Denb. RO, Mostyn 3610.