GRIFFITH, John II (d. c.1650), of Cefnamwlch, Tudweiliog, Caern.

Griffith may have been the John Griffith ‘Cambrobritanicus’ who was admitted at Padua University in May 1636, although his character and subsequent career do not suggest any great interest on his part in learning or the arts.7Brown, ‘Inglesi e Scozzesi all’Università di Padova’, 150. According to Edward Hyde*, the future earl of Clarendon, Griffith ‘followed the court’ in his youth, ‘and pretended to [i.e. aspired to] preferment there’, and it is therefore possible that he was the John Griffith who served as a lieutenant in the royal army during the second bishops’ war.8Clarendon, Hist. i. 576; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1248.

In December 1640, Griffith was returned for Caernarvonshire to the Long Parliament – in controversial circumstances – on the interest of his father, who sat for Beaumaris. Although the defeated candidate for the county seat, Thomas Glynne*, mounted a strong challenge at Westminster against the result, the Griffiths eventually prevailed and Griffith II was allowed to retain his seat.9Supra, ‘Caernarvonshire’; ‘John Griffith I’; ‘Thomas Glynne’. Because both father and son sat in the Commons and the clerk of the House apparently made little effort to distinguish between them – referring to both as ‘Mr John Griffith’ or as ‘Mr Griffith’ – it is impossible to form a precise picture of Griffith II’s parliamentary appointments.10CJ ii. 133b, 136b, 273a. Hyde claimed that Griffith II’s desire for court preferment meant that in the House he ‘always opposed (as far as not consenting) all the undutiful acts towards the king’.11Clarendon, Hist. i. 576. However, it is likely that the majority of references in the Journals and the parliamentary diaries to ‘Mr Griffith’ apply to Griffith I, who was by far the more public-spirited and loyal (towards the king) of the two men.12Supra, ‘John Griffith I’. Several sources list both Griffith and his father among those MPs who voted against the attainder of the earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), on 21 April.13Procs LP iv. 42; Verney, Notes, 58. John Rushworth*, on the other hand, noted only one ‘Mr Griffith’ among the Straffordians.14Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 248-9. Griffith II took the Protestation on 6 May after being excused by the House for his unauthorised absence on 3 May when the majority of Members had taken the oath.15CJ ii. 136b; Procs. PL iv. 230, 232.

Griffith incurred the House’s displeasure on more serious grounds late in January 1642, when the Commons was informed that he had quarrelled with Philip Lord Herbert*, the eldest son of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, and had challenged him to a duel. As reported by Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, Griffith, who was present in the House that day, denied that there had been any quarrel between himself and Lord Herbert, merely ‘some difference’ that had since been resolved.16PJ i. 227, 230, 232, 235. But the clerk of the House reported Griffith as saying that ‘some six months since he received some ill words from the Lord Herbert for which he desired him to give him a meeting [i.e. fight a duel], and he [Herbert] did accordingly and gave him very honourable satisfaction’.17CJ ii. 404a. But with neither Lord Herbert nor his father disposed to take the issue any further, and with Griffith’s assurance to the House on 2 February that there had never been a serious falling out in the first place, the Commons was content to let the matter drop.18CJ ii. 405a; PJ i. 256.

Griffith soon added to his notoriety by informing the House, on 25 February 1642, that plans were afoot at court to send the prince of Wales to the continent. D’Ewes implied, and Hyde insisted, that Griffith was peddling false information in order to ingratiate himself with the House.19PJ i. 465, 467, 470. After dismissing Griffith as ‘a young Welshman, of no parts or reputation but for eminent license’, Hyde claimed that

when the queen was ready to take shipping at Dover for Holland [which she did on 23 February], he [Griffith] barefaced importuned her to mediate to the king that he might be forthwith admitted of the prince’s bedchamber: the which her Majesty refusing, he forthwith told his companions that ‘since he could not render himself considerable by doing the king service, he would be considerable by doing him disservice’ and so made great haste to London and openly, in the House, told them (the same day that the prince was to go to Greenwich) ‘that if they were not exactly careful they would speedily lose the prince; for, to his knowledge, there was a design and resolution immediately to carry him into France’. From which senseless and groundless information he was taken into their favour; and, his malice supplying the defect of other parts, was thenceforth taken into trust and used as their bravo to justify all their excesses ... And I saw Mr Hambden [John Hampden*] shortly after this discovery take him in his arms, telling him ‘his soul rejoiced to see that God had put it in his heart to take the right way’.20Clarendon, Hist. i. 576-7.

But although it is likely that Griffith was acting from the most self-interested of motives, his information may not have been entirely ‘senseless and groundless’. The king had issued orders just the day before (24 February) for the prince to join him at Greenwich; and there may well have been talk at court of plans to put him beyond Parliament’s clutches altogether by sending him abroad to join the queen. The two Houses were sufficiently alarmed by the prince’s removal to Greenwich to demand that Charles return him to London immediately.21Russell, Fall of British Monarchies, 476-7.

Griffith’s parliamentary career came to an unhappy denouement in the summer of 1642 after the Commons received a petition from Lady Elizabeth Sedley – a widow in her mid-40s – on 8 June, complaining that he had committed a ‘wicked assault’ upon her. The Commons gave her leave to prosecute Griffith, notwithstanding his privileges as an MP, and ordered that unless he appeared at Westminster within six days it would assume he was guilty and proceed against him accordingly. The House also set up a committee, to which it named John Pym and several other leading Commons-men, to consider Lady Sedley’s petition and how she could prosecute Griffith without creating a precedent that might undermine parliamentary privilege.22CJ ii. 613, 685a; PJ iii. 50. Griffith evidently ignored the order for his appearance, and on 16 June he was among a group of MPs – mostly future royalists – who were declared absent at the call of the House.23CJ ii. 626. Having heard convincing testimony from Lady Sedley of Griffith’s attempt to rape her, the committee debated whether to draft legislation for his perpetual banishment or even his death.24PJ iii. 108, 251-2. After hearing the committee’s report on 10 August, the House disabled Griffith from sitting as an MP and resolved that Lady Sedley have permission to bring an indictment against him in the king’s bench. However, the House rejected the committee’s proposal ‘for the reading of a bill newly drawn up against the said Mr Griffith’.25CJ ii. 712a; PJ iii. 291. It appears that Griffith was arrested and imprisoned at some point over the next few months, only to make his escape early in October and join the parliamentarian army under Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.26Add. 18777, f. 24; CJ ii. 804a. On 20 October, the House read a petition from Griffith in which he stated that he was serving in Essex’s army ‘and had four good horses there’, whereupon it was resolved to suspend an earlier order for bringing Griffith up to Parliament under guard, ‘because he being put out of the House and left to a legal proceeding it was not thought fit he should be twice punished for the same offence and that the Parliament had no cognizance of such an offence’.27CJ ii. 816a; Add. 31116, p. 5.

In the spring of 1643, the royalist press reported that Griffith, ‘the darling’ of the Commons, had raised a troop of horse which he had paraded ostentatiously through the streets of London and had then led ‘towards Lincolnshire to assist those parts in the rebellion’, where it had promptly deserted to the king.28Mercurius Aulicus no. 12 (19-25 Mar. 1643), 149-50. In February 1644, it was reported that he had laid on a £500 banquet for the French ambassador the Comte d’Harcourt, which was said to have been attended by Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford, Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh and ‘divers other lords and gentlemen’.29Mercurius Aulicus no. 7 (11-17 Feb. 1644), 834 (E.25.27).

A royalist assessment of the parliamentarian threat to north Wales during the winter of 1643-4 concluded that the region was endangered ‘by the solicitation of Mr Griffith and Mr Glynne [John Glynne*], both at London in great esteem’, and that Griffith’s ‘endeavours [against the king’s party in north Wales] are not likely to be wanting, because he is bereft from his fortune for being in rebellion’.30Add. 18981, ff. 97r-v. And indeed, on 10 April 1644, ‘Colonel Griffith’ made ‘many remarkable propositions to the Commons’, assuring the House that if he might have a commission from Essex to be ‘commander-in-chief in all north Wales’, and £15,000 from the sequestration and compositions revenues of the region’s royalists, ‘he would engage his life and his estate to enforce that part of Wales to submit unto the Parliament’.31CJ iii. 455b; The Weekly Account no. 33 (10-17 Apr. 1644), sig. A3v (E.43.7); Whitelocke, Mems. i. 252. The Commons took him seriously enough to set up a committee to consider his proposal.32CJ iii. 455b.

But ‘Prince Griffith’ (or ‘Griffin’) as he was commonly known, would comprehensively ruin his prospects of parliamentary preferment by publicly alleging in November 1644 that his lodgings had been used by the elector palatine to conduct an affair with Lady Herbert (Philip Lord Herbert’s wife), and that ‘he [Griffith], in revenge of that disgrace done to himself, had trained the said lady to his lodgings, under pretence that she should there meet the prince, and that, she being come thither, himself lay with her three times, expressing the same in many filthy and vile speeches’.33LJ vii. 77a, 79, 81b, 512a; CJ iii. 711b, 726a; Add. 31116, p. 354; HMC 7th Rep. 449; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 341. Imprisoned in a private house by order of the Lords, he played the ‘most antic tricks as ever was heard of’ – including the publication of a ‘wicked rhyme of the said prince and lady’ and having a large dog ‘trimmed up with horns and other things in a fantastic fashion and, with music and other mimical gestures, exposed...to the view of multitudes of unruly people, in scorn of his own offence, the said prince and of the Lord Herbert and lady and to the great dishonour of public justice’.34LJ vii. 101a, 512a, 512b; HMC 7th Rep. 453. In February 1645, he tried to convince the Commons (unsuccessfully) that ‘he had been twice attempted to be poisoned and how he escaped the first time and was brought so low the second time that his guts were burnt and he is in danger of present death’.35CJ iv. 53a; Add. 31116, pp. 386, 387. In March, he petitioned the Lords, complaining that he had been imprisoned contrary to his rights as a ‘free commoner of England’ and without liberty to attend church, and yet protesting that he was ‘still willing to adventure his life and estate in the service of the state’.36LJ vii. 293b; HMC 6th Rep. 52. But a few weeks later the Lords received a petition from his gaoler, alleging that Griffith ‘persists in his outrageous courses, blasphemous oaths, base language against their lordships and other noble persons’, railing at passers-by outside his window ‘and never ceasing to assault, revile and strike’ the petitioner, his wife and servants.37HMC 6th Rep. 53. The Lords responded by having Griffith transferred first to the Fleet and then to Newgate Prison, as befitting one ‘accused of capital crimes’.38LJ vii. 304b, 315b-316a; CJ iv. 109a, 169b; HMC 6th Rep. 54; HMC 7th Rep. 453, 454. In June, he escaped from Newgate, but was quickly apprehended and put back behind bars, prompting several more petitions to the Lords, in which he averred that he had nothing ‘to supply even the wants of nature, having lost his whole estate for his affection to Parliament’ and pleading that the House ‘balance his service and affection against his offence and his offence against his sufferings and, rather than starve him, give him a speedy legal trial’.39CJ iv. 162a, 169b; LJ vii. 451b, 504a; HMC 6th Rep. 64, 71. On 26 July, the committee of both Houses that had been set up to investigate Griffith’s offences delivered its report in the Lords, charging him with rape, attempted rape, libelling the elector palatine and Lord and Lady Herbert and bringing the ‘public justice of the Parliament’ into contempt. The Lords set his bail at £4,000, and – after barely managing to find enough gentlemen willing to stand bond for his good behaviour – he was released in August.40LJ vii. 510b, 512, 523, 528b; HMC 6th Rep. 73. In October 1646, he petitioned the Lords yet again, insisting that he had ‘not done anything whereby he may deserve the continuance of their lordships displeasures’ and therefore requesting that he might be ‘eased of so heavy a burden, which he hath so long lain under’. The Lords duly released him from bail, only to imprison him again six weeks later after learning of ‘new affronts and injuries’ that he had given Lord Herbert. He was released on 17 December, having assured the Lords ‘that he neither did nor intended any affront to him [Lord Herbert], but rather endeavoured to avoid it by resolving to retire himself to his own house into the country, and there to continue until he could settle his estate and procure such a sum of money as would carry him beyond the seas’.41LJ viii. 552b, 612a, 612b, 616a; HMC 6th Rep. 138.

Griffith’s life of scandal and violence culminated (at least in England) during the winter of 1647-8 with the sexual harassment of a gentleman’s wife in Cheshire and the killing of his servant. Although Griffith would later publish a pamphlet denouncing his accusers as liars and papists and claiming that the servant’s death was an accident, he reportedly fled to Scotland to avoid arrest. Tried in absentia by a coroner’s jury in Cheshire, he was found guilty of murder.42A Letter of a Sad Tragedy by Prince Griffin at Sayton, neere Chester (1648), 1-3 (E.431.12); A Vindication or Justification of John Griffith, Esq. (1648), E.435.44; ‘Sir Hugh Calveley and a murder at Saighton in 1648’, The Cheshire Sheaf, ser. 3, xxxii. 24-5, 27, 29-30, 31-3, 34-5, 37-8, 39-40, 42. He may well have been the ‘Griffin’ who was brought by Henry Lord Jermyn* to kiss the prince of Wales’s hand in Paris in August 1648, but whose threatening behaviour and ‘viciousness’ generally affronted the exiled royalist community in France.43Nicholas Pprs. i. 94-5. He was residing in the Spanish Netherlands by the spring of 1649, fighting a duel there with the royalist peer Thomas Lord Windsor before making his way back to Paris, where he died in about 1650.44CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 70; Perfect Occurrences, 128 (8-15 June 1649), 1069-70 (E.530.38); Griffith, Peds. Anglesey and Caern. Fams. 169. His place and date of burial are not known. No will is recorded. His younger brother William succeeded to Cefnamwlch and would sit for Caernarvon Boroughs in the Cavalier Parliament.45HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘William Griffith’.