Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/467

 tion (Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. pt. iv. pp. 309, 337, 344, 385;, Hist. ii. 530). He probably gave serious displeasure to the king by opposing (along with Robert Price [q. v.] and other Welsh members) the proposed royal grant of the lordships of Bromfield and Yale to the Earl of Portland (Cal. of Treasury Papers, 1556–1696, p. 437, where Williams's argument, delivered on 10 May 1698, is reproduced). In October 1693 he had exhibited his ‘partiality, precipitancy, and fury’ in an effort to influence the election of sheriff for Chester (Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. iv. 277), and in the general election of November 1695 he unsuccessfully contested the city with Sir Thomas Grosvenor, against whose return he petitioned on the ground of bribery and corruption. His own election at Beaumaris had, however, been secured. In the ensuing parliament, which was the last he sat in, he served on committees and frequently took part in debates; he was also the author of an act for further regulating elections and for preventing irregular proceedings on the part of returning officers (7 and 8 Will. III, c. 25). He continued his practice at the bar till his death at Gray's Inn on 11 July 1700. He was buried in the centre of the chancel at Llansilin church, and a beautiful monument, with a long Latin inscription (given in, p. 167), was erected against the south wall of the south aisle (Arch. Cambr. 5th ser. xi. 119). By his will he left the interest of 200l. to be distributed annually among the poor of Llansilin (Report on Llansilin Charities, 1891). An English elegy written by Henry Stuart and published soon after Williams's death, was reprinted in ‘Bye-gones’ for December 1876 (p. 167). A Welsh ode of praise, written in September 1694 by Huw Morris [q. v.], the royalist poet, was published in Morris's collected works (‘Eos Ceiriog’) in 1820.

By his wife, who was also buried at Llansilin on 10 Jan. 1705, he had four sons (two of whom died young) and one daughter. The eldest, Sir William Williams, succeeded as second baronet. The second son, John, on whom the Bodelwyddan and Anglesey property was settled when he married, became an ‘eminent provincial lawyer’, practising as a barrister at Chester; he married Catherine, eldest daughter of Sir Hugh Owen of Orielton, Pembrokeshire, and was succeeded by his third son, John Williams (1700–1787), for thirty-two years chief justice for Brecon, Glamorgan, and Radnor. From him is descended the Williams family of Bodelwyddan. The speaker's only daughter, Emma, was married to Sir Arthur Owen, bart., of Orielton.

Williams has been severely if not savagely criticised for his tergiversation in accepting office under James II, and especially for his conduct in prosecuting the bishops. Macaulay simply revels in describing the ‘infamy’ of this ‘venal turncoat’ and ‘apostate.’ Williams seems, however, to have been a thoroughly conscientious though somewhat fanatical whig, till he realised that Jeffreys had plotted his ruin by his prosecution for acts done as speaker. His bitter reflections on being deserted by the commons, and having to pay so large a fine, made him adopt for a time the ‘Trimmers'’ view that expediency was the only safe guide in the politics of the day. Partly out of hatred for his old enemy he seems also to have resolved on ousting him, if possible, from the chancellorship, which he would, in fact, have accomplished had he obtained a verdict against the bishops. He had abilities and learning beyond most of his contemporaries at the bar, was prompt and resourceful in argument, a hard worker, and a facile, plausible, and even eloquent speaker. He never lacked courage, but frequently lost control of his temper. North describes him as a ‘cunning Parliament man.’ He was somewhat hard and grasping in his dealings, but entirely free from the fashionable vices of his time, and, in spite of his prosecution of the bishops, seems to have been affectionately attached to the church of England. His portraits represent him as strikingly handsome. One was formerly at the Town Hall, Chester, and an engraving of it was published in Yorke's ‘Royal Tribes of Wales.’ A bad portrait hangs in the speaker's house at Westminster. There was also at Wynnstay a portrait of him in his robes as speaker, painted by Lady Tierney, but this was destroyed when the mansion was burnt in 1858. There is, however, a copy of it at Peniarth (Bye-gones, October 1876, p. 131). There is also at Bodelwyddan an enlarged copy of an original miniature formerly preserved at Wynnstay, and a good copy is at Rhiawa belonging to Lady Verney, daughter of Sir John Hay Williams, second baronet of Bodelwyddan, who descended from the speaker's second son John.

Williams evinced his interest in the history and literature of Wales by purchasing the valuable collection of manuscripts belonging to his neighbour William Maurice [q. v.] (cf., British Remains, p. 158; Arch. Cambr. iv. 347). These, together with most of Williams's own papers, perished in the Wynnstay fire in 1858 (Wynnstay