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About Robert Bulkeley, 2nd Viscount Bulkeley of Cashel
Family and Education b. c.1630, 3rd but 1st surv. s. of Thomas, 1st Visct. Bulkeley of Cashel [I], and bro. of Henry Bulkeley and Thomas Bulkeley. m. by 1655, Sarah, da. of Daniel Harvey, merchant, of Lawrence Pountney Hill, London, 3s. 6da. suc. fa. 17 Apr. 1659.1
Offices Held
Sheriff, Anglesey 1657-8; commr. for assessment Anglesey 1657-80, Caern. 1657, Aug. 1660-80, militia, N. Wales Mar. 1660; j.p. Anglesey and Caern. Mar. 1660-d.; chancellor and chamberlain of Anglesey, Caern. and Merion. July 1660-d.; custos rot. Anglesey Sept. 1660-Feb. 1688; constable, Beaumaris Castle Sept. 1660-d.; dep. lt. N. Wales 1661-Feb. 1688; commr. for oyer and terminer, Wales 1661; col. of militia ft. Anglesey by 1661-?Feb. 1688, v.-adm. N. Wales 1679-d.2
Biography Bulkeley’s ancestors, of Cheshire origin, established themselves in Anglesey about the middle of the 15th century, and first sat for the county in 1545. His father received an Irish peerage in 1644 for his services as commissioner of array, and was in arms again for the King in the second Civil War. Bulkeley inherited an estate of £4,000 p.a., by far the largest in the island, and was returned to the Convention as knight of the shire. He was marked on Lord Wharton’s list as a friend to be managed by John Glynne, but he had married into a strongly royalist family and probably voted with the Court. He was appointed to only five committees, of which the most important were to prepare a bill to abolish the court of wards and to consider the indemnity bill. He was granted the offices of constable of Beaumaris, chamberlain of North Wales, and custos rotulorum of the county. Although he secured the removal of the garrison under (Sir) John Carter from Holyhead, which might have had ‘an evil influence’ on parliamentary elections, he did not stand in 1661, giving his interest at Beaumaris to Heneage Finch, who had married his wife’s sister. He remained in good standing with the restored monarchy, and was thanked by the Treasury in 1671 for his assistance in the collection of hearth-tax.3
Bulkeley was returned for Caernarvonshire at an uncontested by-election in 1675. He was again inactive, serving on only four committees, of which the most important were to prevent illegal exactions and abuses in the hearth-tax. He was included as a court supporter on the working lists by Sir Richard Wiseman. Shaftesbury marked him ‘vile’, and according to A Seasonable Argument it was owing to Finch, now lord chancellor, that he was given the guardianship of his nephew, Sir William Williams, worth £1,000 p.a. (Sir) Joseph Williamson included him among the Members ‘wanting’ during a debate in the spring of 1678, but he was still reckoned a government supporter by the Court.4
Although Bulkeley was not included in the ‘unanimous club’ of court supporters, he was again marked ‘vile’ by Shaftesbury in 1679 as MP for Anglesey, a mistake for his brother Henry. In fact he probably did oppose exclusion, as he was made vice-admiral of North Wales at this time. He sat again for Anglesey in James II’s Parliament, but was appointed only to the committee on the bill for preventing clandestine marriages. It was reported that he was ‘sick and not able to come’ to give his answers to the lord president on the repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws, and he was removed from the lieutenancy and the commission of the peace By way of reparation, James II named him to succeed his father as chancellor and chamberlain of the North Wales circuit in late October 1688, an appointment which may have lapsed at the Revolution. Despite the fact that his uncle Henry†, King James’s master of the Household, joined the Jacobite court in exile, Bulkeley quickly accommodated himself to the new regime. The discovery of a Jacobite officer at Holyhead, one Captain Bellew, seeking a passage to Ireland, gave him an opportunity to display his loyalty to King William. Having ordered the captain’s detention, he informed the secretary of state, Lord Nottingham (Daniel Finch†), and probably in the same letter inserted a petition for his own reinstatement in his local offices. Although he had to wait a year to be restored as custos, the chancellorship was given immediately, and coupled with a new post, that of constable of Beaumaris Castle. He had kept himself out of Parliament in 1689, bringing in his uncle for the county of Anglesey and nominating at Beaumaris Sir William Williams, 1st Bt.*, with whom he may have contracted a political mariage de convenance in order to survive the Revolution, but came back as knight of the shire at the 1690 election, and thenceforth held the seat unopposed. He was classed as a Tory, and possibly as a Court supporter, by Lord Carmarthen (Sir Thomas Osborne†) in March 1690, and in December was listed as a probable supporter in the event of a Commons’ attack upon Carmarthen. In March 1691 a Jacobite agent included Bulkeley upon a list of ‘persons well inclined’ to James II. The following month Robert Harley* classed him as a Country party supporter, and in the 1694–5 session Henry Guy* listed him as a ‘friend’. By 1696 he was firmly in opposition, being forecast as a likely opponent of the projected council of trade in the division on 31 Jan. Bulkeley was still a man of residual Jacobite sympathies, according to information sent to Abbé Renaudot at about this time, for the Speaker informed the House on 31 Mar. that he was one of the Members in the country who had refused to subscribe the Association. On 15 Apr. the House was informed that Bulkeley had at last signed. Listed as a member of the Country party in an analysis of the 1698 Parliament, he was also forecast as likely to oppose a standing army. In a list of February 1701 he was named as likely to support the Court in agreeing with the committee of supply’s resolution to continue the ‘Great Mortgage’, and was classed with the Tories in the second Parliament of that year. He was listed as having favoured the motion of 26 Feb. 1702 vindicating the Commons’ proceedings in the impeachments of the four Whig lords, and on 13 Feb. 1703 voted against the House of Lords’ amendments to the bill to enlarge the time for taking the oath of abjuration. In March 1704 Nottingham listed him as a likely supporter in the proceedings upon the Scotch Plot. Bulkeley died 9 Aug. 1704, aged 46, and was buried at Beaumaris.2
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Robert Bulkeley, 2nd Viscount Bulkeley of Cashel's Timeline
| 1630 |
1630
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| 1658 |
1658
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| 1668 |
1668
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| 1670 |
1670
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Isle of Anglesey, UK
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| 1688 |
October 18, 1688
Age 58
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| ???? |
Beaumaris, Anglesea, UK
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