page_title: Sir Edward Littleton, 1st Baronet
section_title: Background and education
hierarchical_section_title: Sir Edward Littleton, 1st Baronet / Background and education
caption_attribution_description: English: St. Michael and All Angels parish church, Penkridge, Staffordshire: Jacobean tomb of two Sir Edward Littletons, father and son. East wall of north chancel aisle. Lower stage: Sir Edward Littleton (died 1610) and his wife Margaret Devereux. Upper stage: Sir Edward (died 1629), and his wife Mary Fisher.
context_page_description: Sir Edward Littleton, 1st Baronet was a 17th-century English Baronet and politician from the extended Littleton/Lyttelton family, the first of a line of four Littleton baronets with Pillaton Hall as their seat. He initially joined the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. Having tried unsuccessfully to find a third way, he switched his support to the Royalist cause – a decision that led to his financial ruin, as large debts made it impossible to redeem his estates from sequestration after the victory of Parliament.
context_section_description: Edward Littleton was born in 1599 or 1598: he was recorded as 18 years of age when he enrolled at Oxford University in 1617. He was the son of Sir Edward Littleton of Pillaton Hall, near Penkridge, Staffordshire and Mary Fisher, daughter of Clement Fisher of Packington, Warwickshire.
  Both of Littleton's parents came from the middling landed gentry. His mother, Mary, came from the neighbouring county of Warwickshire, where the Fishers held the manor of Packington in chief and the advowson of the parish church. Clement, her father, had succeeded to his lands in 1571 and died on 23 October 1619, leaving as heir his son Sir Robert. However, his widow, also Mary, continued to occupy the manor house with her other daughter Anne Dilke. It seems that there was considerable family tension, not least because Clement's widow soon died, making at difficult for Sir Robert to get the will executed. In 1621 he accused his deceased mother and widowed sister of wasting timber on the estate and received letters of administration only in May 1623.
  There had already been a succession of four Edwards Littleton at Pillaton Hall and there were to be many more in the Shropshire branch of the family. The first baronet is easily confused with these, and also with Edward Littleton, 1st Baron Lyttelton, one of the Shropshire branch of the family, who was an older contemporary and frequently in attendance at Parliament at the same time. The Littletons of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire were all alike descendants of Thomas de Littleton, an eminent 15th century judge and jurist. The spelling of the name has now been regularised but numerous variants were current in the 16th and 17th centuries and the various branches of the family were not distinguished orthographically. The Staffordshire Littletons had often been turbulent, like their Worcestershire cousins. Edward Littleton's paternal grandfather had been a prominent supporter of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, marrying the earl's cousin, and had been arrested and temporarily disgraced as a suspected organiser of the Essex Rebellion. His father was suspected of Puritan sympathies and had supported a controversial minister at St Michael's Church in Penkridge, where the Littletons held the advowson. He too kept up the Devereux connection: Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex had a seat at nearby Chartley Castle and was a powerful ally, as well as a relative.
  The young Edward was sent off to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 28 March 1617. His county was recorded as Warwickshire, which was his mother's native place. This may reflect the family's financial plight. About three years earlier his father, a liberal and generous host, had run into financial difficulties in the wake of his term as Sheriff of the county and had moved his household to Worcester to economise. Young Edward was admitted to the Inner Temple, the Inn of Court attended by his recent ancestors, little more than a year later, on 13 June 1618. Nothing further is recorded of his legal studies, although his kinsmen the Shropshire Littletons were moving into a period of great influence at the Inner Temple. His education was probably intended simply to give him the rudiments required for the life of a member of the county landed gentry. This was in sharp contrast to the distinguished academic career of his younger brother, Walter, who had no expectation of inheriting large estates. It seems that the Littleton family returned to Pillaton soon after Edward's admission to the Inner Temple, perhaps during 1618, and their financial situation began to recover as a result of a switch to demesne farming and animal husbandry.
caption: Tomb of two Sir Edwards Littleton, father and grandfather of the first baronet, at St Michael's Church Penkridge. Lower stage: Sir Edward Littleton (d. 1610) and his wife, Margaret Devereux. Upper stage: Sir Edward (d. 1629), and his wife, Mary Fisher.
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