GRAFTON, Richard II (b.c.1563), of Cripplegate, London.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1563, yr. s. of Richard Grafton I. educ. Lyon’s Inn; M. Temple 1576, called 1581. m. da. of one Cheyney of Chesham Bois, Bucks.

Offices Held

Biography

Grafton was a London lawyer returned for Tregony, no doubt through the influence of someone who had known his father, the chronicler. At Plympton Erle the man responsible was in all probability a former associate of his father, one Anthony Marler, a London agent for the Strodes, who controlled elections there. Significantly, on 18 Feb. 1585, Grafton was named to a committee for a bill concerning the Plymouth haven, a measure in which the Strodes were interested through their ownership of part of the Plymouth foreshore. Probably Grafton had some sort of interest in Star Chamber, for in February 1585 he urged that fees should be paid to the clerks there ‘for writing as in times past’. Among his identified committees were those on libellers (19 Feb. 1585), the poor law (26 Feb.), the penal laws (8 Feb. 1589) and for repealing certain statutes (4, 13 Mar. 1589). On to Mar. 1589 he was appointed to confer with the judges over the outlawries bill. He spoke on the New Romney election return (3 Mar. 1589) and was on committees for the government of Westminster (17 Mar. 1585), the preservation of woods near Cranbrook, Kent (24 Mar.), the debts of Thomas Hanford (21 Feb. 1589), the affairs of Lady Gresham (19 Mar. 1589) and the almshouse at Lambourn, Berkshire (22 Mar. 1589).

Nothing certain has been ascertained about Grafton after the close of the 1589 Parliament. There were a number of contemporary namesakes, among them one who was given an office in Ireland in 1592, and another, recorder of Carmarthen, who had by 1595 ‘dutifully carried’ himself in the office for a long time, and who was a j.p. in Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire.

Vis. London (Harl. Soc. cix, cx); London Mar. Lic. (Harl. Soc. xxv), 115; Vis. Bucks. 1634, p. 168; Beaven, Aldermen, i. 289; Roberts thesis; D’Ewes, 343, 352, 353, 360, 368, 369, 372, 428, 430, 436, 437, 441, 442, 443, 445, 448, 449, 451; Neale, Commons, 387; PRO Lists and Indexes, xxi. 478; PRO Index 6800, f. 366; Lansd. 43, anon. jnl. f. 170; 72, f. 16; 107, f. 94; 142, f. 11; APC, xxiii. 260; xxv. 45; HMC Hatfield, xi. 93; Flenley, Cal. Reg. Council, Marches of Wales, 236; CSP Ire. 1574-85, p. 573.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: P. W. Hasler

Notes