Family and Education

b. by 1532, yr. s. of Rowland Gruffydd of Porthamel. Anglesey, by 2nd w. Catherine, da. and coh. of Meredydd ab Evan ap Robert of Crug, Caern. m. Alice, da. of William Bulkeley II of Beaumaris, 1s. 1da.1

Offices Held

Bailiff, Beaumaris 1554, 1577-8, subsidy assessor 1555, capital burgess 1562; escheator, Caern. Jan. 1572-Feb. 1573.2

Biography

The Morris Gruffydd elected for Beaumaris to the Parliament of March 1553 is described on the return as the son of Rowland Gruffydd. This was evidently done to distinguish him from his nephew and namesake the young heir of Porthamel, who has none the less been generally, but mistakenly, regarded as the Member. The elder Morris Gruffydd was a freeman of Beaumaris who later acquired a house at Fachwen in Caernarvonshire and, like his father, served as escheator of that county. His marriage to the daughter of William Bulkeley II allied him with the most powerful family in the town and he would have been a natural choice as the first Member returned there after Beaumaris replaced Newborough as the county town even if his father had not been sheriff at the time. Thereafter his role in the elections was limited to attending them: he is recorded as having done so at the elections to Mary’s third and fourth Parliament, when first his father-in-law and then an associate of the family were returned. His continued acceptability to his father-in-law is reflected in William Bulkeley’s appointment of him as an executor in 1575 and his copying out of the will. The last trace found of him is a letter of October 1578 from him to his nephew of Porthamel.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: P. S. Edwards

Notes

• 1. Presumed to be of age at election. Cal. Letters relating to N. Wales (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xxiii), 5-6 followed in preference to Griffith, Peds. 56, 208 on parentage.
• 2. C219/23/187; C. E. M. Evans, ‘Medieval Beaumaris and the commote of Dindaethwy’ (Univ. of Wales M.A. thesis, 1949), iii. 114; E179/219/14; CPR, 1560-3, p. 347.
• 3. C219/20/171v, 23/187, 24(ii)227; Wards 9/137, f. 169; PCC 7 Carew; Cal. Letters relating to N. Wales, 39.