The Davies family, squires of Gwysaney in Flintshire, could easily be seen as the obscure Welsh gentlemen of satire. Their estate was not large by English standards. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries their actions were not nationally renowned and their offspring did not go on to fame and fortune. Like many other gentry families, they sent their sons to school at Westminster, university at Oxford, and then sometimes to the Inns of Court. Yet the Davies family wielded a significant amount of power, patronage, and influence in North-East Wales in the period 1640–88. They were close socially to the regional nobility such as the earls of Bridgewater and Derby, for which they received patronage requests from far and wide. They advised local clergymen and approved political appointments. The family were renowned for their intellectual and antiquarian pursuits, opening their library to other antiquaries and corresponding with nationally significant individuals. The Davies family were regional opinion-leaders in favour of conservative religion, consistent political loyalty and a strong sense of Welsh culture and heritage. Loyalty held significant cultural capital in North-East Welsh society. Closely associated with a strong territorial power base, kinship relationships, adherence to the Church of England, and an ordered and stable society, loyalty to the Crown was of paramount importance to the North-East Welsh gentry. The Davieses of Gwysaney had embodied Welsh historical, political, and cultural values for generations.

The Davies family’s royalist allegiance throughout the period 1641 to 1660 and into the Restoration was, therefore, both significant and typical of the region’s gentry attitudes. They were capable of bringing out their political ‘interest’ and connections in favour of the king, of resisting new governments, and providing a focal point for the disaffected. The Davieses had a consistent reputation for loyalty that was the source of some pride to them, and their lives and experiences from 1642 to 1666 exemplify many of the most characteristic traits of North-East Welsh royalism and loyalism. This chapter will examine the actions and attitudes of the Davieses of Gwysaney from the opening of the Long Parliament to the death of Robert Davies III in 1666.