# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Vaughan, Henry (1587?-1659?)

​VAUGHAN, Sir HENRY (1587?–1659?), royalist soldier, born probably between 1585 and 1590, was the sixth son of Walter Vaughan of Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire [see under Vaughan, Richard, second Earl of Carbery]. William Vaughan (1577–1641) was his brother. He settled at Derwydd, having married Sage, the daughter of the heiress of that house, who was the first wife of John Gwyn William (cf. Dwynn, Heraldic Visit. i. 214, 232; Arch. Cambr. 4th ser. xii. 235, where Vaughan's brother, Walter Vaughan of Llanelly, is erroneously given as his father). He was sheriff for Carmarthenshire in 1620, and M.P. for Carmarthen from 1621 to 1629 (except for a short term in 1625, when, after a double return, he was unseated). He was again elected for the county on 26 March and 5 Nov. 1640, and was knighted at Oxford on 1 Jan. 1642–3 (Metcalfe, Knights, p. 200). He appears to have been a member of the committee for examining scandalous ministers, but in 1644 a petition was presented to the House of Commons by Hugh Grundy, urging his removal therefrom on the ground that he had himself placed ‘six scandalous ministers, no preachers,’ to serve ‘six parish churches with several chapels’ in Carmarthenshire which he had obtained from Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, at the rent of 750l. a year (Commons' Journals, iii. 389; Arch. Cambr. 4th ser. xii. 327). It seems to have been suggested that Vaughan had also harboured papists. He was disabled from retaining his seat in parliament on 5 Feb. 1644.
When in 1642 his nephew, Richard Vaughan, second earl of Carbery [q. v.], was given the command of the royalist forces in the counties of Carmarthen, Cardigan, and Pembroke, Sir Henry, with the rank of major-general, seems to have been entrusted with plenary powers, and is said to have been ‘the instrument of much mischief’ in those counties, treating his opponents with brutality. His headquarters were at Haverfordwest, but, according to a political opponent, he precipitately abandoned that town in March 1643–4, owing to a panic caused by the stampede of a herd of frightened cattle, which were mistaken in the twilight for the parliamentary troops under Laugharne (Phillips, Civil War in Wales and the Marches, ii. 140–153; cf. Laws, Little England beyond Wales, p. 326). Vaughan fled to Carmarthen, but that town also was taken a few weeks later.
His next appearance was at the battle of Naseby on 14 June 1645, when he was taken prisoner; on the 18th he was brought before the House of Commons and committed to the Tower, where he remained till his removal to the Fleet prison on 1 Oct. 1647 (Commons Journal). There he still lay in July 1648, ‘like to be in a starvinge condicion’ (see his letter to his wife, dated 29 July, in Harrison's Notices of the Stepney Family, p. 12).
On 27 April 1644 he had been ordered by the committee for compounding to pay 160l. (Cal. of Proceedings), and on 20 Aug. 1645 he was assessed at 500l., his estate being valued at 600l. a year. He was excluded from the general pardon, 13 Oct. 1648 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. s.a. p. 304; cf. Rushworth, IV. i. 313). This treatment, so different from that meted to the Earl of Carbery and other members of the same family, supports the view that Sir Henry was by far the most active and irreconcilable royalist among them, on which account probably he was referred to by a parliamentary writer as ‘“Act-all,” now prisoner in the Tower for all [the family?],’ brother to ‘the honest Richard (Tell-all), who hath been grievously prosecuted, imprisoned, and plundered by them all for his affection to the parliament’ (The Earle of Carberyes Pedegree, London, 1646, 4to). Vaughan, who was generally known as ‘Sir Harry,’ is also described thus in a cavalier song of 1647 (Webb, Civil War in Herefordshire, ii. 30):
Sir Harry Vaughan looks as grave  As any beard can make him.  Those [who] come poore prisoners to see  Doe for our Patriarke take him.  Old Harry is a right true blue,  As valiant as Pendraggon,  And would be loyall to his king  Had King Charles ne'er a rag on.
Vaughan probably survived till close upon the Restoration, his release having ​perhaps been procured through the influence of Colonel Phillip Jones [q. v.] (Jones's Impeachment, in Grant Francis's Charters of Swansea, p. 193). There is a portrait of him (dated 1644) preserved at Derwydd. His eldest son, John, apparently predeceased him, and his estate therefore devolved on
Sir Henry Vaughan the younger (1613–1676). He served in the royalist army, and when Tenby was captured by Cromwell in May 1648 he was taken prisoner and kept confined in Tenby Castle. He is described in a contemporary pamphlet as Sergeant-major Vaughan, though in his memorial inscription his rank is given as colonel (Phillips, Civil War in Wales, ii. 378; Stepney Notices, pp. 12, 84). After the Restoration Vaughan was knighted at Whitehall on 9 Jan. 1661 (Le Neve, Knights, p. 149), and was sheriff for the borough of Carmarthen in 1661 and mayor in 1670. He was also elected M.P. for Carmarthen county in January 1667–8, but a question arose as to his eligibility to sit, as he ‘had been outlawed for a debt upon a bond of 1,000l.’ (Commons' Journals under 17 Feb. 1667–8). The decision was in his favour, and he retained the seat till his death on 26 Dec. 1676. He was buried at Llandebie church, where an elaborate monument was erected to his memory by his widow Elizabeth, the eldest daughter and coheiress of William Herbert of Colebrook, Monmouthshire. On the death, without issue, of his only child, Margaretta, in 1704, the Derwydd estate devolved upon his nephew, Richard Vaughan of Derllys (1654–1724), who was recorder (1683–1722) and M.P. in fourteen parliaments (1685–1724) for Carmarthen borough, as well as chief justice for Carmarthen circuit (1715–24). From the recorder's brother the estate descended in the female line to its present possessor, Alan Stepney-Gulston, esq.
Most writers have erroneously assumed the existence of only one Sir Henry Vaughan, while some (cf. Williams, Parl. Hist. of Wales, pp. 45, 52–3) have still further confounded them with a Henry Vaughan of Cilcennin, Cardiganshire, who was sheriff of that county in 1642, and was described shortly afterwards as ‘being anything for money, a proselyte, and favorite to all the changes of tymes … his motto, Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit vivere’ (Cambrian Register, i. 166; cf. Phillips, Sheriffs of Cardiganshire, p. 16).
[Authorities cited in text.]
D. Ll. T.