The county court met alternately at Cardigan and at Aberystwyth.The representation of Cardiganshire was virtually monopolized during Elizabeth’s reign by the Price family of Gogerddan. John Price I, j.p., custos rotulorum and member of the council in the marches of Wales, sat in three successive Parliaments. His son Richard Price II, succeeded him in 1584 and sat in the Parliament of that year while still in his twenties. He succeeded to all his father’s offices and became deputy lieutenant of Cardiganshire in 1597. He sat for the county again in 1589, 1593 and 1601 and in 1597 gave his younger brother, Thomas, of Glanvraed, a turn as knight of the shire.

None of the remaining MPs was based in Cardiganshire. Sir Henry Jones (1559) had his main estate at Abermarlais in Carmarthenshire. Nevertheless he was a leading figure in Cardiganshire, was sheriff of the county on two occasions, and had already represented the shire in 1555 and 1558. He was related to Sir Thomas Perrot, who came in at a by-election in 1586 following the death of Griffith Lloyd. Perrot’s main estates were in Pembrokeshire, but his marriage connexions with the Prices of Gogerddan on the one hand and with the 2nd Earl of Essex on the other were no doubt a ready passport to a county seat in Cardiganshire. The 1586 MP, Griffith Lloyd, was a civil lawyer from a leading Cardiganshire landowning family, a member of which had already represented the shire in 1545; his father-in-law was the circuit judge of Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. Lloyd was, however, the second son of the family: possibly he was chosen in preference to his elder brother because he was already in London, at Doctors’ Commons.