# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lyttelton, Charles (1629-1716)

​LYTTELTON or LITTLETON, Sir CHARLES (1629–1716), governor of Jamaica, born in 1629, was a younger son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton (1596–1650) [q. v.], first baronet, of Frankley, Worcestershire. He was a subaltern in the royal forces at the defence of Colchester against the parliamentarians in June–August 1648, and after the surrender escaped to France. On 25 Oct. 1650 he was appointed cupbearer to Charles II. He returned to England about 1659, and joined prominently in the rising in Cheshire that year, under Sir George Booth [q. v.] Lyttelton was committed to the Gatehouse, Westminster, on the warrant of the Lord Protector (Richard Cromwell), but was soon set at liberty. He appears to have been employed on various secret missions between the king and his friends in England about the time of the Restoration (Carte, vol. ii.). In December 1661 he received 500l. ‘as a free gift’ (Dom. Entry Book, v. 90). In 1662 Lyttelton was knighted and went to Jamaica as lieutenant-governor with Lord Windsor, and on the return of the latter to England succeeded him as governor. He founded the first town of Port Royal, destroyed by the earthquake in 1692, and summoned the first legislative assembly, ‘fairly and indifferently drawn by the votes of all the inhabitants,’ which met at St. Jago de la Vega, now Spanish Town, 24 Jan. 1664. He left the island in May of the same year. On 5 Nov. 1664 he was appointed major, with a company, and on 18 July 1665 lieutenant-colonel in the lord admiral's regiment (ib. xx. 32–3, 79–80). This was the yellow-coated ‘maritime’ regiment, which was the precursor of the marine forces, and ranked as the 3rd foot. Twenty-three years later its place was filled by the Holland regiment or buffs. Lyttelton's company, which arrived at Portsmouth in November 1664, is described as containing ‘some very sightly men, who will do good service when used to the sea’ (State Papers, Dom. cv. 50). On 5 April 1665 a warrant from Monck, duke of Albemarle, directs the payment to Lyttelton of 218l. 5s. for 606 privates at 8d., twenty-one corporals and one drummer at 1s., and seven sergeants at 1s. 6d., lately brought from Ireland (ib. vol. cxvii.). He was governor of Harwich and Landguard Fort. Letters in 1667 speak of the extraordinarily rapid progress of the defences of Harwich, in which two companies of the regiment were employed under Lyttelton's orders (ib.) He was in residence at Harwich at the time of the great sea-fight with the Dutch off Southwold Bay in 1672, and was directed to receive the body of the Earl of Sandwich, and to take charge of the earl's George and Star (Collins, Peerage, under ‘Sandwich’). On 12 May 1685 he was returned to parliament for Bewdley, Worcestershire, for which he sat until the revolution. Chamberlayne describes him in 1687 (Angliæ Not. ed. 1687) as colonel of Prince George's, late the lord admiral's regiment. Evelyn writes in his ‘Diary’ (1850 ed., ii. 272), 24 March 1688: ‘Went with Sir Charles Lyttelton to Sheen [near Richmond], a house and estate given to him by Lord Brouncker.’ Brouncker, according to Evelyn, had bequeathed ‘all his land, house, furniture, &c., to Sir Charles, who had no manner of relation, but an ancient friendship contracted at the siege of Colchester forty years before. It is a pretty place, with fine gardens and well planted, and given to one well worthy of it, Sir Charles being an honest gentleman and a soldier.’ Lyttelton resigned all his appointments on the revolution on account of the oaths. On the death of his brother, Sir Henry, second baronet, in 1693, Lyttelton succeeded to the title and estates, and removed to Hagley, Staffordshire, where the remainder of his life was passed. He died there 2 May 1716, aged 87.
Lyttelton married, first, Katherine, daughter of Sir William Fairfax, kt., of Steton, Yorkshire. She died in Jamaica, and was buried in the church at Spanish Town with her only child, an infant son born on the voyage out. Lyttelton's second wife was Anne, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Temple of Frankton, Warwickshire. By her he had a large family. She died in 1718, and was buried by her husband in the vault at Over-Areley.
Lyttelton was succeeded by his fifth but only surviving son, Sir Thomas Lyttelton, fourth baronet, M.P. for Worcestershire, and a lord of the admiralty, in 1727. Sir Thomas was father of George, first lord Lyttelton [q. v.], Charles Lyttelton, D.C.L. [q. v.], bishop of Carlisle, and Lieutenant-general Sir Richard Lyttelton, K.B., governor of Minorca. The baronets of Frankley and Hagley must be distinguished from Sir Thomas Littleton, bart., of Stoke St. Milborough, Shropshire, M.P., and a navy commissioner under Charles II, whose son Sir Thomas Littleton, speaker of the House of Commons (1647?–1710), has been noticed separately.
H. M. C.