MYDDELTON, Sir Thomas II (1586-1666), of Chirk Castle, Denb.

Myddelton handled his father’s affairs in North Wales from about 1605, and apparently spent little time in London. His return to the Commons for Weymouth at a by-election in May 1624 was doubtless arranged by the London merchant and erstwhile business partner of his late uncle Robert Myddelton*, Robert Bateman*, who had trading interests there. Myddelton, passim; ROBERT BATEMAN; ROBERT MYDDELTON. Myddelton’s decision to seek election towards the end of this session may have been prompted by the Lords’ investigation of a complaint from his neighbour Henry Williams of Chirk, who claimed Myddelton had attempted to intimidate him in a dispute arising from a lawsuit before the Council in the Marches. Myddelton left no trace on the records of the Commons’ debates, but may have appeared before the Lords, as Williams’s petition was referred to lord president Northampton on 28 May. LJ, iii. 416b.

With Northampton scheduled to report at the next parliamentary session, Myddelton naturally stood for election in 1625. He was returned for Weymouth once again, but chose to sit for Denbighshire, where he defeated Sir Eubule Thelwall* in a hard-fought contest, which he clearly provoked in order to exact revenge for the recent ill-treatment of his uncle Hugh Myddelton* by the Thelwalls over a drainage venture on the Isle of Wight. Procs. 1625, p. 226; C2/Chas.I/M63/60; 2/Chas.I/M81/165; J.W. Gough, Sir Hugh Myddelton, 92-5; HUGH MYDDELTON. Myddelton declared his intention to challenge the Thelwalls as soon as news of a fresh Parliament arrived in the shire, writing to Sir John Wynn† of Gwydir for support on 7 Apr., but the latter responded that he had pledged his support to a third candidate, Sir Thomas Wynne of Melai, who had already entered the fray. Wynne’s backers were eventually persuaded to throw in their lot with Myddelton on the understanding that their man would be returned elsewhere. In the event, Wynne was killed in action in the Low Countries shortly before election day, and Thelwall was persuaded to yield the Denbighshire seat to Myddelton and come in for the by-election expected when Myddelton surrendered his seat at Weymouth. Procs. 1625, pp. 682-4; NLW, Chirk F12837, Lleweni 14/34; Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. ser. 4. xii), 235.

During the 1625 session it is impossible to distinguish Myddelton from his father, one of the London MPs, but it seems likely that most of the activity in the Commons can be ascribed to the latter. The younger man’s main concern was presumably the petition left over from the 1624 session, which was successfully resolved on 7 July, when lord president Northampton reported that an affray Myddelton had been accused of promoting was covered by the 1624 general pardon. With Williams’s suit before the Marches Court having been dismissed, the Lords ordered the petitioner ‘to take his course by law and to trouble this House no more’. Procs. 1625, p. 102; SIR THOMAS MYDDELTON I. Myddelton was unable to honour his promise to secure Sir Eubule Thelwall a seat at Weymouth, which went instead to a local man, Giles Greene. This may help to explain why Myddelton did not mount a challenge to Thelwall at the Denbighshire elections of 1626 and 1628.

Myddelton was closely involved in his father’s purchase of the Crown lordships of Arwystli and Cyfeiliog in 1628, apparently on behalf of the tenants, to whom he sold his interest in 1635. E112/276/34; NLW, Powis 11363, 11378; Wynnstay L12. Returned to the Long Parliament for Denbighshire, he was appointed major general of the parliamentarian forces in North Wales and led a successful campaign in his local area before surrendering his commission under the Self-Denying Ordinance in June 1645. He was excluded from the Commons at Pride’s Purge in 1648, but continued to be appointed to local office until the expulsion of the Rump in 1653, and was reappointed under the Cromwellian Protectorate. He joined Sir George Booth’s* royalist rebellion in 1659, was returned to the Convention Parliament in 1660 and remained active locally after the Restoration until his death on 11 Dec. 1666. His will, proved by his widow in March 1667, included a theologically elaborate but politically evasive proclamation of his beliefs: ‘I am a Protestant, maintaining and believing the three Creeds established and professed by the Church of England in the time of Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory’. M.F. Keeler, Long Parl. 273; D. Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 380; PROB 11/323, ff. 308v-10v. The next MP in the family was his eldest son, who sat in the Cavalier Parliament as knight for Denbighshire.