Family and Education

b. by 1532. educ. All Souls, Oxf., fellow 1546, supp. BCL 1549, DCL 18 July 1552; adv. Doctors’ Commons 14 Oct. 1552. unm.1

Offices Held

Lay rector, Llanrwst by 1553, Llansannan 1561-d.; cursal canon, St. Asaph 1560.2

Biography

Henry Jones was one of the Welsh cousinage of civil lawyers, his kin including his fellow-Member in 1559, William Aubrey II. His will mentions a sister who lived at Llysfaen, Caernarvonshire. Between October 1552 and June 1553 he brought a suit in Chancery for the restoration of the profits of the parsonage of Llanrwst, upon which he claimed to be dependent for his maintenance and continuance in his profession. The defendants argued, inter alia, that on Jones’s authorization they had paid their rent as subtenants to one Owen Wynn, Jones’s brother. The case was not settled immediately for in June 1555 two Welsh gentlemen were appointed to examine the defendants. Doubtless during the 1550s Jones was establishing himself as a civilian. He must have owed his return to the Parliaments of 1558 and 1559 to John White who, as bishop of Winchester, controlled the borough of Hindon. Two other civilians were returned there during Mary’s reign, Thomas Martin and Jones’s fellow-Member in 1558, John Gibbon, who was also of All Souls; the names of both Members in 1558 may have been inserted in the indenture in a different hand from that of the document. Under Elizabeth, Jones was to be retained as counsel and to be appointed a commissioner of appeal in several famous lawsuits. He died in February 1592.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: S. R. Johnson

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from education. C. Coote, Civilians, 38; G. D. Squibb, Doctors’ Commons, 151; DWB.
• 2. C1/1325/16-19; D.R. Thomas, Diocese of St. Asaph, 260, 565.
• 3. Squibb, 34, 66, 85; PCC 9 Harrington; C1/1325/16-19; 219/25/137; Wood, Fasti, ed. Bliss, 135-6.