BULKELEY, Richard, 3rd Visct. Bulkeley of Cashel [I] (c.1658-1704), of Baron Hill, Anglesey

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Feb. 1679
1680 - Mar. 1681
1690 - 9 Aug. 1704

Family and Education

b. c.1658, 1st s. of Robert Bulkeley†, 2nd Visct. Bulkeley of Cashel [I], by Sarah, da. of Daniel Harvey, Grocer and merchant, of Lawrence Pountney Hill, London and Croydon, Surr., sis. of Daniel Harvey† of Coombe, Surr.; bro. of Hon. Robert Bulkeley*.  educ. travelled abroad (France, Italy) 1675–7.  m. (1) 23 May 1681 (with £8,000), Mary, da. of Sir Philip Egerton† of Oulton, Cheshire, 1s.; (2) 1 Mar. 1688, Elizabeth (d. 1752), da. of Henry White of Penllan, Pemb., wid. of Thomas Lort of Stackpole, Pemb., s.psuc. fa. as 3rd Visct. 18 Oct. 1688.

Offices Held

Custos rot. Caern. 1679–Apr. 1688, Anglesey 1690–d.; chancellor and chamberlain of Anglesey, Caern. and Merion. Oct.–?Dec. 1688, Apr. 1689–d.; mayor, Beaumaris 1689–90; constable of Beaumaris Castle and capt. of Beaumaris May 1689–1702; v.-adm. N. Wales 1701–2, N. Cornw. c.1702–d.1

Biography

Bulkeley had lost his place as custos rotulorum for Anglesey in 1688, and had even been turned out of the commission of the peace for his unwillingness to acquiesce in the repeal of the Penal Laws and Test Act. By way of reparation, James II named him to succeed his father as chancellor and chamberlain of the North Wales circuit in late October 1688, an appointment which may have lapsed at the Revolution. Despite the fact that his uncle Henry†, King James’s master of the Household, joined the Jacobite court in exile, Bulkeley quickly accommodated himself to the new regime. The discovery of a Jacobite officer at Holyhead, one Captain Bellew, seeking a passage to Ireland, gave him an opportunity to display his loyalty to King William. Having ordered the captain’s detention, he informed the secretary of state, Lord Nottingham (Daniel Finch†), and probably in the same letter inserted a petition for his own reinstatement in his local offices. Although he had to wait a year to be restored as custos, the chancellorship was given immediately, and coupled with a new post, that of constable of Beaumaris Castle. He had kept himself out of Parliament in 1689, bringing in his uncle for the county of Anglesey and nominating at Beaumaris Sir William Williams, 1st Bt.*, with whom he may have contracted a political mariage de convenance in order to survive the Revolution, but came back as knight of the shire at the 1690 election, and thenceforth held the seat unopposed. He was classed as a Tory, and possibly as a Court supporter, by Lord Carmarthen (Sir Thomas Osborne†) in March 1690, and in December was listed as a probable supporter in the event of a Commons’ attack upon Carmarthen. In March 1691 a Jacobite agent included Bulkeley upon a list of ‘persons well inclined’ to James II. The following month Robert Harley* classed him as a Country party supporter, and in the 1694–5 session Henry Guy* listed him as a ‘friend’. By 1696 he was firmly in opposition, being forecast as a likely opponent of the projected council of trade in the division on 31 Jan. Bulkeley was still a man of residual Jacobite sympathies, according to information sent to Abbé Renaudot at about this time, for the Speaker informed the House on 31 Mar. that he was one of the Members in the country who had refused to subscribe the Association. On 15 Apr. the House was informed that Bulkeley had at last signed. Listed as a member of the Country party in an analysis of the 1698 Parliament, he was also forecast as likely to oppose a standing army. In a list of February 1701 he was named as likely to support the Court in agreeing with the committee of supply’s resolution to continue the ‘Great Mortgage’, and was classed with the Tories in the second Parliament of that year. He was listed as having favoured the motion of 26 Feb. 1702 vindicating the Commons’ proceedings in the impeachments of the four Whig lords, and on 13 Feb. 1703 voted against the House of Lords’ amendments to the bill to enlarge the time for taking the oath of abjuration. In March 1704 Nottingham listed him as a likely supporter in the proceedings upon the Scotch Plot. Bulkeley died 9 Aug. 1704, aged 46, and was buried at Beaumaris.2

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

  • 1. UCNW, Baron Hill mss 159; Cal. Treas. Bks. viii. 2109; ix. 107; xvii. 232; CSP Dom. 1689–90, p. 67.
  • 2. L. K. J. Glassey, Appt. JPs, 88; CSP Dom. 1689–90, pp. 34, 67–68, 471; 1700–2, p. 539; Westminster Diocesan Archs. Old Brotherhood mss iii/3/232, memo. by Capt. Lloyd, 23 Mar. 1691; Ideology and Conspiracy ed. Cruickshanks, 125; A. Browning, Danby, iii. 212; Bolton mss at Bolton Hall D/20, Ld. William Powlett* to Mq. of Winchester (Charles Powlett I*), 11 Sept. 1698.