[71]
He was Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1323.[1] He died in 1337,[2] and was succeeded by his brother Sir Philip de Somerville, who died in 1355,[3] leaving two daughters. By the marriage of the elder daughter Joan de Somerville with Rees ap Griffith, both Wichnor and Burton Agnes passed to the Griffith family. Originally of Welsh extraction, they claimed descent from the princes of North and South Wales of the 10th century.[4] They appear to have been settled in Staffordshire as early as the commencement of the 13th century, where they gave their name to the village of Clayton Griffith, near Newcastle-under-Lyne. Sir Rees ap Grifftth was succeeded by a second Sir Rees, Thomas and John, none of whom appear in Yorkshire history, and as they were buried at Polesworth, in Warwickshire, Alrewas and Tatenhill in Staffordshire, we may conclude that they lived principally at Wichnor.[5] Both Thomas and his son, Sir John, were High Sheriffs of Staffordshire in the reign of Henry VI, though Sir John scarcely seems to have been distinguished as a law abiding subject if we are to believe the complaint the King's forester of Alrewas made to the Chancellor of England—"how that Sir John Griffith, which is a common hunter and destroyer of the King's game, in despite, shame and reprofe of the said suppliant, brake the Kynge's parke of Barton, and there slewe and carried away by nyghtes tyme two grete buckes and the hedis of them set at Kjmges Bromley, oon upon the yate of the said forst', and another upon the butte in myddes of the town, with a scomeful scripture of ryme wrytten in Inglissh sowed in the mouthes of the buckes hedis," and how, when the unfortunate forester disapproved of these doings, Sir John "sent his servants with evil intent to have slayne the said suppliant, who prays for suerte of the pees in savation of his lyfe."
