JONES, EDWARD (died 1586), conspirator

was the eldest son of Edward Jones of Plas Cadwgan, Denbighshire, and of Cornhill, London - tailor to Mary Tudor and master of the wardrobe to Elizabeth I - who was the son of John ap David ap Robert, a descendant of Cynwrig ap Rhiwallon. Edward Jones the elder (sheriff of his county in 1576), died at Cadwgan in 1581, leaving substantial legacies to North Wales relations and money for founding a grammar school at Wrexham - subject to conditions, however, which remained unfulfilled. He recommended his son and namesake to his patron, the earl of Leicester. In London the younger Edward Jones became the friend and admirer of Thomas Salusbury of Lleweni, Leicester's ward, under whose influence he abjured Protestantism, turned with his friend against Leicester as Protestant champion and 'oppressor' of North Wales, and was initiated by Salusbury into Babington's plot on behalf of Mary, queen of Scots. The two friends were denounced as having discussed, on 13 June 1586, plans for a rising on her behalf in Denbighshire, and after Babington's arrest on 14 August they fled to Cheshire, where they were arrested and carried to London for trial (or Salusbury escaped alone and Jones was arrested in London). Jones made avowal of his faith, and admitted having concealed his friend's treason and helped him to escape, but declared that he had tried to dissuade him from the plot and affirmed his complete loyalty to the queen. He was, nevertheless executed for treason on Tower Hill on 21 September 1586, and his estate (including Plas Cadwgan) was forfeit.

Author

• Emeritus Professor Arthur Herbert Dodd, (1891 - 1975)

Sources

• A. N. Palmer, History of the thirteen country townships of the old parish of Wrexham, and of the townships of Burras Riffri, Erlas, & Erddig Being the fifth and last part of "A history of the town and parish of Wrexham" (1903), 8-12 (correcting J. Y. W. Lloyd, History of the Princes, the Lords Marcher, and the Ancient Nobility of Powys Fadog, iii, 40), and History of the town of Wrexham its houses, streets, fields, and old families. being the fourth part of "A history of the town and parish of Wrexham" (Wrexham 1893), 105 (corrected in Denbighshire Historical Society Transactions, ii, 1953, 45-6)
• J. H. Pollen (ed.), Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Babington Plot (Edinburgh 1922) (Scot. Hist. Soc., third series, iii, 1922), cxx-cxxi, clxxii-clxxiii, 87
• Catholic Record Society, iii, 1906, 25
• D. Mathew, The Celtic Peoples and Renaissance Europe. A study of the Celtic and Spanish influences on Elizabethan history (1933), 65-7
• E. G. Jones, Cymru a'r Hen Ffydd, 24
• E. G. Jones, Denbighshire Historical Society Transactions, vi, 1957, 11-15

Additional Links

• VIAF: 29107866
• Wikidata: Q20732949

Published date: 1959

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