GRIFFIN, Edward (c. 1640-1710)

GRIFFIN, Edward (c. 1640–1710)

cr. 3 Dec. 1688 Bar. GRIFFIN

First sat 22 Jan. 1689; last sat 19 Oct. 1689

b. c.1640, s. of Sir Edward Griffin and Frances, da. of Sir William Uvedale. educ. privately; Peterhouse, Cambs. 1656. m. 4 Mar. 1667 (with ?£6,000),1 Essex (d. aft. 1705), da. of James Howard, 3rd earl of Suffolk, 1s. d. 10 Nov. 1710.

Treas. of the chamber 1679–88; groom of the bedchamber to James, duke of York, 1672.2

Dep. lt. Northants. 1687.3

Lt. col. Coldstream Gds.4

Associated with: Dingley, Northants.; Braybrooke, Northants.; Pall Mall, Westminster.5

Likeness: oil on canvas by Enoch Seeman (the younger), English Heritage Collection, Audley End House.

Griffin was the last of James II’s creations to be accepted by the House following the 1688 revolution. His family was said to be of Welsh descent, though by the seventeenth century they had settled in Northamptonshire at Dingley. According to some sources he was related to both William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon† (Viscount St Albans).6 If this was so, neither of his forebears’ wisdom seems to have rubbed off and Griffin was dismissed by a number of commentators as little more than a barely literate blockhead. An inveterate and incompetent plotter on behalf of his royal master, he was eventually to achieve the dubious distinction of being committed to the Tower on more occasions than anyone other peer during this period and also to have amassed the greatest number of stays of execution.

Griffin’s father, Sir Edward, achieved some distinction at court, being appointed treasurer of the chamber to Charles I and, after the Restoration, to Charles II. Griffin succeeded his father in this post and as such served both Charles II and James II. A close companion of James when duke of York, he was with the duke aboard the Gloucester and was fortunate to survive the wreck.7 If York enjoyed Griffin’s companionship, Charles II thought otherwise. He found Griffin’s officiousness irritating. In 1679 when the king was secretly reconciled to his son James Scott, duke of Monmouth, Griffin, spying Monmouth’s departure from court, rushed to tell the king so that he could be arrested. Charles was said to have called Griffin a ‘fool’ and could not thereafter ‘bear the sight of him’.8

Griffin’s fortunes improved in the new reign. James II stood godfather to his son James Griffin, who, in theory at least, can be regarded as his successor in the barony. Griffin was appointed to local office in his native Northamptonshire in December 1687 and he was one of those who provided a deposition testifying the prince of Wales’s legitimacy in October 1688.9 He remained loyal to James in the face of the Williamite invasion and it was presumably in acknowledgment of such steadfastness that in December 1688 James raised him to the peerage as Baron Griffin of Braybrooke. His wife was allowed to retain the precedence of the daughter of an earl.10 The newly ennobled Griffin and his son James were among those who accompanied James II to the Channel coast and were deputed to communicate the news of his flight to William of Orange.11

Griffin’s elevation was not automatically accepted. When he attempted to take his seat at the opening of the Convention, objections to his presence in the chamber were raised almost at once. Henry Booth, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), was reported to have been ‘most violent in opposing Lord Griffin being admitted’, but eventually John Lovelace, 3rd Baron Lovelace (who had also initially been hostile to Griffin), surprised the House by moving for his admission. Lovelace’s motivation appears to have been a desire to prevent Whig peers such as George Carteret, Baron Carteret, from being barred as well.12 Lovelace and Delamer therefore stood as Griffin’s rather unlikely supporters at his formal introduction. During his brief career in the House, Griffin was named to three committees. He voted in favour of establishing a regency and opposed the Commons’ resolution that James had ‘abdicated’. After William and Mary were offered the crown, he was one of eight temporal peers to refuse to take the oaths. He then seceded from the House.

In April, Griffin was, unsurprisingly, removed from his place of treasurer of the chamber.13 Released from his responsibilities in the household, he threw himself into vigorous plotting on behalf of the exiled king. He was mentioned as being present, along with Renny Grahme, brother of Richard Grahme‡, Viscount Preston [S], at Sir Peter Maxwell’s in Scotland later that year, possibly indicating his involvement in fomenting rebellion in the north.14 Lady Griffin was also a committed intriguer, though her attempted conspiracies were said to be ‘so mysterious that none but her correspondents could know what to make of them’.15 In April 1689, following the interception of letters from St. Germain addressed to Griffin and other well-known Jacobite activists, orders were despatched for his arrest.16 On 27 May a messenger was sent to summon Griffin to the House and the following day an order was passed to attach him. A series of conflicting rumours of his movements ensued. He was rumoured to have slipped across the sea to Ireland at some point that month and in June he was one of those said to have been arrested. After debates in the House in July, a proclamation was issued demanding that Griffin present himself before the House. In a letter to Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, he protested at this treatment, insisting that he had been absent while engaged with his own legitimate business. He claimed that he had requested Nottingham to make his excuses to the House and complained that he ‘never thought it a crime for any one to look after his own affairs’.17 Griffin importuned Charles Talbot, 12th earl (later duke) of Shrewsbury, for his assistance saying that ‘I cannot learn that any other of the peers have been so proceeded with, though several of them have taken leave as well as I, to employ themselves upon their private occasions.’ Although Shrewsbury appears to have been irritated by Griffin’s approach, he seems to have secured Griffin an audience with the king and in September it was reported that Griffin had kissed the king’s hand.18 The same month he submitted his response to a demand for a self-assessment insisting that he had ‘no personal estate at all’.19

The opening of the second session of the Convention offered Griffin a final opportunity to submit to the new regime. On 19 Oct. 1689 Nottingham informed the House that Griffin had surrendered himself to him and was now waiting in the lobby. The information elicited some debate as to how Griffin might appear. Some objected that he was unable to stand in his place but that it was also inappropriate for him to appear at the bar as he was as yet not charged with anything. As a compromise, he was summoned to the Speaker’s chair. Asked if he would take the oaths, Griffin claimed to have come unprepared to do so and asked for time to make up his mind. He quit the chamber to commune with his thoughts.20

Griffin’s apparent willingness to consider co-operating with the new regime proved to be a mask and he was soon involved in further plotting. Later that month his wife was arrested following the uncovering of an incompetent effort to convey messages to St. Germain secreted in the false bottoms of pewter tankards (the so-called pewter pot plot). Griffin and his son were also ordered to be arrested. Among the papers discovered was a draft warrant for Griffin to be advanced to an earldom, complete with a request that the date of the award should be backdated to before James’s abdication.21 Having evaded pursuit for some days, Griffin was finally apprehended. His excuse that the plot had been of his wife’s contrivance did little to help and he found himself once again lodged in the Tower.22

For all the farcical elements that surrounded this latest conspiracy, dismissed by Charles Hatton as ‘much more ridiculous than Mrs Cellier’s meal tub’, the plot did hint at a more serious, broader conspiracy against the fledgling regime of William and Mary. Griffin had been able to find out secret details about orders relating to the navy, which seemed to suggest that he had access to high-level information. It was also put about that he had ‘impeached at least 20 persons of note’. The House ordered him to be brought before them once more on 12 November. Again, Lovelace demonstrated himself to be an unlikely friend: he assured the House that ‘Lord Griffin would take the oaths, and offered to stand bail’.23 Griffin was brought to the bar of the House to answer for his behaviour, where he encountered another unlikely champion in the form of Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, who argued that as Algernon Sydney‡ had recently been absolved of his crimes as he had been condemned only on the basis of writings, the same should apply to Griffin. Following ‘several warm debates’, the House agreed but ordered Griffin to provide £10,000 as a recognizance, with Maurice Berkeley, Viscount Fitzhardinge [I], and Sir Justinian Isham‡ providing sureties of £5,000 each.24

Griffin did not remain at large for long. In July of the following year he was again imprisoned in the Tower following further Jacobite intriguing.25 His brief incarceration prompted the under-sheriff for Northamptonshire to enquire whether he should seize Griffin’s property, having received an order requiring Griffin to account for more than £100,000 due to the exchequer.26

By the late summer of 1690 Griffin had been released once more and in September he was free to set up his horses for the races at Newmarket.27 He remained committed to the cause of the exiled court, though, and in May 1692 he was one of several perennial plotters ordered to be taken up again. On this occasion he seems to have evaded arrest.28 When the English Jacobites found themselves at loggerheads with the exiled James II’s secretary of state, John Drummond, earl of Melfort [S], in 1694, Griffin was sent to St. Germain to inform the former king that the Tories would not do business with his minister. A warrant was issued to have him arrested in Kent, but he managed to slip away unmolested.29 It is not clear whether Griffin returned to England after his 1694 visit but it is certain that by the early months of 1696 he was in permanent residence at the Jacobite court, where he was notable as one of the few Protestant courtiers of the exiled king. He was later one of the witnesses to James II’s will.30 Essex, Lady Griffin remained in England, where she enjoyed the unlikely patronage of Sarah, countess (later duchess) of Marlborough.31 Lady Griffin suffered from an illness that resulted in her losing her sight and towards the end of William III’s reign she petitioned to be allowed to join her husband in France.32 Her requests were refused. In 1695 Griffin was at last indicted for high treason at the Old Bailey. The following year he was outlawed for non-appearance and thereby stripped of his peerage.33

During Griffin’s absence many of his estates at Dingley and Braybrooke in Northamptonshire were confiscated, though his son, James, continued to exercise some influence in the area.34 At the time of the Commonwealth Griffin’s father, Sir Edward, had claimed that, of his gross income of £1,200 a year, he received only £564, though the committee for compounding clearly did not believe him and assessed his gross income at nearer £1,750 a year.35 By the time of his exile, Griffin was in possession of lands in Northamptonshire totalling over 1,000 acres. These afforded him an income of over £900, though he also claimed that his estates were ‘embroiled’ and he has been described as one of the more impecunious of the Jacobite plotters.36 His exile undoubtedly compounded the problem and James Griffin was forced to introduce a bill in Parliament enabling him to make leases of part of the manor of Dingley to pay off his creditors.37

Griffin finally attempted to stage his return to England by becoming involved in the abortive 1708 Jacobite invasion. Along with the sons of Charles Middleton‡, 2nd earl of Middleton [S], he was aboard the Salisbury, the only ship in the French fleet to fall into English hands.38 Griffin was captured and once more imprisoned in the Tower. Unlike the other prisoners, he was denied a trial. The solicitor general explained to Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, that, Griffin having been outlawed in the previous reign, there was ‘nothing farther to be done with him’. All that remained was for the court to ask, ‘what he has to say why execution should not be awarded against him and if he has nothing material to insist upon, as we believe he has not, to award execution’.39

Griffin was brought before queen’s bench. Referred to as ‘the late lord Griffin’, his argument that he was unaware of his outlawry was rejected by the court and he was refused permission to stand trial on the basis of an error in the original declaration.40 Griffin claimed that he had never been a party to any counsels against his country and that he had gone to live in France because his estate was ‘encumbered’.41 His arguments were dismissed and he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. In deference to the fact that he had once been a peer, the queen shortly after commuted the sentence to simple beheading.42

The night before the execution was due to take place, the Privy Council narrowly voted in favour of a stay of execution for a fortnight.43 This was later further extended until the summer. Griffin’s reprieve surprised many, one commenting that ‘he being a man so obnoxious, none of the prisoners can suffer if he comes off’.44 Thomas Tenison, archbishop of Canterbury, was said to have retorted, ‘Heyday! Fine work! that neither the Lord Griffin nor the old Lord Middleton’s sons should be hanged. At this rate we shall have none hanged.’45 Griffin was not released, however, and the government treated his claims that he could not furnish them with any information concerning the Jacobites with considerable suspicion. He persisted in petitioning the queen to release him on bail, pleading ill health and advanced age, but his pleas were ignored. A series of orders for his execution were made over the next few months but always suspended at the last moment. Griffin was ultimately able to deny the executioner his fee, dying in the Tower of natural causes in November 1710 aged about 70.46

Griffin’s son was permitted to retain most of the family estates, and during the ministry of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, it was rumoured that James Griffin might be restored to the peerage. In the event it was not until 1727 that George I overturned Griffin’s outlawry, accepting that an error had been made in the way that it had been declared.47 John Macky wrote of Griffin that ‘He was always a great sportsman, and brave.’48 Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, was less flattering. He concluded that Griffin had been ‘a person little esteemed’; he conceded only that he had been ‘a great hunter’ and ‘understood dogs and horses, that was all’.49

R.D.E.E.

  • 1 Add. 36136, ff. 186–201; Verney ms mic. M636/21, M. Elmes to Sir R. Verney, 21 Mar. 1667.
  • 2 CUL, Add. 7091, p. 138.
  • 3 CSP Dom. 1687–9, p. 116.
  • 4 Isham Diary, 122n.
  • 5 Royal Stuart Papers, xxxvi. 10.
  • 6 Northants. RO, YZ 9425.
  • 7 Ailesbury Mems. 67.
  • 8 Ibid. 82.
  • 9 CSP Dom. 1687–9, pp. 116, 327.
  • 10 Ibid. p. 359.
  • 11 Royal Stuart Papers, xxxvi. 5.
  • 12 Clarendon Corresp. ii. 253.
  • 13 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, v. 93.
  • 14 HMC Buccleuch, ii. 163; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 509.
  • 15 HMC Buccleuch, ii. 164.
  • 16 CSP Dom. 1689–90, p. 71.
  • 17 HMC Finch, ii. 241.
  • 18 CSP Dom. 1689–90, pp. 243, 250; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 582.
  • 19 Chatsworth, Halifax collection, B46.
  • 20 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, v. 197.
  • 21 HMC Downshire, i. 319; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 595; Hatton Corresp. ii. 139–40; Add. 5830, f. 82.
  • 22 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, v. 238.
  • 23 Hatton Corresp. ii. 142–3.
  • 24 Timberland, i. 393; Isham Diary, 123; Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 615.
  • 25 Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 72.
  • 26 Northants. N. & Q. i. 48.
  • 27 Morrice, Ent’ring Bk, v. 493, 529.
  • 28 Luttrell, Brief Relation, ii. 441, 448.
  • 29 The Stuart Court in Exile and the Jacobites, ed. E. Cruickshanks and E. Corp, 57; CSP Dom. 1694–5, p. 106.
  • 30 HMC Stuart, ii. 516–18.
  • 31 Add. 61474, f. 32.
  • 32 Add. 21137, f. 3.
  • 33 Add. 36126, f. 149.
  • 34 Add 29568, ff. 114–15.
  • 35 M.F. Keeler, The Long Parliament 1640–1, pp. 196–7.
  • 36 TNA, SC 12/32/35; Stuart Court in Exile, 57.
  • 37 HMC Lords, n.s. vi. 238–9.
  • 38 HMC Lords, n.s. viii. 43.
  • 39 Add. 61607, f. 216.
  • 40 Northants. N. & Q. i. 48; Add. 61607, f. 227; HMC Lords, n.s. viii. 73.
  • 41 Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 303–4; AECP Angl. 173, ff. 104–6, cited in Ideology and Conspiracy, ed. E. Cruickshanks, 124.
  • 42 Add. 61607, f. 233; HMC Lords, n.s. viii. 72.
  • 43 HMC Lords, n.s. viii. xii.
  • 44 HMC Downshire, i. 859.
  • 45 Royal Stuart Papers, xxxvi. 16.
  • 46 Add 61618, ff. 32–33, 42; TNA, KB 33/16/2; Hearne, Remains, i. 209.
  • 47 Add 36126, f. 149.
  • 48 Macky Mems. 106.
  • 49 Ailesbury Mems. 605–6.