Sir John St John, 1st Baronet (5 November 1585 – 1648) of Lydiard Tregoze in the English county of Wiltshire, was a Member of Parliament and prominent Royalist during the English Civil War. He was created a baronet on 22 May 1611. [1]
Sir John St John, 1st Baronet (5 November 1585 – 1648) of Lydiard Tregoze in the English county of Wiltshire, was a Member of Parliament and prominent Royalist during the English Civil War. He was created a baronet on 22 May 1611. [1]
St John was the second son of Sir John St John (d. 1594) of Lydiard Tregoze and his wife Lucy, the daughter of Sir Walter Hungerford. Upon his father's death in 1594, most of the family estates, in Wiltshire, went to his elder brother Walter; John received the manor of Garsington, Oxfordshire, and was promised £200 when he came of age. He was first placed in the guardianship of a distant relative, John St John, 2nd Baron St John of Bletso, but Lord St John died in 1596, and guardianship then passed to John's uncle, Sir Oliver St John. [2] Sir Oliver arranged for John's education: he matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, on 3 April 1601 and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1604. [1] Meanwhile, John's brother Walter drowned near Castle Cornet in August 1597 while staying with Sir Thomas Leighton, Governor of Guernsey. From him, John inherited Lydiard Tregoze and the rest of the family estates in Wiltshire. His mother died in 1598, leaving him her jointure estates of Purley Park, Berkshire, and Hatfield Peverel, Essex. Sir Thomas Leighton purchased his wardship in 1602, and received permission to settle various estates on his daughter Anne, who married St John on 9 July 1604 at the age of 12. The couple had nine sons, of whom only two survived him, and four daughters, three of whom survived him. Anne died in childbirth on 19 September 1628. [2]
He was knighted at Whitehall, on 2 February 1608, and was created a baronet at the first institution of that order, on 22 May 1611, being the seventeenth in precedency by creation. In the early 1630s he inherited from Lord Grandison, his uncle, his estates at Battersea and Wandsworth. [3]
St John was Member of Parliament for Wiltshire from 1624 to 1625 and High Sheriff of Wiltshire from 1632 to 1633. [1]
During the English Civil War, St John and his family supported the Royalist cause. Three of his sons were slain in the service of King Charles I: William, his second son, was killed at the taking of Cirencester, in Gloucestershire, under Prince Rupert; Edward, the third son, at the Battle of Newbury, in Berkshire; and John, the fifth son, in the north. [3]
Only two of his eight sons survived him, and it was his sixth son, Walter, who became his heir. Sir Walter went on to found the Sir Walter St John School at Battersea. [4]
St John erected a memorial in 1634 to himself and his two wives in St Mary's Church, Lydiard Tregoze. This included sculptures by Samuel Baldwin with alabaster effigies and his surviving children kneeling and those who hadn't survived recumbent below. [5] [6]
He was the third child and eldest son of Sir John St John (1560–1594) and of Lucy Hungerford (1560–1627), daughter of Sir Walter Hungerford (Knight of Farley) and a granddaughter of the attainted and executed Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury. [7]
He married twice, first to Anne Leighton (died 18 September 1628 in childbirth), [2] a daughter of Sir Thomas Leighton of Feckenham in Worcestershire, Governor of Jersey and Guernsey, and Elizabeth Knollys, and secondly Margaret Whitmore, the widow of Sir Richard Grubham. With his first wife, he had thirteen children. He was the brother-in-law of Sir Allen Apsley.[ citation needed ]
St John himself was the ancestor of the Viscounts Bolingbroke and the Viscounts St John, while his uncle, Oliver St John, was created the first Viscount Grandison in 1620.[ citation needed ]
His children were:[ citation needed ]
Viscount Bolingbroke is a current title in the Peerage of Great Britain created in 1712 for Henry St John. He was simultaneously made Baron St John, of Lydiard Tregoze in the County of Wilts. Since 1751, the titles are merged with the titles of Viscount St John and Baron St John in the same peerage.
Sir Oliver St John was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640-53. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War.
Sir Walter St John, 3rd Baronet, of Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire, and of Battersea, was an English Member of Parliament.
Sir Walter St John's was founded in 1700 for twenty boys of the village of Battersea. As the population and the English educational system changed, so did the school. The school was colloquially known as "Sinjuns" and was finally closed in 1986-7.
Margaret Beauchamp was the oldest daughter of Sir John Beauchamp of Bletsoe, and his second wife, Edith Stourton. She was the maternal grandmother of Henry VII.
The Rt Hon. Edward Conway, 2nd Viscount Conway, PC, was an English politician, military commander, bibliophile and peer.
Sir Edward Villiers was an English nobleman from Leicestershire and member of the Villiers family, whose younger half-brother George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, was a favourite of both James VI and I and his son Charles. Through his influence, Sir Edward gained various positions, including Master of the Mint, Member of Parliament for Westminster and Lord President of Munster. He died in Ireland in September 1626.
There have been four baronetcies created for persons with the surname St John, two in the Baronetage of England and two in the Baronetage of Great Britain. Three of the creations are extant as of 2008.
Lydiard Tregoze is a small village and civil parish on the western edge of Swindon in the county of Wiltshire, in the south-west of England. Its name has in the past been spelt as Liddiard Tregooze.
Sir Walter Hungerford, Knight of Farley was an English landowner. In his lifetime he was popularly referred to as the "Knight of Farley" for his renowned sporting abilities. In his youth he recovered the lands forfeited by his father's attainder, and was favoured by Queen Mary, whose Maid of Honour, Anne Basset, was his first wife. In 1568, he sued his second wife, Anne, for divorce. He failed to prove the scandalous grounds he alleged against her, but chose to be imprisoned in the Fleet rather than support his wife or pay the costs awarded against him by the court.
Sir Anthony Hungerford (1567–1627) of Black Bourton in Oxfordshire, Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire until 1624, was a member of parliament and a religious controversialist.
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Sir Richard Grobham Howe, 2nd Baronet, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1656 and 1695.
Nicholas St. John was an English politician.
Henry St John, 1st Viscount St John, of Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire; Battersea, Surrey; and Berkeley Street, Westminster, Middlesex, was an English politician. In 1685 he was pardoned for a murder.
Villiers is an aristocratic family in the United Kingdom. Over time, various members of the Villiers family were made knights, baronets, and peers. Peerages held by the Villiers family include the dukedoms of Buckingham (1623–1687) and Cleveland (1670–1709), as well as the earldoms of Anglesey (1623–1661), Jersey, and Clarendon. Perhaps the most prominent members of the family were those who received the two dukedoms: George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592–1628) rose to fame and influence as favourite of King James I of England, while Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland (1640–1709) became a mistress of King Charles II of England, by whom she had five children.
Edmund Pleydell, of Midgehall, Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire and Milborne St. Andrew, Dorset, was an English politician.
Benjamin Culme (1581-1657), Doctor of Divinity, was an English Anglican clergyman who served as Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, from 1625 until 1649.
Charles Cholmondeley of Vale Royal, Cheshire, was a British landowner and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1710 and 1756.
John St John of Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1727 to 1734.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain :Collins, Arthur; Brydges, Sir Egerton (1812). Peerage of England: genealogical, biographical, and historical. Greatly augmented and continued to the present time. Vol. 6. F. C. and J. Rivington [and others]. p. 53.