Sir Thomas Liddell, 1st Baronet

Captain Sir Thomas Liddell, 1st Baronet (1578 – 1652) was an English cavalier politician of the Liddell family of the North of England during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Family Liddell, who was born in 1578, was the son of Thomas Liddell (d. 1619) and the same's wife Margaret Watson, who was daughter of John Watson Alderman of Newcastle.

His father Thomas (d. 1619), who was a merchant of corn and coal, bought Ravensworth Castle in 1607 after he had served as Sheriff of Newcastle in 1592-93 and as Mayor of Newcastle in 1597 and 1609.

His paternal grandfather Thomas Liddell of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (d. 1577) was a merchant adventurer who also had served as Sheriff of Newcastle, in 1563-64, and as Mayor of Newcastle, in 1572–3.

Politics and the Civil War

The Eve of the Battle of Edgehill by Charles Landseer, 1845. Liddell supplied horses to the royalist army for the Battle of Edgehill, at which he fought for Charles I, who afterwards created him a baronet.

Liddell was a Catholic Recusant

Liddell served as Sheriff of Newcastle in 1609 and Mayor in 1625, 1634, He was in April 1640 elected Member of Parliament for Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the Short Parliament. He was created a baronet on 2 November 1642.

He served as a trained band Captain before he was commissioned into the royalist army in August 1642 and served as a Commissioner of Array. He smuggled arms to the royalist army and attempted to disenfranchise Parliamentarian sympathizers amongst the aldermen of Newcastle. and was in the royalist garrison at Newcastle during the Siege of Newcastle. He wrote the intransigent replies that the Parliamentarian army received in reply to their demands for the surrender of the royalist garrison. He was taken prisoner by the Parliamentarian army when they defeated that royalist garrison in 1644.

He was, in London in 1646, but was released during the same year on the condition that he pay a fine, which he during 1652 unsuccessfully attempted to dishonestly convince the Parliamentarian government that he had paid to Sir Arthur Haselrig, 2nd Baronet, when he had not done so.

He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his grandson Sir Thomas Liddell, 2nd Baronet, Francis was knighted by Charles I in 1643 and styled Sir Francis Liddell of Bamburgh Castle and Redheugh. He served the restored monarchy as Governor of the Hostmen in 1665 and as Mayor of Newcastle in 1666.

Sir Francis (b.1607) married secondly, as her third husband, Agnes Chaytor (d.1669), who was the daughter of Sir William Chaytor of Croft (d.1640). Agnes Chaytor was a descendant, through the House of Clervaux and the House of Percy, of Edward III and Charlemagne. The son of Agnes Chaytor/Forster by Sir Francis Liddell (b.1607), who was also called Francis (1633 - 1702), married the daughter of Agnes Chaytor by Nicholas Forster, Frances or Francisca (d.1675).

Fenwick Inheritors of Estate Sir Francis and Agnes Chaytor also had a daughter, Agnes Mary, who married The Rev. Edward Fenwick, who succeeded his relation Ralph Fenwick as Vicar of Stamfordham, Northumberland, The Fenwicks were a distinguished clergy family from Northumberland.

Edward Fenwick Vicar of Stamfordham's estate at Redheugh, which he inherited from his wife's father Sir Francis Liddell, was sequestrated because he had supported his kinsman James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, during the 1715 Jacobite Rising. His eldest son Ambrose succeeded him as Vicar of Stamfordham but died childless during 1732. His younger son Edward (the second), who became Vicar of Kirkwhelpington during 1720 and died during 1734, was the father of Martha Fenwick, who married William Scott of Stokoe, and was the great-grandfather of John Fenwick F. S. A.. (b. 1787).