Family and Education

b. c.1544, s. of David ap Ieuan of the Marsh, Shrewsbury. educ. L. Inn 1562, called 1570, Lent or Autumn reader 1572. m. Prudence, da. of John Martin of London, 2s. 3da.

Offices Held

Acting attorney to council in marches of Wales 1570-c.1571; of counsel to and burgess of Shrewsbury by 1573; j.p. Merion., Pemb., Rad., Carm., Card., Denb., Mont., Salop from c.1573; recorder, Ludlow 1581; escheator, Mont. 1571; steward, manor of Nethergorther, Mont. 1575-82, 1589, of Barnsley 1582-90, of Overgorther and Teirtref 1589.1

Biography

During Davies’ nine years at Lincoln’s Inn he was steward of readers’ dinners, and contributed towards the building of new chambers. He was made attorney to the council in the marches on the representation of ‘certain lords of the Privy Council’ in place of a suspected recusant. In 1576 William Gerard II recommended him as a justice of assize in Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, and Pembrokeshire. Davies, he declared, was well learned, and, although he could speak Welsh—a qualification underlined as desirable when inquiries were made—he was ‘no Welshman’. The judges, however, considered him ‘a poor man and not well learned’, and he was not appointed.2

Doubtless his position in the marches, and perhaps also his reputation as a ‘safe’ protestant, secured Davies his Cardigan seat. On 2 June 1572 he was granted leave of absence in order to attend to business in the marches. In the second session, he was named to two legal committees on 18 Feb. and 7 Mar. 1576. By 1582 Davies was a justice of the peace in Shropshire alone. He contributed £25 towards the Armada fund. At the time of his death on 27 Feb. 1590 he owned lands in London, Middlesex and Montgomeryshire as well as in Shropshire. The bequests in his will, proved 27 Mar. 1590, included £500 to his eldest son Edward. He was buried in the parish of St. Mary, Shrewsbury.3

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes

• 1. H. Owen and J. B. Blakeway, Shrewsbury, ii. 351; P. H. Williams, Council in Marches of Wales, 157, 333; Flenley, Cal. Reg. Council, Marches of Wales, 79-80; Wards 7/23/94; PCC 20 Drury; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 2), xi. 319; Egerton 2345, ff. 42r-47v; Mont. Colls. iii. 144, 150, 157, 308, 330-1.
• 2. Flenley, 79-80; Cath. Rec. Soc. xiii. 110; Exchequer, ed. E. G. Jones (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. iv), 91; Shrewsbury Burgess Roll, 74; SP12/107/13, 110/13; Mont. Colls. iii. 331.
• 3. CJ, i. 100, 106, 111; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 2), xi. 319; PCC 20 Drury; C142/228/47.