PRICE (AP RICHARD AP DAFYDD LLOYD RHYS), John II (by 1532-84), of the Inner Temple, London and Gogerddan, nr. Aberystwyth, Card.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Oct. 1553
Apr. 1554

Family and Education

b. by 1532, 1st s. of Richard ap Rhys ap Dafydd Lloyd of Gogerddan, by Elliw, da. and coh. of William ap Jenkin ap Iorwerth. educ. I. Temple, adm. Feb. 1550. m. (1) Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Perrot of Islington, Mdx. and Haroldston, Pemb., 2s. Richard and Thomas 1da.; (2) Bridget, da. of James Price of Monaughty, Rad., 1s. suc. fa. Sept. 1553 or later.1

Offices Held

Bencher, I. Temple 1568-71.

J.p. Card. 1555, q. 1558/59-d., Merion. 1573/74-9, many Welsh and marcher counties 1579; custos rot.

Card. 1558/59-79; commr. piracy, Card. 1565, armour 1569, musters 1570, victuals 1574, tanneries, Aberystwyth 1574; sheriff, Merion. 1579-80, Card. 1580-1; member, council in the marches of Wales by 1579-81.2

Biography

When he was first elected to Parliament John Price was entered on the return under his patronymic John ap Richard ap Rhys Dafydd Lloyd, but he was usually called Price. Born into a family which claimed descent from Gwaethfoed, lord of Ceredigion, and which had been established for the last two generations at Gogerddan, Price was trained to the law. It was his consequent absence from the shire which was to be the subject of a prosecution following his first election. On 15 Nov. 1553, while Parliament was in session, the attorney-general brought an action in the Exchequer against the sheriff, Owen Gwyn, for returning Price although at the time he was not resident in the shire. It was presumably a defeated opponent who had laid the information, but who this was is unknown. Gwyn met it by declaring that Price had been born and had always lived in the shire, at his father’s house at Gogerddan, and that although on 20 July his father had sent him to London on business (circa negotia) he had returned by 6 Sept., three weeks before the election. The proceedings continued into the Easter term of 1554 and the record ends with Gwyn asking for the case to be dismissed. By then Price had been re-elected, Gwyn’s successor as sheriff, (Sir) Henry Jones I, perhaps already being Price’s brother-in-law. Presumably it was Price as knight for Cardiganshire who introduced the measure for the county court to alternate between Aberystwyth and Cardigan enacted not long after the start of the prosecution (1 Mary st.2, no.23).3

It was probably not Price, but his namesake the Member for Hereford, who on 27 Oct. 1553 was appointed with two civilians to examine the validity of a return, but as a common lawyer he could well have been entrusted in the course of the next Parliament with a bill to prohibit the use of dags, or handguns. The only other indication of his part in the proceedings of either Parliament is the absence of his name from those who in the first of them voted against the initial measures towards the restoration of Catholicism. This suggests that he did not share the Protestantism of (Sir) John Perrot, whose stepsister he married, although he was afterwards to come to terms with the Elizabethan regime, which he served in a variety of capacities.4

Price died on 15 May 1584. His descendants retained Gogerddan until the present century.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: P. S. Edwards

Notes

  • 1. Presumed to be of age at election. Dwnn, Vis. Wales, i. 44-45.
  • 2. CPR, 1560-3, p. 446; Welsh Port Bks. (Cymmrod. rec. ser. xii), 310; R. Flenley, Cal. Reg. Council, Marches of Wales, 60, 69, 109, 126, 132; P. H. Williams, Council in the Marches of Wales, 354-5.
  • 3. DWB; Cal. Wynn (of Gwydir) Pprs. 1515-1690, p. 3; E159/333, Mich. 83.
  • 4. CJ, i. 29, 35.
  • 5. C142/208/242.