LEWIS, Ieuan (by 1511-?97), of Gladestry, Rad.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1511, 1st s. of Jenkin ap David ap Lewis ap Stephen of Gladestry by Agnes, da. of Henry ap Hywel ap Edward. m. by 1532, Sibyl, da. of Rhys ap Gwilym ap Llywelyn, 4s. inc. Rhys 2da.1

Offices Held

Escheator, Rad. 1553-4, j.p. from 1554, sheriff 1556-7, 1561-2, 1574-5, 1580-1, 1588-9, commr. subsidy 1557-8.

Biography

Gladestry, or Llanfair Llythynwg, was a mesne manor of the commote of Maelienydd (a crown lordship since 1460), with its caput in the moated manor house known as Court of Gladestry. Though Lewis appears at one time to have occupied Court of Gladestry, he is, by the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, described as ‘late of Glawdesley’ [sic] on the pardon roll. He followed the common practice of adding to his estates by leases of land which he had officially claimed (in defiance of local custom) as crown escheats. In 1584 one of his daughters married as her second husband Gelly Meyrick, steward of the end Earl of Essex’s lands. By 1588, Meyrick was using Court of Gladestry as a Radnorshire seat, was promoting Essex’s interests in the county and was in a position to help a relative to a county seat.

The 1589 Radnorshire MP would have been entitled to attend the subsidy committee on 11 Feb. 1589, but that he was this Ieuan Lewis is questionable on three counts: his age, the 30 years gap between his two parliaments and the lack of firm information about the date of his death, which only Dwnn states to have occurred in 1597. There were at least two contemporary namesakes: his second but, by 1588, first surviving son, and a cousin, the son of John Lewis of the Inner Temple, Presteigne and New Radnor, coroner of the shire in 1560.2

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes

  • 1. Dwnn, Vis. Wales, i. 253-5.
  • 2. R. Comm. on Land in Wales (1896) pp. 469-72; J. Williams, Hist. Rad. ed. Davies, 173-5; CPR, 1558-60, pp. 240, 371; 1560-3, p. 344; Augmentations, ed. Lewis and Davies (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 525; D. Mathew, Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe, 345; Arch. Camb. (ser. 3), x. 23-6; Pemb. (Cymmrod. Soc. Rec. Ser.), pt. 4, p. 399 and n; I.T. Adm. Req. 64; DWB; Trans. Rad. Hist. Soc. viii. 15-17; D’Ewes, 431; Exchequer, ed. E. G. Jones (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. iv), 313.