DYOTT, Richard (c.1619-77), of Lichfield, Staffs.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

5 Dec. 1667 - 5 Nov. 1677

Family and Education

b. c.1619, 2nd s. of Sir Richard Dyott (d.1660) of Lichfield by Dorothy, da. and h. of Richard Dorington of Stafford. m. (1) 7 Feb. 1665, Katherine (d. 29 June 1667), da. of Thomas Gresley of Lullington, Derbys., 1s,; (2) 28 Apr. 1670, Mary, da. of Richard Greene of Wyken, Warws., 2s. 1da. suc. bro. 1662.1

Offices Held

Capt. of horse (royalist) 1642-?46.2

Capt. of militia ft. Lichfield 1663-d.; commr. for assessment, Lichfield 1663-d., Staffs. 1673-d.3

Biography

Dyott’s great-grandfather was granted arms in 1563, and his grandfather sat for Lichfield in 1602. His father, who served on the Council in the North, and was knighted by Strafford in Ireland, ‘for his exemplary loyalty suffered frequent imprisonment’ during the Civil War and Interregnum, though he was eventually discharged without compounding, while Dyott himself and three of his brothers were in arms for the King. He is said to have been in exile under the Commonwealth, but returned before the Restoration. Shortly after succeeding to the estate, valued at £500 p.a., he was described as ‘loyal and orthodox and valiant; of ability sufficient; a good fellow’.4

Dyott was returned for Lichfield at a by-election in 1667, probably unopposed. An inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was named to only six committees in nine sessions. He was three times appointed to the committee of elections and privileges. In 1669 Sir Thomas Osborne included him among the government supporters who generally voted for supply. He was appointed to a committee on the bill for the preservation of fishing in the Severn and its tributaries in 1674, and to committees for the relief of poor debtors in the spring session of 1675, and again in the autumn, for which he received the government whip and promised to attend. His name appears on the working lists and he was reckoned a court supporter by Sir Richard Wiseman, though Shaftesbury seems to have marked him ‘doubly worthy’. In A Seasonable Argument he was described as a sea-captain and a kinsman of Sir Robert Carr with a pension of £400 p.a. Baxter described him as ‘one that professed himself no Papist, but was their familiar’. He died on 5 Nov. 1677, and was buried at St. Mary, Lichfield, but his name was posthumously included in the ‘unanimous club’ of court supporters. His son sat for Lichfield as a Tory in eight Parliaments between 1690 and 1715.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: A. M. Mimardière

Notes

  • 1. Vis. Staffs. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. v, pt. 2), 118-19; Staffs. RO, D661/1/787; Vis. Warws. (Harl. Soc. lxii), 118; Gresleys of Drakelow (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. n.s. i), 251.
  • 2. Staffs. Parl. Hist. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.), ii. 131.
  • 3. Gentry of Staffs. (Staffs. Rec. Soc. ser. 4, ii), 13.
  • 4. Shaw, Staffs. i. 335; Cal. Comm. Comp. 89, 547; Staffs. Parl. Hist. (Wm. Salt Arch. Soc.), ii. 131.
  • 5. M. Sylvester, Reliquiae Baxterianae, iii. 179; Gresleys of Drakelow, 251.