LYTTON, Rowland (c.1615-74), of Knebworth, Herts.

Rowland Lytton must have been born in late 1614 or early 1615, as he was said to have been only about six months old when his grandfather, Sir Rowland Lytton†, died on 23 June 1615.23Vis. Herts. 1572 and 1634, 115. By the late 1630s he had completed his education, travelled abroad and married for the first time. The identity of his first wife, Judith, has caused confusion. Some genealogists have claimed that she was the daughter of a London merchant, Sir Humphrey Edwards.24Le Neve, Peds. of the Knights, 82; Clutterbuck, Herts. ii. 377. But she was instead one of the two daughters of another wealthy London merchant, Thomas Edwards. The other daughter, Susanna, married Giles Strangways*.25Vis. London 1633, 1634 and 1635, 249; The Gen. n.s. xxxiv. 4-5; Dorset RO, D124, Mary Gresley to Lady Strangways, 4 Aug. 1650.

Like his father, Lytton supported Parliament during the civil war. From 1642 he was regularly included on the Hertfordshire assessment commissions.26A. and O. In August 1645 he responded as quickly as he could to a demand to supply a horse for service under Alban Coxe*.27The Impact of the First Civil War on Herts. ed. A. Thomson (Herts. Rec. Soc. xxiv), 34-5. Again like his father, he probably kept his distance from the new republic after 1649 and he was not appointed to the commission of the peace until 1656, shortly before he was elected as an MP.

Lytton was first returned to Parliament for Hertfordshire in August 1656. But along with the other four Hertfordshire county MPs, he was barred from taking his seat when Parliament assembled several weeks later.28CJ vii. 425a. He then lent his name to the printed letter of protest from the excluded Members.29To all the Worthy Gentlemen ([1656], E.889.8). It is not known whether he subsequently took his seat when this Parliament reassembled in January 1658. A year later he regained this seat when he was re-elected as one of the two Hertfordshire MPs for the 1659 Parliament. All that is known about his role in that Parliament is that on 6 April he was among the MPs appointed to the large committee to decide how they should communicate with the Other House.30CJ vii. 627a.

In 1660 Lytton became MP for Hertfordshire for a third time when he sat in the Convention. Later that year he was knighted by the new king, Charles II.31Le Neve, Peds. of the Knights, 82; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 229. He probably did not stand for re-election in 1661. His eldest son, William, ‘not so quick in his speech as others’, made an unhappy marriage with Mary Harrison, daughter of (Sir) John Harrison* of Balls Park, Hertfordshire.32Stowe 744, f. 118. Sir Rowland’s main concern seems to have been to leave his estate ‘considerable, as well as my ancestors by whose prudence [it] is come to what now it is’, and he was able to bequeath his only unmarried daughter a portion of £5,000.33Stowe 744, f. 118; PROB11/346/281.

Lytton died on 1 November 1674 and was buried in the parish church at Knebworth.34Chauncy, Herts. ii. 103; RCHME Herts. 136. In his will he directed that his wife should meet any funeral expenses over £200.35PROB11/346/281. With the death of his two sons, William and Rowland, the family became extinct in the male line. The subsequent descent of the Knebworth estates was especially convoluted. Having first passed to Sir Rowland’s grandson by his only daughter, they then passed to a relative by marriage, who took the Lytton surname. Later generations in female lines also took that name and in the nineteenth century their descendants, the Bulwer-Lyttons, became Lords Lytton and later earls of Lytton.