JONES, Robert (c.1596-1653), of Hammersmith, Mdx. and Erddreiniog, Tregayen, Anglesey.

An obscure figure overshadowed by his father and elder brothers, Robert Jones cannot have been the knight’s son admitted to Oxford in 1611, as his father was not dubbed until 1617. Similarly, his admission to Lincoln’s Inn in March 1617 rules out the possibility that he was the servant of Sir Thomas Roe*, then under detention at Masulipatam. CSP Col. E.I. 1617-21, p. 22. Whatever form his early career took, Jones was returned for Caernarvon Boroughs twice when his brother-in-law, Edward Littleton II*, chose to sit for Leominster. He was probably also the Robert Jones who was returned for Flintshire in 1628, for although this may have been a namesake of Halkin, Flintshire, the latter’s modest estates made him rather humble to have served as knight of the shire. Jones’s transfer from Caernarvon Boroughs to a county seat was probably arranged in order to allow Littleton to sit for Caernarvon, thereby making Leominster available for Littleton’s relative Sir Thomas Littleton*. FLINTSHIRE. Though difficult to distinguish from his brother Charles, Jones seems to have left no trace on the records of the parliaments in which he sat.

Jones’s annual income from his Anglesey estate, a mere £120, more than trebled when he inherited his childless brother Charles’s lands in 1640. Though unlikely to have been the pre-war muster-master of Caernarvonshire and Flintshire, he served during the Civil War as royalist governor of Caernarvon and sheriff of the county. He claimed to have been party to the surrender negotiations at Beaumaris in 1646 in order to secure exemption from delinquency proceedings. While in detention during the second Civil War, he was sued by four merchants whose goods he had seized for the royalist war effort in 1643, and his estate was charged with damages of £1,730. In about 1653, imprisoned in the Marshalsea for the residue of this debt, he petitioned the committee for compounding for relief.SP23/95, p. 87. Jones may have died in prison, as the dispute was left unsettled, but no will or administration has been found.