PUGH, Rowland, of Mathafarn, Llanwrin, Mont.

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

Family and Education

1st s. of John ap Hugh ap Ieuan of Mathafarn by Katherine, da. of Sir Richard Herbert of Montgomery. m. Ellena (Eleanor), da. of Nicholas Purcell of Shervey, Salop, 1s.1

Offices Held

Commr. Exchequer, Merion. 1567; commr. subsidy Mont. 1573, 1576; j.p. Mont. and Merion. from c.1573; commr. musters, Mont. 1574; sheriff, Merion. 1574.2

Biography

The family which consolidated its patronymics into the surname Pugh during this period had been landowners in the hundred of Mathrafal continuously since the thirteenth century. Although Pugh’s mother was a Herbert and his grandmother a Vaughan of Llwydiarth the Pughs were a county family of the second rank. They several times filled the office of sheriff, but did not attain a county seat in Parliament. Rowland succeeded his father some time between 1562 (when the latter was still paying subsidy) and 1571 (when the son’s name appears in his stead); they were rated at £5, half Edward Herbert I’s assessment.3

Politically Pugh was firmly attached to the Herberts, and in the stormy Montgomeryshire election of 1588, when he was at first proposed for the shire, he stood down when he found that Edward Herbert I, his uncle, proposed to stand, and took his part in the irregular proceedings which secured Herbert’s election. This is the last we hear of him. In 1581, at the beginning of the third session of Pugh’s first Parliament, a rumour of his death led to his being replaced by his cousin Richard Herbert I, but at the end of the session, 18 Mar., when Pugh was ‘known to be in plain life’, Herbert was removed. When Pugh died is not known; but by 1602 the estate had passed to his grandson, another Rowland Pugh, who became sheriff six years later.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes

  • 1. Dwnn, Vis. Wales, i. 295, 312; Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxix), 413; Mont. Colls. Supp. 1896-1928, p. 408.
  • 2. Augmentations , ed. Lewis and Davies (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 436; E179/222/376; Harley rolls E15; Flenley, Cal. Reg. Council, Marches of Wales , 142, 212; Mont. Colls. xxii. 119 seq.
  • 3. Mont. Colls. viii. 49-50; xxii. 119; Arch. Camb. (ser. 3), xiii. 132; E179/222/371, 374.
  • 4. Mont. Colls. Supp. loc. cit.; Neale, Commons, 101, 105; CJ, i. 136; D’ Ewes, 282, 308.