five members in January 1642, and entreated to be allowed to resign (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1641–3, p. 252). His conduct, while it displeased the king, was so satisfactory to the commons that on their nomination of lieutenants for the several counties they placed him at the head of his native shire (Howell, ii. 1085). In March 1642 the king retired to York in deep disgust at what he considered Littleton's want of devotion. He was particularly offended with Littleton's vote in favour of the ordinance for the militia, and his arguments in support of its legality (Whitelocke, Memorials, p. 59). Littleton, however, explained to Hyde that he had given this vote and others, which he knew would be obnoxious to the king, for the purpose of disarming the rising distrust of the commons, and of preventing their proposed intention of taking the seal from him. He thereupon planned with Hyde that he would take advantage of the customary recess of the house between Saturday and Monday morning to send the great seal to the king, and himself to follow after. On 23 May Littleton's departure from London was reported to the lords, who immediately ordered him to be taken into custody; but at the end of the third day after his flight he kissed the king's hand at York (Clarendon, History, 1849, ii. 494–504). In a letter to the lords he pleaded the king's commands as an excuse for his departure, and enclosed an affidavit showing his inability from illness to travel to Westminster as ordered. At the same time he ‘took the boldness’ to inform the lords that he had the king's express commands upon his allegiance not to depart from him. It was not until a year afterwards that the parliament voted that if he did not return with the seal within fourteen days he should lose his place, and the two houses passed an ordinance for a new seal on 10 Nov. 1643.
Through the good offices of Hyde the king ultimately became reconciled to Littleton, although he did not for some time entrust him with the actual custody of the seal. On 31 Jan. 1643 Littleton received, with other of Charles's adherents, the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford; in March he was again appointed first commissioner of the treasury (Fourth Report Pub. Rec., Appendix, ii. 187); and on 21 May 1644 he was entrusted with a military commission to raise a regiment of foot-soldiers, consisting of gentlemen of the inns of court and chancery, and others. Of this regiment, the ranks of which were soon filled, he acted as colonel.
Littleton died at Oxford on 27 Aug. 1645, and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, where his daughter erected a monument to his memory. By his first wife, Anne, daughter of John Lyttelton of Frankley, Worcestershire, he had a son and two daughters, who all died in infancy. His second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Jones, judge of the king's bench, and widow of Sir George Calverley of Cheshire, brought him an only daughter, Anne, who was married to her cousin, Sir Thomas Littleton, bart., of Stoke St. Milborough, Shropshire.
Clarendon (Hist. ii. 491) describes Littleton as a ‘handsome and proper man,’ of a very graceful presence, and ‘notorious for courage, which in his youth he had manifested with his sword.’ Both friends and enemies readily acknowledge that he was a learned lawyer, powerful advocate, and an excellent judge; that he was incorruptible and moderate; and that in private life he was highly esteemed. But he was not made for power; he was weak and wavering, and by endeavouring to be the friend of all parties he retained the confidence of none. He had, however, faithful friends on both sides who did not doubt his integrity. Hyde, who knew him well, was his friend to the last. Whitelocke, of the parliament side, always speaks kindly of him, and when in 1645 the commons seized his books and manuscripts, Whitelocke induced them to bestow them on him, with the intention, he asserts, of restoring them to the owner or his family when ‘God gave them a happy accommodation’ (Memorials, p. 172).
A volume of reports in the common pleas and exchequer from 2 to 7 Charles I was published with his name in 1683, but they are probably not of his composition. His portrait has been engraved from a portrait by Vandyck; a half-length original by an unknown artist is in the possession of the Earl of Home.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 175; Biog. Brit.; Foss's Judges, vi. 343–52; Gent. Mag. December 1856, p. 717; Parl. Hist. vols. ii. and iii.; Life of Clarendon, i. 146; Granger's Biog. Hist. of Engl. 2nd edit. ii. 219; Cat. of National Portraits, 1866, p. 111; Gardiner's Hist. of Engl. 1603–42, vols. vi–x.]
LITTLETON, EDWARD (fl. 1694), agent for the island of Barbadoes, born in 1626, was son of Sir Adam Littleton, bart., of Stoke St. Milborough, Shropshire, by Ethelreda, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Poyntz of North Ockendon, Essex. After attending Westminster School he became a commoner of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, in 1641, graduated B.A. in 1644, and in 1647 was elected fellow of All Souls. Having submitted to the authority of the parliamentary
