duate; he became a student of the Inner Temple in November 1631, but, succeeding to the baronetcy on the death of his father, on 2 Aug. 1632, he ‘retired to his patrimony, after he had seen the vanities of the great city’ (Wood). He was sworn a burgess of Denbigh on 10 Sept. 1632, common councilman on 18 Feb. 1633, alderman 1634–8 and 1639, and was M.P. for Denbighshire from 25 March 1640 until his death. According to Wood, ‘he was an active man in the king's cause in the beginning of the rebellion, for which, though he died soon after, his family notwithstanding suffered.’ Pennant (Tours in Wales, ed. 1883, ii. 141) also refers to him as a ‘loyalist … as much distinguished by his pen as his sword.’ It was ordered by the House of Commons on 27 Sept. 1642 that he be sent for as a delinquent, and that an impeachment for high treason be prepared against him ‘for levying forces against the King and Parliament and marching in the head of those forces against the parliament’ (Commons' Journals, ii. 783). He was probably with the Welsh contingent at Edgehill on 23 Oct. 1642 [see Salisbury, William, (1580?–1659?)], and was a few days later at Oxford, where he received the degree of D.C.L. He died about August 1643, and was buried, it is supposed, at Whitchurch, Denbigh. His wife, Hester, daughter of Sir Edward Tyrrell of Thornton, Buckinghamshire, survived him. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas, who was born on 8 June 1634, and matriculated at Jesus College, Oxford, on 4 Nov. 1651, but, dying without issue, was succeeded about 1653 by the second son, John, the fourth and last baronet, whose daughter and heiress was married to Sir Robert Cotton, first baronet of Combermere; the latter's descendant, Sir Robert Salusbury Cotton, fifth baronet, sold the Llewenny estates to the Hon. Thomas FitzMaurice about 1780.
Wood says that ‘having a natural geny to poetry and romance,’ he became ‘a most noted poet of his time;’ but his only known production is ‘The History of Joseph’ (London, 1636, 4to), ‘a very rare poem’ and a ‘scarce volume,’ dedicated to Lady Myddelton or Middleton, fourth wife and widow of the author's grandfather, Sir Thomas Myddelton, as an acknowledgment of her care for him in his youth. Among the commendatory verses printed at the beginning are some by two kinsmen of the author (John Salusbury senior and junior respectively), the latter most probably being of Bachegraig, Flintshire, and an ancestor of Mrs. Piozzi.
A portrait of Salisbury was formerly at Llewenny, and is described by Pennant.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. iii. 55–9; Fasti, ii. 42; Pennant's Tours in Wales, ed. 1883, ii. 141; John Williams's Records of Denbigh, pp. 130–2; W. R. Williams's Parl. Hist. of Wales, p. 73; Arch. Cambr. 3rd ser. vii. 120–2.]
SALISBURY or SALESBURY, WILLIAM (1520?–1600?), lexicographer, and first translator of the New Testament into Welsh, was born probably about 1520 at Cae Du, Llansannan in Denbighshire. The chief residence alike of his parents and of himself was Plas isaf, Llanrwst, where many writers have erroneously placed his birth. He was the second son of Foulke Salesbury, whose uncle, also named Foulke (d. 1543), was the first protestant dean of St. Asaph, and whose grandfather was Thomas Salesbury of Llewenny (fl. 1451). The family has, since the sixteenth century, claimed descent from Adam de Salzburg—a younger son of a duke of Bavaria—who is said to have come to England and been appointed captain of the garrison of Denbigh by Henry II; Adam's great-grandson, John Salesbury (d. 1289), is said to have settled at Llewenny, and endowed a monastic house at Denbigh (Lewis Dwynn, Heraldic Visitations, ii. 114–15, cf. p. 331; Vincent Collections at the Heralds' College, No. 135; cf. Williams, Ancient and Modern Denbigh, pp. 163–74). The family name was spelt in a great variety of ways, Salbri and Salsbri being the oldest Welsh forms, the latter being anglicised into Salesbury and Salisbury, while the modern representatives of the family have uniformly adopted Salusbury (Burke, Landed Gentry, ed. 1894, ii. 1778). The translator used the form Salesbury. His mother was Elen, daughter of John Puleston of Hafodywern (in Welsh Maelor).
Salesbury was educated at Oxford, where ‘he spent several years in academical learning, either at St. Albans or Broadgates-hall or both.’ Thence he proceeded, about 1547, to London to study law, first at Thavies Inn and subsequently, ‘as 'tis supposed,’ at Lincoln's Inn (Wood, Athenæ Oxon. i. 358). According to his own statement, he was brought up in the catholic faith. His conversion to protestantism has been assigned to the personal influence exerted on him while at Oxford, between 1540 and 1547, by Jewel, the leader of the protestant party at the university (Dr. T. C. Edwards, in Trans. Liverpool Welsh Nat. Soc. 1st session, pp. 56–7). In 1550 he first openly declared for protestantism by the publication of ‘The baterie of the Popes Botereulx, commonlye called the high Altare. Compiled by W. S. in the yere of oure Lorde 1550,’ London, 8vo (Brit. Mus.). This was printed
