LLOYD, Oliver (c.1527-?89), of Leighton, Mont.

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

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1527, 5th s. of Humphrey Lloyd of Leighton by Gwenllian, da. of Thomas Price of Newtown. m. Blanche, da. and coh. of Sir Charles Herbert of Troy Magna, Mon., 2s. 5da. suc. to Leighton estates 1562 or later.1

Offices Held

Bailiff, Welshpool 1570, 1571, 1574, ?1587; j.p. Mont. from 1575; Queen’s forester 1582; jt. commr. subsidy 1582.2

Biography

Lloyd’s father was steward to the last abbot of Strata Marcella (near Welshpool, Montgomeryshire), and retained for his family the office of receiver in respect of its former lands after the dissolution of the monasteries. The monastic deeds which thus came into the possession of Oliver Lloyd were an important source for Lewis Dwnn’s genealogical researches3.

Not long after having been pardoned for breaking into a Shropshire manor house, Lloyd (though fifth son) succeeded about 1560 to the Leighton estates, adding to them some six years later leases of crown and monastic demesne lands and mills in the south-east of the shire. The Leighton lands cost him two Star Chamber suits — in 1581 and 1584 — one as plaintiff, one as defendant, and both involving the usual charges of violence and corruption. At the musters of 1574, in company with 40 others of the local gentry, only two of whom, Edward Herbert I of Montgomery and John Vaughan of Llwydiarth, were placed in a higher category, Lloyd was charged with ‘one gelding for a light horse, with his furniture’.4

Lloyd’s election for the shire (following which he was put on the subsidy committee 22 Feb. 1587) probably owed less to his landed estates than to his close association with the Herberts, who dominated the electoral politics of Montgomeryshire for the best part of a century after the Act of Union. Yet in 1588, when some of the Herbert connexion broke away and backed one of their own number, Arthur Price, against the veteran Edward Herbert, Lloyd was a canvasser for Price, who was his wife’s nephew as well as Herbert’s brother-in-law. Lloyd probably died in the following year. His son sold the heavily-mortgaged estate in 1623, and the family lived henceforth as soldiers of fortune.5

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes

  • 1. St. Ch. 5/L5/6; W. V. Lloyd, Sheriffs Mont. 3-10, 280-1.
  • 2. Mont. Colls. xii. 315; xiii. 211, 342; Flenley, Cal. Reg. Council, Marches of Wales, 142; Lloyd, 282.
  • 3. Dwnn, Vis. Wales , i. 8, 289; DWB; Mont. Colls. xiii. 341-2; Lloyd, 3-7.
  • 4. CPR , 1557-8, p. 223 (called ‘late of Leighton’); 1563-6, p. 500; Augmentations , ed. Lewis and Davies (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 466-7; Lloyd, 10-14; Mont. Colls. xxii. 122.
  • 5. Neale, Commons , 102; D’Ewes, 409; Lloyd, 49-50, 282-3; DWB.