Early life
He was a younger son of Sir Thomas Smyth, 1st Baronet, of Hill Hall, Essex, and Joan Altham, a daughter of Sir Edward Altham of Mark Hall, Essex, and Joan ( née Leventhorpe) Altham. [2] After his mother's death in 1658, his father married the former Hon. Beatrice Annesley, the daughter of Francis Annesley, 1st Viscount Valentia and Dorothea Philipps (a daughter of Sir John Philipps, 1st Baronet of Picton Castle), widow of both James Zouche and Sir John Lloyd, 1st Baronet. [3]
Among his siblings were Sir Edward Smyth, 2nd Baronet and James Smith (who married Elizabeth Parkhurst, daughter of Sir Robert Parkhurst). [4] Smyth's maternal grandparents were the former Bridget Fleetwood (daughter of Thomas Fleetwood, Master of the Mint) and Col. Sir William Smith, the nephew, and eventual heir, of Sir Thomas Smith, the Secretary of State during the reigns of King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth I, three-time Ambassador to France and Chancellor of the Order of the Garter. [5] [4]
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Sir James Altham, of Oxhey, Hertfordshire, was an English judge, briefly a member of the Parliament of England, and a Baron of the Exchequer. A friend of Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon, Altham opposed Edward Coke but advanced the laws of equity behind the fastness of the Exchequer courts, so long considered almost inferior. Through advanced Jacobean royalism he helped to prosecute the King's enemies and centralise royal power of taxation. With Sir Edward Bromley, he presided at the Lancashire witch trials in 1612.
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Sir Thomas Smyth, 1st Baronet was an English landowner who served as Sheriff of Essex.
Sir Edward Smyth, 2nd Baronet was an English landowner who served as Sheriff of Essex.
Sir William Smyth, 6th Baronet was an English landowner and clergyman.
