The representation of Flintshire during this period was in the hands of a group of leading county families related to one another by marriage. Although several of the MPs were related to such powerful patrons as the earls of Derby and Thomas Egerton I, the lord keeper, there is no hint of any outside interference in the county elections. The only MP who requires comment is William Ravenscroft (1586, 1597, 1601), who may have been elected to the county seat in preference to his father and elder brother because he was already in London, practising as a lawyer.