Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Griffith, Maurice
GRIFFITH, GRIFFYTH, or GRIFFYN, MAURICE (d. 1558), bishop of Rochester, was born in Wales, and educated, as Wood says, in the south suburb of Oxford, among the Dominicans. He was admitted to the reading of the sentences in July 1532, and became Bachelor of Canon Law on the following 15 Feb., and afterwards took his degree of B.D. 5 July. In 1537 he succeeded Nicholas Metcalfe in the archdeaconry of Rochester, and in 1554 was made bishop of that see, to which he was consecrated with five other bishops at St. Saviour's, Southwark, 1 April (not by Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, as Wood seems to imply, but by Bonner, assisted by Tunstall of Durham and Gardiner). He was at the time of his consecration rector of St. Magnus, a piece of preferment which he held till his death, which took place on 20 Nov. 1558. Little is known of him, except that he took part during the reign of Mary in several consecrations of bishops, and notably in that of Cardinal Pole, 22 March 1556. His name does not appear in any of the state papers of the period. He signed the articles of 1536 as a member of convocation for the diocese of Rochester.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon, ed. Bliss, ii. 786; Stubbs's Registrum.]