BIDDULPH, Michael I (1610-66), of Elmhurst, Staffs.

Biddulph was the great-grandson of a Lichfield mercer, who claimed descent from a recusant gentry family. ‘His friends were for the most part of the Puritanical party’, including his father, who was appointed to the county committee and represented the city as a recruiter until Pride’s Purge. Biddulph, a soldier, was royalist in sympathy, however, and on the point of enlisting in a Cavalier regiment in Wiltshire when he was recalled by his family. His residence at Elmhurst lay only two miles from Lichfield, for which he was returned at the general election of 1660. There was a contest for the second seat, but Biddulph was apparently unopposed. He was presumably a court supporter, but was appointed to no committees and made no recorded speeches in the Convention. He was given leave to go into the country on 16 June, and stood down in his brother’s favour at the succeeding election.3Committee at Stafford (Staffs. Rec. Soc. ser. 4) i. 350, Shaw, i. 350.

In the list of Staffordshire gentry drawn up by an old Cavalier in 1662, Biddulph, no doubt on the strength of his father’s record, was described as a Presbyterian ‘of mean ability’ with an income of £400 p.a. He was buried at Stowe on 3 Nov. 1666.4Gentry of Staffs. (Staffs. Rec. Soc. ser. 4) ii. 7; Staffs. Parl. Hist. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.) ii. 114.