Edward Littleton

Sir Edward Littleton (c. 157725 July 1629) was a politician from the extended Littleton/Lyttelton family and an important Staffordshire landowner of the Jacobean era and the early Caroline era. Although loyal to the monarchy, he seems to have been of Puritan sympathies and was a close ally of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex. He represented Staffordshire in the English parliament of 1624. Background Littleton's parents were Sir Edward Littleton (died 1610) of Pillaton Hall, near Penkridge, Staffordshire, and Margaret Devereux, the daughter of Sir William Devereux of Merevale Hall, Warwickshire . The elder Sir Edward Littleton was an important and politically active member of the Staffordshire landed gentry. He was a partisan of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex in the turbulent final decade of Elizabeth I. Margaret Devereux was Essex's first cousin, once removed. Sir Edward was the earl's agent in his home county of Staffordshire and played a part – tangential, he claimed – in the Essex Rebellion of 1601. He was lucky to escape with his life but his fortunes recovered quickly, especially after the accession of James I. He represented his county in Parliament from 1604 until a month before his death.