Family and Education

b. c.1566, 1st surv. s. of Roger Puleston I of Emral by his w. Magdalene (Maud), da. of Thomas Hanmer. educ. Brasenose, Oxf. 1582, aged 16; I. Temple 1585 or 1586. m. Susanna, da. of (Sir) George Bromley of Hallon in Worfield, Salop, s.p. suc. fa. 1587. Kntd. 28 Aug. 1617.1

Offices Held

J.p. Denb. and Flints. from c.1591; dep. lt. Flints. by 1595, commr. Exchequer 1595, sheriff 1597-8; dep. steward, Denbighland and Bromfield-and-Yale by 1601; custos rot. Denb. from 1596; member, council in marches of Wales 1601.2

Biography

Puleston’s marriage with a nice of the lord chanellor secured him not only free admission to the Inner Temple, but a lifelong patronage to which he owed much of his prestige, and which made him an object of jealousy when it was proposed in 1601 to enrol him in the council in the marches of Wales. The anonymous protest sent to Cecil at the time accused him of ignorance of the law, and of desiring the place only to promote his private factions and to ‘repair his decayed estate’. There is not much sign of a ‘decayed estate’ in the princely mansion (later enlarged, demolished in 1926) which he rebuilt at Emral, and he was involved in only one notable lawsuit. The only occasion when he appeared as a ‘stirrer of factions’ was in the notorious Denbighshire election of 1588, when he countenanced the disorderly proceedings by which his relative John Edwards triumphed over the numerically superior supporters of Puleston’s second cousin William Aylmer. Aylmer was unfortunate enough to serve a subpoena on Puleston while the House was sitting, ‘to answer unto a bill ... containing almost 40 sheets of paper’, and Puleston raised the matter in the House, 12 Feb. 1589. Though Aylmer was found to have committed a breach of privilege he was let off, and told to wait until the end of the session before recommencing hostilities. As knight of the shire in this Parliament Puleston would have been eligible to attend the subsidy committee (11 Feb.) and, in his next, the subsidy (26 Feb. 1593) and a legal committee (9 Mar.)3

In 1595, during the panic aroused by Spanish raids on Cornwall, Puleston and his fellow deputy lieutenant Thomas Mostyn were specially commended by the Council for their diligence in raising the Flintshire musters; it was also a sign of his growing influence that five years later a complaint from the Denbighshire borough of Ruthin about unfair distribution of taxes was referred by the Council to Puleston and two Denbighshire gentlemen.4

Puleston was active in James I’s first Parliament. He died childless in 1618, and was buried at Gresford on 17 Dec. The Emral estate passed to his younger brother, then to a nephew (the Commonwealth judge), under whose descendants the family retained its political importance in the shire to the end of the century.5

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes

• 1. Dwnn, Vis. Wales, ii. 310; G. Owen, ‘Desc. Wales’ in Desc. Pemb. ed. H. Owen, ii. 576; I.T. Recs. i. 341.
• 2. APC, xxiii. 260-1; xxv. 75; Augmentations, ed. Lewis and Davies (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 361; Exchequer, ed. T. I. J. Jones (same ser. xv), 154; Add. Chart 8659; Harl. 2129, f. 84; 2176, f. 15; HMC Hatfield, xi. 561; PRO Index 4208.
• 3. HMC Hatfield, xi. 561; I.T. Recs. i. 341; RCAM Flints. 115-16; DWB; Augmentations, 401; Exchequer, 198: the Roger Puleston appearing in other lawsuits of the period belonged to a different branch of the family; Neale, Commons, 113; D’Ewes, 431-2, 434-5, 451, 474, 496.
• 4. APC, xxv. 75; xxx. 256.
• 5. Trans. Cymmrod. Soc. 1942, p. 28; P. H. Williams, Council in the Marches of Wales, 354-5.