GRIFFITH, John I (d.1607/9), of Plas Mawr, Caern. and Llanidan, Anglesey

A cadet branch of the prodigiously wealthy Griffith family of Penrhyn, which had provided three long-serving chamberlains for the principality of North Wales during the century after 1440, the Caernarvon Griffiths had the highest subsidy rating in the borough, and provided most of the town’s MPs during the Elizabethan period.Griffith, 125, 185; DWB sub Griffith of Penrhyn; HP Commons, 1558-1603. i. 310-11. It has often been assumed that the man returned in 1604 was John Griffith the elder of Cefnamwlch (father of John Griffith III*), but this man was ineligible for election, as he was then serving as sheriff.List of Sheriffs, 248. The Caernarvon man left no trace on the records of his final Parliament, and probably missed most of the second session: he wrote to Sir William Maurice* on 2 Jan. 1606 asking him to make his excuses in the event of a call of the House. Presumably dead by the time he was removed from the commission of the peace in the autumn of 1607, Griffith’s seat was filled at a by-election on 15 Nov. 1609.NLW, Clenennau Letters 213; JPs in Wales and Monm. 6, 24; C219/35/2/193. No will or inquisition post mortem has been found. His younger son Nicholas represented Caernarvon Boroughs in the parliaments of 1601, 1614 and 1621.