GARNONS, John (b. ?1534-83 or later), of Gilgerran, Penrallt Treint and Haverfordwest, Pemb.

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. ?1534, s. of John Garnons of Garnons Herefs. m. Ellen, da. and coh. of John David of Cilgerran and Penrallt Treint, 2s. 5da.

Offices Held

Queen’s attorney, Haverfordwest 1570, bailiff 1570-1, common councilman by 1583; clerk of peace, Pemb. by July 1575.

Biography

Garnons came from a family long settled in Herefordshire but on his marriage to a Welsh heiress he settled in Pembrokeshire. His marriage was perhaps the work of his cousin and namesake whose career began as an attorney in the great sessions of Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire and who sat for Pembroke Boroughs in the Parliament of November 1554. Garnon’s return for Haverfordwest was supported by the sheriff, Edmund Harris, a follower of Sir John Perrot. Harris was later sentenced by the court of Star Chamber to imprisonment and a fine of £200 for making a false return, but in the meantime Garnons went to Westminster. His enemies next claimed that, as an excommunicate, he was ineligible to sit, and it is not known whether he did or not. The matter is briefly but inconclusively referred to in the parliamentary journals on 5 Apr. and 10 Apr. 1571.

Little is known of Garnon’s private life, apart from a liking for litigation evident from the records of Star Chamber. In 1572 Garnons declared that he had been resident in Haverfordwest ‘these four or five years’.

Aged 38 in December 1572; Haverfordwest Recs.(Univ. Wales Bd. of Celtic Studies, Hist. and Law ser. xxiv), 31; Dwnn, Vis. Wales, i. 159; M. Jones, ‘Parl. Rep. Pemb.’ (MA thesis Aberystwyth 1959); NLW, 1387, f. 52; Flenley, Cal. Reg. Council, Marches of Wales, 140; EHR, lxi. 18-27; Neale, Commons, 255-9; CJ, i. 83; D’Ewes, 156, 159; St. Ch. 5/S79/34, A6/4, A13/14, G3/33, G5/19-20, G9/6, 25, M17/35, V4/2.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes