Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 1st Baronet

Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 1st Baronet (September 1614 – 24 February 1685) was a landowner and baronet.

Early life

He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Bedingfield of Oxburgh Hall (–1657) by his second marriage to Elizabeth Houghton (1590–1662). The family were Catholics.

His paternal grandparents were the former Frances Jernegan (daughter and co-heiress of John Jernegan of Somerleyton) and Thomas Bedingfield of Oxburgh (himself the great-grandson of Sir Henry Bedingfield). After his grandfather's death, his grandmother married, as his second wife, Sir Henry Jerningham of Cossey. His maternal grandfather was Peter Houghton of Houghton Towers in Lancashire who was an Alderman and Sheriff of London. Following the restoration of Charles II, Col. Thomas Bedingfield began the process of attempting to recover his estate. In a petition to the King, he calculated the loss to be £60,000, of which he had been paid £21,000. Presumably as compensation for the unrecovered loss, as heir apparent to Thomas, Henry Bedingfield, a Captain in the King's Army, was created a baronet in January 1661 as his elder half-brother had no son.

Personal life

The Church of St. John the Evangelist, Bedingfield Chapel, Oxborough In April 1635, Bedingfeld married Margaret Paston (–1703), a daughter of Frances Sydenham and Edward Paston of Appleton, Norfolk. Together, they were the parents of: Edward Bedingfeld, a barrister who married Mary Fisher, sister of Sir Clement Fisher, 3rd Baronet. Elizabeth Bedingfeld, who married Thomas Weetenhall Esq.

Descendants Through his eldest son Henry's second marriage to Elizabeth Arundell, he was a grandfather of Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 3rd Baronet (d. 1760), Margaret Bedingfeld (wife of Sir John Jerningham, 4th Baronet) and Frances Bedingfeld (wife of Sir Francis Anderton, 6th Baronet).

Through his son Edward, he was a grandfather of Mary Bedingfield, who married Sir John Swinburne, 3rd Baronet of Capheaton, Northumberland, a son of Sir William Swinburne, 2nd Baronet.