was the son and heir of
Hugh Gwyn
Bodvel
's grandson
Sir
John
Bodvel
(kt.
1614
, d.
1631
) and of
Elizabeth
, daughter of
Sir
John
Wynn
of
Gwydir
(
1553
-
1626
) (q.v.)
. He entered the
Middle Temple
in
1633
and in
1640
m.
Ann
, daughter of
Sir
William
Russell
of
Chippenham, Cambs.
,
co-Treasurer of the Navy
. He sat for
Anglesey
(where his grandfather had acquired by marriage the estate of
Caerfryn
) in the
Short and Long Parliaments
, where he took his stand with the
militant Protestants
who opposed the court, and was nominated by the
Commons
as
deputy-lieutenant of Caernarvonshire
in
March 1642
. On
2 Aug. 1642
he was given leave of absence by the
House
and a store of arms for the defence of ‘his home in
Wales
,’ but by
May 1643
he had become a
commissioner of array
for
Caernarvonshire
and a ‘
custos rotulorum
’ for
Anglesey
, and he attended the
Oxford Parliament
in
Jan. 1644
, when he was also admitted to the degree of
D.C.L.
there. When the
Oxford Parliament
adjourned in July,
Bodvel
took his family to
Caerfryn
, serving as
governor of Caernarvon castle
from
March 1646
(
N.L.W. Brogyntyn Coll.
, unscheduled letter from
Lord Byron
to
Bodvel
and others
13 March 1646
), helping as
colonel
and
commissioner of array
both in the defence of the island and in the negotiations for its surrender in
July 1646
. His estates were sequestered in
Nov. 1647
, and he incurred further fines by supporting the
Royalist rising
of
1648
in
Anglesey
. He appears to have fled abroad on the
king's execution
, and on his return his name was included in the
Act of 1651
for the sale of delinquents’ estates, but the sales were quashed in
1652
and he was finally cleared of delinquency in
April 1655
. In
1657
his wife, a strong
Puritan
who had already (
1646
), appealed to the
Lords
for the removal of their
children from the father's custody on the ground of his bad example, arranged without his consent a marriage between their second daughter and
Robert
, son of the
Cornish
lord Robartes
, a wealthy
Presbyterian
and former
Roundhead field-marshal
.
Bodvel
, after refusing to recognize the match, relented after the restoration and stood godfather to his second grandson
Charles Bodvel
Robartes
, promising to make him his heir and to give him a Welsh education. But his distant cousin
Thomas
Wynn
of
Boduan
(d.
1673
)
— grandson of the
Thomas
Wynn
named above (see
Charles
Gwynne
,
1582
-
1647
) and ancestor of the
first lord Newborough
(q.v.)
— had long been intriguing for the succession to the
Bodvel estates
, and he now got
Bodvel
into his power by poisoning him against his family and hiding him from importunate creditors in the slums of
London
, where, in the extremity of squalor and sickness of body and mind, he made a new will (
1662
), leaving his estates to
Wynne
's son
Griffith
(who assumed the name of Bodvel) and another distant cousin.
After his death (
March 1663
)
lord Robartes
and his son contested the will in
Chancery
and the
House of Lords
, eventually (
1666
) obtaining an
Act of Parliament
which set it aside in favour of
CHARLES
ROBARTES
(
1660
-
1697
), who on the death of his paternal grandfather (created
earl of Radnor
1685
) succeeded, owing to the prior death of his elder brother, as
2nd earl of Radnor
. During his minority
Bodvel House
was licensed under the
Declaration of Indulgence
(
1672
) for
Independent
worship and was for a time the residence of
James
Owen
(
1654
-
1706
) (q.v.)
. Overtures for a marriage into the
Gwydir
family broke down when he was 19 (
1679
). On his father's death in
1682
he succeeded him as
mayor of Caernarvon
and
constable of the castle
; but after succeeding to the earldom he disposed of his
Welsh
estates, discharging his
Welsh
offices (with that of
chief forester of Snowdon
,
1692
) by proxy, and living in
London
, where he became the close friend of
Dean
Swift
.
