SUTTON, Edward (1567-1643)

Originally from Sutton on Trent, Nottinghamshire, the Sutton family acquired substantial estates on the Worcestershire-Staffordshire border by the mid fourteenth century, including the manor of Dudley. In 1342 John de Sutton de Dudley was summoned to a council of peers, though this was insufficient to elevate him formally to baronial status. That distinction was achieved instead by his descendant John Sutton^†, sometime lord lieutenant of Ireland, who was created Lord Dudley in 1440. His great-grandson, John Sutton^†, 3rd Lord Dudley, ‘a weak man of understanding’, wasted his estate, and even sold Dudley Castle to his cousin, John Dudley^†, later duke of Northumberland. However, following the latter’s attainder, the 4th Lord Dudley (Edward Sutton^†) was restored to the bulk of his ancestral lands by Mary I.15 Grazebrook, 47, 49, 53-4, 65-6, 94-5, 104-5.

The 4th Lord’s heir, Edward Sutton, the subject of this biography, was born at Dudley, and first entered Parliament in 1584, representing Staffordshire in the Commons. He succeeded his father two years later while still a minor, inheriting an indebted estate comprising a dozen manors in Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Warwickshire. Having married prior to his father’s death, he avoided the perils of royal wardship, but was soon obliged to sell property to raise cash.16 Ibid. 106, 111; HP Commons 1558-1603, i. 238; L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 542; C142/234/74. During the 1590s, the Privy Council intervened several times over Dudley’s failure to settle his debts. The baron’s long-running feud with a Staffordshire neighbour, Gilbert Lyttelton^‡, also displeased the government.17 APC, 1589-90, pp. 426-7; 1590-1, p. 88; 1591-2, pp. 446-7; 1592, p. 251; 1595-6, p. 398. Moreover, although his wife, Theodosia Harington, bore him five children, Dudley’s marriage broke down, the baron ‘betaking himself wholly to a concubine, on whom he begot divers children, and so far wasted his estate, in support of her and them, that he left not much of that fair inheritance which descended to him’. With his mistress Elizabeth Tomlinson, reputedly ‘a base collier’s daughter’, installed at Dudley Castle, Theodosia was left to fend for herself in London, and in 1597 Dudley was briefly imprisoned in the Fleet for ignoring the Council’s instructions to pay her adequate maintenance. Given these circumstances, it is unsurprising that he was appointed to few local commissions by Elizabeth I, though he attended Parliament quite regularly from 1593.18 Dugdale, iii. 217; Grazebrook, 112; APC, 1597, pp. 274, 319, 326-7.

If Dudley nursed any hopes of a fresh start following the accession of James I in 1603, they were soon dashed. In July that year, he was accused of complicity in the Main Plot, apparently without justification, which led to his temporary disgrace.19 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 21. His financial troubles continued, and in early 1604 he borrowed £1,500 on the London markets.20 LC4/28/17, 22, 79. By then Dudley was once again attending the House of Lords. Although present for almost three-quarters of the first Jacobean session, with few absences until the closing weeks, he attracted only seven nominations. Appointed on 21 May to confer with the Commons about wardship, he was also named that same day to attend the king when the Lords delivered their recommendations on the rival claims to the Abergavenny barony. Of his five bill committee appointments, two concerned legislation to enforce the recusancy laws.21 LJ, ii. 303a-b, 314a, 324b. On 22 June, a day when the House was not sitting, he attended Star Chamber to support a distant kinsman, Sir Robert Dudley, who was being prosecuted for claiming to be the legitimate son of Robert Dudley^†, earl of Leicester.22 Les Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata ed. W.P. Baildon, 170.

Dudley’s attendance of the 1605-6 parliamentary session was more patchy. Present in the Lords on 5 Nov. 1605, he continued to sit regularly when the House resumed business in the following January. However, from mid February his absences became more frequent, and on 7 Apr. he was granted leave to return home on some private business, awarding his proxy to the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley). Dudley missed the next six weeks, and although he attended fairly assiduously following his return, he was absent for just over half the session23 LJ, ii. 355b, 409a. He was appointed to four bill committees, whose subject matter included the confirmation of letters patents, and rents paid by weavers at Worcester.24 Ibid. 392a, 393b.

For reasons which remain unexplained, Dudley attended only nine sittings during the long 1606-7 session of Parliament. Having turned up just three times prior to Christmas, he absented himself entirely from 5 Mar. 1607, once again presenting his proxy to Ellesmere. His solitary nomination was to the committee for the bill settling the estate of his kinsman, the late Ferdinando Stanley^†, 5th earl of Derby.25 Ibid. 449b, 480a.

In November 1608 Dudley obtained permission to travel abroad for three years. It was perhaps at this juncture that he recruited two French glassmakers, Abraham Liscourt and Paul Tissac, who began production at one of his Staffordshire properties in 1609. Dudley, who owned several coal mines, was evidently keen to maximise their potential, and his glassworks were among the earliest in England to be fuelled by coal rather than wood.26 SO3/4, unfol. (3 Nov. 1608); Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 39; W.H.B. Court, Rise of the Midland Industries, 1600-1838 (1953 edn.), 151.

Dudley missed just over half of the first parliamentary session of 1610, mainly through poor attendance in the opening and closing weeks. In between times he was a fairly regular presence in the Lords, attracting ten nominations, all but one of them to legislative committees. Named to scrutinize bills about the estates of his kinsman William Stanley^*, 6th earl of Derby, and Edward Neville^*, 8th (or 1st) Lord Abergavenny, he was also appointed to consider two measures relating to the management of debts. On 23 July he was selected to confer with the Commons on the proposed exclusion of the corrupt magistrate Sir Stephen Proctor from the general pardon.27 LJ, ii. 595b, 601a-b, 605a, 623b. Dudley acted as a supporter when Thomas Clinton^*, 11th Lord Clinton (later 3rd earl of Lincoln) was introduced to the Lords on 2 June. That same day his own son Ferdinando was made a knight of the Bath, in anticipation of Prince Henry’s creation as prince of Wales on 4 June, a ceremony which Dudley also witnessed. On 7 June Dudley took the oath of allegiance, in conformity with a demand now laid upon all peers in Parliament.28 Ibid. 606a, 608b; Procs. 1610, i. 95; Shaw, Knights of Eng. i. 158; Rymer, vii. pt. 2, p. 169.

When Parliament resumed in the autumn of 1610, Dudley attended only five sittings, missing the opening month entirely. So far as is known, he contributed nothing to the business of the House. He evidently remained in London during the winter, since he turned up on 9 Feb. 1611 for the formal dissolution of the Parliament, despite not being instructed to do so.29 LJ, ii. 684a.

Even if Dudley himself was not much in evidence at court, his children were now starting to make their mark on society. In July 1610 Ferdinando had married Honora Seymour, a granddaughter of Edward Seymour^*, 1st earl of Hertford, a match which brought with it a dowry of £3,000 or £5,000.30 Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, iii. 194; HMC Bath, v. 283. More significantly, Dudley’s daughter Anne was by now a favoured lady-in-waiting to Princess Elizabeth, thanks to the influence of her uncle, John Harington^*, 1st Lord Harington, the princess’ governor. Indeed, when Elizabeth left England after her marriage to the Elector Palatine in 1613, Anne accompanied her to Heidelberg. It was probably no coincidence that it was at around this time that Dudley himself began to secure more local government appointments, albeit mostly minor ones.31 Corresp. of Eliz. Stuart, Queen of Bohemia ed. N. Akkerman, i. 152; CP, xi. 523; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 403; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 167; SP81/12, f. 139.

Dudley failed to attend the 1614 Parliament. He reportedly intended to appoint a proxy, but failed to do so before the session’s abrupt dissolution.32 HMC Hastings, iv. 285. In his absence, the Commons launched an inquiry into Sir Edward Zouche’s 1611 patent for making glass using coal. A report on 4 May concluded that this monopoly was void, since Dudley had begun using the same method two years earlier.33 CD 1621, vii. 632; S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. 1603-42, iv. 9-10.

In 1615 Anne Dudley married one of the Elector Palatine’s leading advisors, Count Schomberg. The match had been under discussion for some time, but the Electress Elizabeth finally smoothed the way by requesting James I to help Dudley raise a dowry. Unfortunately for the latter, the union was short-lived, as Anne died in December 1615 after giving birth to a son, Frederick de Schomberg^†, later duke of Schomberg.34 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 209; Corresp. of Eliz. Stuart, i. 152, 168; HMC Downshire, v. 172; Carew Letters ed. J. Maclean (Cam. Soc. lxxvi), 6, 21; CP, xi. 522-3. In the meantime, Dudley cemented his reputation as an industrial entrepreneur, financing the early experiments of John Robinson, inventor of the reverberatory furnace, an improved method for smelting iron with coal. Dudley went into partnership with Robinson in 1618, and although production failed to meet expectations, the baron apparently consolidated his operations in the following year, placing one of his illegitimate sons, Dud Dudley, in charge of his ironworks at Pensnet, Worcestershire.35 H.R. Schubert, Hist. of the British Iron and Steel Industry, 227-8; D. Dudley, Mettallum Martis (1665), 3, 5.

Dudley attended almost three-quarters of the sittings during the 1621 Parliament, but he was not recorded as speaking, and received appointment to just 14 of the session’s 85 or so committees. Named on 5 Feb. to the newly created standing committee for privileges, he also two weeks later signed the controversial ‘humble petition’ criticizing the claims to social precedence of Englishmen with Scottish or Irish peerages, which potentially disadvantaged an English baron like himself. On 5 Mar. he was nominated to help consider a proposal by the royal favourite, George Villiers, marquess (later 1st duke) of Buckingham, for an academy to educate the sons of the nobility and greater gentry.36 LJ, iii. 10b, 37a; Bodl. Carte 77, f. 187. Dudley was selected for three conferences on religious affairs, two of which concerned Parliament’s petition to the king against recusants, while the third dealt with the bill against recusancy.37 LJ, iii. 17a, 18b, 130b. He was also appointed to eight legislative committees, whose topics included a ban on ordnance exports, proposals for making the kingdom’s arms more serviceable, the tenurial customs in four Staffordshire manors, and the government of Wales and the Marches. As a member of the council in the Marches, he was presumably well placed to comment on the latter measure.38 Ibid. 13a, 28a, 130a. On 3 Mar. Dudley was named to confer with the Commons about how to apprehend the fugitive patentee Sir Giles Mompesson^‡, and was subsequently nominated to the committee for the monopolies bill. He also participated directly in the Commons’ latest inquiry into Zouche’s glass-making patent, which was now managed by Sir Robert Mansell^‡. As in 1614 it was objected that the baron’s own glassworks pre-dated this grant, and Dudley provided a certificate confirming this fact. He was considered on 1 Dec. for the committee to sketch out a revised monopolies bill, but was not ultimately chosen, and received no other appointments during the Parliament’s second phase.39 Ibid. 34a, 137a; Nicholas, Procs. 1621, ii. 39; CD 1621, v. 153; Add. 40086, f. 105.

Dudley’s heir, Sir Ferdinando, died of smallpox in November 1621, leaving only an infant daughter to succeed him.40 Grazebrook, 115; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 413. Three months later, after nearly two years of negotiations, the baron obtained a 14-year patent for making iron ‘after a new manner with seacoal or pitcoal in furnaces with bellows’, this grant being procured by his nephew Sir Sidney Montagu^‡, a master of Requests.41 Dudley, 6-7, 12; SO3/7, unfol. (Feb. 1622); Vis. Northants. ed. W.C. Metcalfe, 115; Vis. Rutland (Harl. Soc. iii), 38. However, Dudley was evidently losing money on his ironworks, and fell ever deeper into debt. Over the next two years, he was obliged to sell some of his core estates, including a few coal mines, the principal purchaser being a London goldsmith and financier, William Ward.42 LC4/49 (19 Nov. 1622); 4/50 (24 Mar. and 11 May 1623); 4/51 (25 June 1623); C54/2554/36; 54/2599/6.

Dudley attended the 1624 Parliament assiduously, turning up for roughly 90 per cent of the sittings. He was no doubt keen to follow the progress of the new monopolies bill, and although ostensibly he remained silent during discussions of this legislation, he must have been lobbying behind the scenes. His efforts were rewarded on 20 May, when the Lords agreed to include a proviso to protect his own iron-making patent.43 LJ, iii. 393b-4a; LD 1624 and 1626, p. 97. This business aside, Dudley received ten nominations. Once again appointed to the committee for privileges, he was named on 25 May to help scrutinize the subsidy bill. All his remaining appointments were to legislative committees, most of them concerning private bills with which he had no obvious connection. Given that he was selected for less than ten per cent of the session’s committees, his contributions were presumably not greatly valued.44 LJ, iii. 215a, 291a-b, 305b, 363a, 392a, 406b, 408a.

Despite his success in protecting his patent, Dudley’s industrial operations failed to flourish. In the next year alone he was obliged to borrow at least £10,500, and sell more land.45 Dudley, 14, 17; LC4/52/66, 192; 4/55/1, 5-6, 17; C54/2611/1. Dudley was in London prior to the 1625 Parliament, and attended the prorogation meetings on 17 and 31 May. However, once the session opened, he withdrew after the first two sittings, handing his proxy to Edward Stourton^*, 10th Lord Stourton. Noted as absent at a call of the House on 23 June, he was recorded as present thereafter only on 30 June and 1 August. In the latter case, clerical error is likely, since there is no other evidence that he attended the Oxford sitting.46 Procs. 1625, pp. 47, 591.

In marked contrast to this poor showing, Dudley missed just four sittings during the 1626 Parliament. However, he still only received 19 nominations out of a possible 49. Almost half of these were to committees for private bills, including those concerning the estates of Dutton Gerard^*, 3rd Lord Gerard, Henry Neville^*, 2nd Lord Abergavenny, and Edward Sackville^*, 4th earl of Dorset. However, he was also named to consider bills on such diverse topics as scandalous clergy, wool exports, management of assize trials, and the sumptuary laws.47 Procs. 1626, i. 84, 99, 231, 265, 267, 300, 327, 545. In addition, he was appointed on 4 Apr. to help draft the Lords’ recommendations to the king concerning the rival claims to the earldom of Oxford and the office of lord great chamberlain. On 15 Mar. Dudley claimed parliamentary privilege for a servant who had been arrested during the 1625 session. In his only recorded speech, on 15 May, he affirmed that Sir Dudley Digges^‡ had said nothing treasonable during the presentation of impeachment articles against the duke of Buckingham. However, it is unclear whether he also supported the parliamentary attack on the royal favourite.48 Ibid. 50, 156, 251, 477, 483.

Dudley’s financial woes continued, and in April 1626 he sold another portion of his estate to William Ward for just under £2,000. He was probably still keeping his wife short of money, since she raised £500 herself by selling a large diamond to the queen in the following month.49 C54/2673/19; Grazebrook, 112. Although appointed a Forced Loan commissioner in September that year, Dudley waited almost a year before contributing to the levy himself, earning a warning from the Privy Council in July 1627 that he risked being labelled a refuser.50 E401/1914 (27 Aug. 1627); APC, 1627, pp. 419-20. Instructed in February 1628 to help raise another arbitrary loan in Staffordshire, he was presumably equally unenthusiastic about this last-ditch attempt by the crown to raise funds before Parliament met again.51 APC, 1627-8, p. 285.

At the outset of the 1628 session, Dudley unexpectedly received the honour of being named a trier of petitions from Gascony and other overseas territories. On 20 Mar. he again took the oath of allegiance, but two days later the Lords were informed that he had been granted leave of absence. In total, he attended just five sittings, before awarding his proxy to John Egerton, 1st earl of Bridgwater, and departing.52 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 26, 63, 73, 87. By contrast, Dudley was present for almost four-fifths of the 1629 session, and was nominated to five bill committees, three of them on the same day, 21 January. The subjects covered were clergy funding, measures to increase trade, the crown’s ordinary revenues, maintenance of almshouses and, once again, the sumptuary laws.53 LJ, iv. 8a, 10b, 19a.

By mid 1628 Dudley’s finances were in such a dire state that he mortgaged the park adjacent to Dudley Castle. Lacking the means to extricate himself from this situation, in February 1629 he agreed to marry his granddaughter and heir, Frances Sutton, to Humble Ward^† (later 1st Lord Ward), the son of his principal creditor. In lieu of a conventional dowry, William Ward agreed to redeem all of the baron’s key properties which were currently mortgaged, and pay him £2,400 in cash. Dudley was to enjoy his full estate for life, but Frances and Humble would inherit everything when he died.54 C54/2761/14; 54/3022/29; Dugdale, iii. 217; Grazebrook, 117. This deal effectively concluded the baron’s long-running financial crisis, though it was not the end of all his troubles, for in December 1631 he was instructed by the Privy Council to compound for his failure to present himself for knighthood at the time of Charles I’s coronation. Moreover, in January 1635 Dudley was licensed to travel abroad for three years. He was most likely seeking to avoid further problems at home, for in the following April he was placed in custody by the Canterbury High Commission court, which prosecuted him for adultery with one Joan Green. Later that same year, he was pursued by the crown for debts amounting to £1,000.55 PC2/41, f. 141v; SO3/11, unfol. (23 Jan. 1635); CSP Dom. 1635, pp. 78, 178, 181, 190.

Summoned in January 1639 to attend the king at York, Dudley replied that he would willingly come himself, but was unable to bring the armed force appropriate for a man of his rank, since he had now made over his estate to Humble Ward ‘for the payment of debts’.56 SO1/3, ff. 114v-15; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 511. He failed to attend either the Short or Long parliaments, apparently because he was too infirm to travel.57 CSP Dom. 1640, p. 29; LJ, iv. 92a; HMC 5th Rep. 23. Dudley died in June 1643, and was buried at St Edmund’s, Dudley. The church was demolished by the royalist garrison of Dudley Castle during the Civil War, and the fate of his grave is uncertain.58 Dugdale, iii. 217; S. Porter, Destruction in the Eng. Civil Wars, 81; C. Twamley, Hist. of Dudley Castle, 74-5. Dudley’s barony descended to his granddaughter Frances in her own right; her husband was created Baron Ward of Birmingham in 1644. The two peerages were finally united in the person of their son Edward in 1697.59 CP, iv. 483-4.