Griffith’s father, a cleric from a cadet branch of the family from Cefnamwlch, Caernarvonshire, was deprived for marriage under Queen Mary, but reinstated in 1558. Nothing is known of Griffith himself between his matriculation at Oxford and his appearance in the earl of Northampton’s service in 1606.
At the 1614 general election, the Sandwich corporation assumed that Griffith would represent them again, but Northampton, having arranged for his return at Portsmouth, assured the disappointed Kentishmen that as a freeman, Griffith would ‘serve you in the same condition he did in the last Parliament’.
Northampton died a few days after the dissolution, and Griffith, as one of his master’s executors, supervised the erection of the earl’s tomb at Dover and helped to establish hospitals at Greenwich, Clun and Castle Rising. Griffith never sat in Parliament again, but he retained his Cinque Ports post for life, and while the Privy Council questioned him about his absenteeism in 1626, he avoided dismissal and played an active part in equipping the expedition to La Rochelle the following year. The large quantity of political papers in his surviving archive suggests that he continued to maintain an interest in politics, and in 1625 he may have been hoping for a post in the service of the newly appointed secretary of state, Sir Albertus Morton*. However, the latter’s death shortly thereafter deprived him of this opportunity.
In his will of 20 Sept. 1629 Griffith bequeathed his brother Richard a life interest in Bloxham, which was then to pass to his godson John, while other relatives were granted legacies of nearly £2,500. He died on 14 Apr. 1632 and was buried at Bloxham. One nephew, chancellor of the diocese of Bangor, inherited his lands in Anglesey, while another later became bishop of St. Asaph, but no other member of this branch of the family entered the Commons.