Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/283

  surname of Wynn, and is separately noticed [see ]. The house and estate of Gwydir remained, however, in the descendants of the fourth baronet, Sir Richard Wynn, whose only daughter, Mary (d. 1689), married at Westminster, on 30 July 1678, Robert, sixteenth baron Willoughby de Eresby (afterwards created Marquis of Lindsey and Duke of Ancaster), and so conveyed the estates into that family, in which they remained until 1895, when the present Earl of Ancaster disposed of the whole property. The mansion, some heirlooms, and a small portion of the estate were purchased by his kinsman, Earl Carrington, who through his mother (the daughter and coheiress of the twenty-second baron Willoughby) is a direct descendant of Sir John Wynn.

[Most of the materials for a biography of Wynn are to be found, though badly arranged, in the last edition of his Hist. of the Gwydir Family. Neither the State Papers nor the Phillipps MSS. (now at Cardiff) were, however, consulted by the editor. The latter comprise a large collection of letters and other papers made by Sir Thomas Phillipps relating to Wynn and his family, including letters addressed to him by Archbishop Williams, Bishop Parry of St. Asaph, and the Earls of Salisbury, Leicester, and Bridgwater. Some memoranda by Wynn, the correspondence relating to his dispute with Bishop Morgan, and four letters sent to him from Cambridge by John Williams (afterwards archbishop), are printed from other sources in Yorke's Royal Tribes of Wales (ed. 1887, pp. 134–54). Other authorities are Beaufort Progress, ed. 1888, pp. 138–47; Yorke's Royal Tribes of Wales, ed. 1887, pp. 5–12, and 134–54 ut supra; Pennant's Tours in Wales, 1st edit. 1781, ii. 137–45, 453–64; Breese's Kalendars of Gwynedd; Williams's Parl. Hist. of Wales, p. 59; Lloyd's Powys Fadog, iv. 269–74, 357; Allibone's Dict. of English Literature, p. 2877. As to the genealogy of the Wynn family, see also Lewys Dwnn's Heraldic Visitations, ii. 158–9; Collins's Baronetage, 1720, i. 280–92; Burke's Peerage, under Wynn, Lindsey, Willoughby de Eresby, and Headley; Burke's Extinct Baronetage, p. 589; Nicholas's County Families of Wales, 2nd edit. pp. 313, 350, 418.]  WYNN, WATKIN WILLIAMS, third baronet (1692–1749), whose original surname was Williams, was the grandson of Sir William Williams [q. v.], being the eldest son of Sir William Williams, the second baronet, of Llanforda, near Oswestry, by his first wife, Jane, daughter and sole heiress of Edward Thelwall of Plasyward, near Ruthin, Denbighshire. This lady, his mother, was a great-granddaughter of Sir John Wynn [q. v.] of Gwydir, whose grandson, also named Sir John Wynn, of Watstay (which he changed into Wynnstay), died without issue on 7 Jan. 1719, leaving his estates to his kinsman, Watkin Williams, who thereupon assumed the arms and the additional name of Wynn, and became the real founder of the great house of Wynnstay. Wynn (as he therefore came to be called) was born in 1692, and was educated at Oxford, where he matriculated as a fellow-commoner of Jesus College on 18 Dec. 1710, and was created D.C.L. on 17 Aug. 1732 (, Alumni Oxon.) He was mayor of Oswestry for 1728, and of Chester for 1732; he was also M.P. for Denbighshire from 1716 till his death, though in the election of 1741, which was ‘one of the great contests of the county,’ John Myddelton was first declared elected, but Wynn regained the seat on petition. In the House of Commons, where he was regarded as ‘a brave open hospitable gentleman’ (, Hist. of England, ed. 1793, ii. 505), he was a frequent debater. He voted for the reduction of the standing army in 1731, and against the excise bill, the Septennial Act in 1734, and the convention in 1739. Speaker Onslow referred to him as ‘a man of great note among the most disaffected to the present government, and much known upon that account’ (note to, Hist. of his own Time, ed. 1823, iii. 222). Next to Sir John Hynde Cotton [q. v.] and Sir William Wyndham [q. v.], he was probably the most active and influential Jacobite in parliament, while owing to his large estates he was at the head of all the tory squires of North Wales, where he was long known as ‘the Great Sir Watkin.’ He was one of the original members of a Jacobite club, called the Cycle, founded at Wrexham in 1723 (Cambrian Quarterly Magazine, 1829, i. 212–13; Cambrian Journal, viii. 304–309). In March 1740 he was described by Lord Temple as ‘hearty’ in his support of the Pretender, and ‘certainly to be depended upon’ (, Hist. of England, 2nd edit. iii. 43, cf. App. pp. lxxv and lxxvi), and, together with Cotton and Lord Barrymore, he appears to have repeated his assurances of support to Lord Traquair during the latter's visit to London in the summer of 1743 (, State Trials, vol. xviii. cols. 655–656;, Life of Prince Charles Stuart, i. 80).

Meanwhile Wynn and his associates lost no opportunity for harassing the government and attacking Walpole in the House of Commons (, vol. iii. App. p. v, cf. pp. 108, 172); and even after the earlier attempts to impeach Walpole had failed, Wynn seconded a motion on 1 Dec. 1743 to renew the 