lord high treasurer of Ireland, and on 20 May 1626 was raised to the English peerage as Baron Tregoz of Highworth, Wiltshire. In 1624 he was placed on the council of war, and served on various other commissions. He also interested himself in foreign and colonial affairs, frequently corresponding with his nephew, Sir Thomas Roe [q. v.] In 1627 he bought the manors of Wandsworth and Battersea, where he had had a house since 1600 (Collins, Letters and Memorials, ii. 207). His health failing, he sought the advice of Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne [q. v.] After a visit to Ireland in 1630 to settle his estates there, he returned to Battersea, where he died on 30 Dec. in the same year, being buried there on 12 Jan. 1630-1.
St. John married Joan, daughter and heiress of John Roydon of Battersea, and widow of Sir William Holcroft; she was buried at Battersea on 10 March 1630-1; by her he had no issue. The barony of Tregoz became extinct. Grandison's manors, Wandsworth and Battersea, passed into the same branch of the family. The viscounty of Grandison passed, in accordance with the limitation of the patent, to his grand-nephew, William Villiers, son of Sir Edward Villiers, brother of the Duke of Buckingham, by his wife Barbara, younger daughter of Sir John St. John, Grandison's elder brother. Many of St. John's letters and reports have been calendared among the Domestic, Irish, and Carew papers. His portrait is included in a rare print of the council of war, preserved in the library of the Society of Antiquaries.
[Cal. State Papers, Dom., Ireland, China, and Persia; Cal. Carew MSS.; Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 19839, 29314; Egerton MS. 2126, ff. 4, 6; Stowe MS. 173, f. 260; Cal. Hatfield MSS.; Winwood's Memorials; Aubrey's Topographical Collections, ed. Jackson, 1862, pp. 170, 174 ; Marshall's Visitation of Wiltshire, ed. 1882, p. 36 ; Lascelles's Liber Munerum Hib.; Morrin's Cal. Patent Rolls; Official Return of Members of Parl.; Clark's Reg. Univ. Oxon. ii. ii. 79, iii. 75; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714; Metcalfe's Book of Knights; Ellis's Original Letters; Letters of Carew to Sir Thomas Roe, passim ; Letters of Sir Robert Cecil to Sir George Carew, passim, Chamberlain's Letters, pp. 130, 134, Fortescue Papers, pp. 133-4 (these four publ. by Camden Soc.); Gardiner's Hist. of England ; Stafford's Pacata Hibernia, ed. Standish O'Grady; Fynes Moryson's Hist. of Ireland and Itinerary, passim ; Rothe's Analecta Sacra, ed. Moran, 1884, pp. 210, 212, 215; Coxe's Hibernia Anglicana, ii. 33-7; Lenihan's Hist. of Limerick, pp. 142, &c.; O'Donoghue's Hist. Memoir of the O'Briens, p. 253; Journal of the Cork Hist. and Archæol. Soc.ii. 47, 59 ; Dugdale's Baronage; Collins's Peerage, vi. 65-78; Lodge's Irish Peerage; Burke's Extinct Peerage; G.E.C.'s Complete Peerage, s.v. 'Grandison;' Manning and Bray's Surrey, iii. 330; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ii. 373, vii. 27-8.]
ST. JOHN, OLIVER, fourth Baron St. John of Bletsho and first Earl of Bolingbroke (1580?–1646), born about 1580, was son and heir of Oliver St. John, third baron St. John of Bletsho, by his wife Dorothy, daughter and heiress of Sir John Rede of Odington, Gloucestershire. The St. Johns of Bletsho and the St. Johns of Lydiard-Tregoz [see St. John, Oliver, Viscount Grandison] were both descended
from Sir Oliver St. John, K.B. (d. 1437), and his wife Margaret Beauchamp, who afterwards married John Beaufort, second duke of Somerset, and was grandmother of Henry VII. The Bletsho family was the elder branch (see pedigree in G.E.C.'s Peerage, s.v. 'Bolingbroke'). Sir Oliver's great-great-grandson, Oliver, was created first baron St. John of Bletsho in 1558; was one of the judges who tried Thomas Howard, fourth duke of Norfolk [q. v.] in 1572, and died in 1582 (cf. Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. v. 150). He was succeeded by his eldest son, John, second baron, who sat on the trial of Mary Queen of Scots, and died without male issue on 23 Oct. 1596. His only daughter,
Anne, married William, eldest son of Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham [q. v.] The barony of Bletsho devolved upon his brother, Oliver St. John, third baron (d. 1618), father of the subject of this article (cf. Spedding, Letters and Life of Bacon, ii. 283). Oliver
St. John (1598?-1673) [q. v.], the chief justice, was grandson of Thomas, third son of the first baron St. John. Distinct from all the above was Oliver St. John who was fined 5,000l. by the Star-chamber and condemned to lifelong imprisonment for opposition to benevolences in 1615. He subsequently made a full submission, was released, and had his fine remitted (ib. v. 131-52; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vii. 27-8; Howell, State Trials, ii. 899; Letters of Carew to Sir Thomas Roe, Camden Soc. pp. 140-3).
The third baron signalised himself by his opposition to the benevolence of 1614 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611-18, p. 225), and his son identified himself with the popular party in parliament. He was elected member for Bedfordshire in 1601, and again in 1603-4. In 1604 he served on the committee appointed to discuss the change in the royal title. On 3 June 1610 he was made knight of the Bath at the creation of Henry,
