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SUTTON, Richard (d.1634), of Lincoln's Inn; later of Acton, Mdx.
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Biography Detail
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Family and Education
o.s. of John Sutton of Henley-on-Thames, Oxon. by Elizabeth, da. of one Tailor of Edial, Staffs. educ. L. Inn 1572, called 1579. m. Elizabeth, da. of George Fishe, 1da. Kntd. 1619.
Offices Held
Auditor of the Exchequer from c.1600.
Biography
Sutton was a lawyer who acted both for the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Warwick. He was, however, brought into Parliament by Sir George Carey, the governor of the Isle of Wight. On 18 Feb. 1589 he was appointed to a committee on the Exchequer (of which he later became an official), and on 20 Mar. that year, when the amendments to the bill for the relief of George Ognell were under discussion, Sutton informed the House that, as the Earl of Warwick was ‘not to be in town’, it would not be practicable for his counsel to meet the committee in charge of the bill that afternoon.
In 1603 he appealed to Sir Robert Cecil to be excused from going to Ireland a second time on grounds of ill-health and an estate ‘in disorder’. During the reign of James I he served on a number of commissions for the reform of various branches of the administration; it was while he was one of the commissioners ‘employed about the matters of the Household and navy’ that he was knighted. He remained an auditor until his death, instructing his deputy, in the will he made 26 Feb. 1634, to deliver carefully to his successor the records belonging to his office. Sutton died 26 Apr. 1634 in possession of a London house in the parish of St. Botolph without Aldersgate, a house and lands in Acton, the manor of Sapperton in Lincolnshire, and the manors of North Bersted and Shripney in Sussex. The will was proved by the residuary legatee, his only child Elizabeth, on 21 June of the same year. His charitable bequests were £20 to the poor of St. Botolph, £10 to those of Acton, and £4 towards the restoration of St. Paul’s. He had previously made a separate will disposing of the property of his relative, Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charterhouse, one of whose executors he was.
C142/514/45/; Vis. London 1568 (Harl. Soc. i), 77; Black Bk. L. Inn passim; APC, xxxii. 19; 1617-19, pp. 174, 179; Lansd. 64, f. 49; D’Ewes, 434, 449; CSP Ire. 1599-1600, pp. 379, 382, 443; 1600, pp. 304-5; HMC Hatfield, xii. 614; CPS Dom. 1581-90, p. 692; 1591-4, p. 9; 1603-10, p. 470; 1619-23, p. 42; Chamberlain Letters ed. McClure, ii. 210; PCC 53 Seager.
