Family and Education

s. of Robert Salusbury of Denbigh, Denb. by Ellen. m. Gwen, da. of Eden Lloyd.1

Offices Held

Biography

The description of George Salusbury, on the indenture recording his election, as son and heir of Robert Salusbury of Denbigh does little towards locating him in the luxuriant tree of the Salusbury family; it also hints at the existence of at least one namesake from whom he needed to be distinguished. It may have been either he or this namesake who, having been deputed by Robert Heneage to survey and sell royal timber in Denbighshire, in 1542 brought a suit in the augmentations against Roger and Henry Salusbury of Denbigh for abuses in the local forests, and another against Henry Salusbury, who alleged in reply that the plaintiff was animated by spite against him for having deserted his wife, who was the plaintiff’s cousin. Since the two defendants in this case were sons of John Salusbury I, the dominant figure in the shire, it may be thought unlikely that their adversary should have been elected so soon afterwards for a constituency where their father wielded such influence. There is more to be said for identifying the Member with the George Salusbury of Erbistock, lying on the border of Denbigh and the detached part of Flintshire, who was described in a chancery case of 1545 as being 32 years of age and a servant of Sir Anthony Wingfield. Although Wingfield was not to succeed John Salusbury I as chancellor and chamberlain of Denbighshire until 1549, both were courtiers of long standing, and Salusbury’s nephew John Salusbury II had served with Wingfield in the campaign of 1544; a servant of Wingfield’s would thus have been a likely recruit to a Parliament in which Wingfield himself sat for Horsham and the younger John Salusbury for Denbighshire.2

The further career of George Salusbury is correspondingly difficult to trace. If he was the resident at Erbistock he survived until at least 1587/88 when he litigated against the widow of Richard Myddelton, who had sat for Denbigh Boroughs in 1542. He had probably been one of those who elected John Salusbury II for the shire to the first Marian Parliament, but it is not clear whether he was the inhabitant of Ruthin assessed at £10 in goods in 1552, the man of Llandyrnog (near Denbigh) pardoned with more than 40 others, among them Simon Thelwall, for a double murder in 1555, or the suitor at the manorial courts of Ruthin and Dyffryn Clwyd between 1547 and 1582.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: P. S. Edwards

Notes

• 1. SC2/225/3, m. 2; C1/894/45; NLW ms Wales 21/20, m. 17.
• 2. Augmentations (Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xiii), 73; E321/33/70; C1/894/6, 45; 24/11.
• 3. St.Ch.3/6/64; 5/M19/3; Augmentations, 100; C2/Eliz.M5/58; CPR, 1547-8, p. 93; 1555-7, p. 42; C219/21/29; E179/220/173; SC2/225/3, 10, 20, 26.