Sir John St John, 1st Baronet

Sir John St John, 1st Baronet (5 November 1585 – 1648) of Lydiard Tregoze in the English county of Wiltshire, was a Member of Parliament and prominent Royalist during the English Civil War. He was created a baronet on 22 May 1611.

Biography St John was the second son of Sir John St John (d. 1594) of Lydiard Tregoze and his wife Lucy, the daughter of Sir Walter Hungerford. Upon his father's death in 1594, most of the family estates, in Wiltshire, went to his elder brother Walter; John received the manor of Garsington, Oxfordshire, and was promised £200 when he came of age. He was first placed in the guardianship of a distant relative, John St John, 2nd Baron St John of Bletso, but Lord St John died in 1596, and guardianship then passed to John's uncle, Sir Oliver St John. Sir Oliver arranged for John's education: he matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, on 3 April 1601 and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1604. Meanwhile, John's brother Walter drowned near Castle Cornet in August 1597 while staying with Sir Thomas Leighton, Governor of Guernsey. From him, John inherited Lydiard Tregoze and the rest of the family estates in Wiltshire. His mother died in 1598, leaving him her jointure estates of Purley Park, Berkshire, and Hatfield Peverel, Essex. Sir Thomas Leighton purchased his wardship in 1602, and received permission to settle various estates on his daughter Anne, who married St John on 9 July 1604 at the age of 12.

Family

He was the third child and eldest son of Sir John St John (1560–1594) and of Lucy Hungerford (1560–1627), daughter of Sir Walter Hungerford (Knight of Farley) and a granddaughter of the attainted and executed Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury.

He married twice: In 1604 he married Anne (died 1628), Under her first husband's will Margaret held a number of manors in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire for life.

Through the marriages he arranged for his sisters, St John was the brother-in-law of Sir Allen Apsley, Giles Mompesson and Sir Edward Villiers.

Children

Anne Leighton, St John's first wife, died giving birth to Henry in July 1628 after having borne twelve other children.

By his first wife he had nine sons and four daughters, six of whom died in childhood: Anne St John, Countess of Rochester (5 November 1614 – 18 March 1696), married first Sir Francis Henry Lee, 2nd Baronet, of Ditchley, and second Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester John St John (b. 24 March 1615) married Dorothy Ayloffe. Edward St John (26 February 1617 – died at the Second Battle of Newbury, 1645) Nicholas St John (29 March 1620 – 18 April 1639) Sir Walter St John, 3rd Baronet of Lydiard Tregoze and of Battersea (1622 – 3 July 1708) married in 1651 his second cousin Johanna St John, daughter of Oliver St John of Longthorpe Henry St John of Tandragee, County Armagh (July 1628 – 9 September 1679) married his second cousin Catherine St John, daughter of Oliver St John, of Longthorpe. Assassinated upon his estate of Drumlyn Hill, near Knockbridge, on the orders of local Rapparee leader Count Redmond O'Hanlon.