John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater
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John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater KB, PC (1579 – 4 December 1649) was an English peer and politician.
The son of the Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley and Elizabeth Ravenscroft, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Callington from 1597 to 1598, and for Shropshire in 1601. Knighted on 8 April 1599, he was Baron of the Exchequer of Chester from 1599 to 1605. In 1603, Egerton was appointed a Knight of the Order of Bath and in 1605, he received a Master of Arts from the University of Oxford. Having succeeded to his father's titles in March 1617, he was created Earl of Bridgewater on 27 May 1617.
Egerton was sworn of the Privy Council in 1626. From 1605 to 1646, he was Custos Rotulorum of Shropshire and from 1628 to 1649 Custos Rotulorum of Buckinghamshire. Between 1631 and 1642, he was Lord President of Wales and Lord Lieutenant of Wales and the Marches of Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire.
John Milton's Comus celebrates the installation of Egerton, as Lord President of Wales. Egerton died intestate and was buried in Little Gaddesden in Hertfordshire.
Family
On 27 June 1602, Egerton married Lady Frances Stanley, daughter of the Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby and Lady Alice Spencer. Coincidentally, Frances's mother Alice married, after the death of Ferdinando Stanley, on 20 October 1600,[2] John's father Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley. John and Frances had eight children:
- Lady Elizabeth Egerton (d. 1688), married David Cecil, 3rd Earl of Exeter
- Lady Mary Egerton (d. 1659), married Richard Herbert, 2nd Baron Herbert of Chirbury
- Lady Frances Egerton (d.1664), married Sir John Hobart, 2nd Baronet
- Lady Alice Egerton (d. 1689), married Richard Vaughan, 2nd Earl of Carbery as his third wife.
- Lady Arabella Egerton (d. 1669), married Oliver St John, 5th Baron St John of Bletso
- James Egerton, Viscount Brackley (1616–1620), died young
- Charles Egerton, Viscount Brackley (b. 1623), died young
- John Egerton, 2nd Earl of Bridgewater (1623–1686)
Notes
References
- Lundy, Darryl. "p. 1388 § 13880". The Peerage. Retrieved 12 February 2007.[unreliable source]
Further reading
- The Earl of Bridgewater and the English Civil War C L Hamilton, Canadian Journal of History, xv (1980), pp. 357–69
- 1579 births
- 1649 deaths
- 17th-century English people
- Earls of Bridgewater (1617)
- Egerton family
- Knights of the Bath
- Lord-Lieutenants of Herefordshire
- Lord-Lieutenants of Monmouthshire
- Lord-Lieutenants of Shropshire
- Lord-Lieutenants of Wales
- Lord-Lieutenants of Worcestershire
- Members of the pre-1707 English Parliament for constituencies in Cornwall
- Members of the Privy Council of England
- 16th-century English people
- People of the Tudor period
- People of the Stuart period
- English MPs 1597–98
- English MPs 1601