Edward Littleton (died 1610)
The reversion was held briefly by John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland during his period of power in the reign of Edward VI, but it returned to the Crown after his execution under Mary I in 1553.
In 1581 the college, "with all its rights, members, lands, tithes, and appurtenances" was sold by the Crown[5] to a pair of speculators: Edmund Downynge, a former MP with close Exchequer links,[6] and Peter Aysheton.
The sale of reversions and monopolies were essential forms of patronage exercised by the Crown in Elizabeth's reign, giving the government a stream of revenue outside parliamentary control.
The fundamental bond of feudal society, the fief in return for military service, was obsolete, but the Littletons still paid 16 shillings a year to their overlord, Baron Paget, for Pillaton manor.
They were implicated in the Babington Plot, a conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth I. Lord Paget was attainted, losing all his estates, and took refuge in Spain.
Amias Paulet, unimpeachably puritan and the gaoler of Mary, Queen of Scots, regarded Littleton as one of the few trustworthy Staffordshire gentry and described him as "a very honest religious gentleman".
[10] Essex's main seat, Chartley Castle, was in Staffordshire, between the county town of Stafford and Uttoxeter, and Littleton's brother, James, managed it for him.
[10] After the death of his step-father, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, in 1588, Essex emerged as the new figurehead for most of his main causes: moderately puritan but aggressively anti-Spanish.
A group of Staffordshire landowners formed a local Essex faction – mainly members of the Littleton, Bagot, Chetwynd, Trew and Aston families.
The Worcestershire Lytteltons (as their version of the name is generally spelt) were also closely involved with Essex, although they were motivated equally strongly by a detestation of Edward Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley, his and their main enemy in the region.
[13] Essex was considered a Puritan sympathiser, and the Staffordshire Littletons decidedly Protestant, while their Worcestershire cousins leaned toward Catholicism, but local interests overcame ideological differences.
The county seats had been controlled by the Harcourt family of Ellenhall and Ranton Abbey, part of a group of Catholic sympathisers that included for a time the Astons.
Littleton wrote to Bagot in exasperation: Blount and Harcourt were duly elected for Staffordshire, despite the confusion, while Gerard was returned as one of the Lancashire members.
This time the election turned into a direct contest between the Devereux faction and the Dudleys, probably encouraged by Essex's absence on the abortive Islands Voyage.
John Dudley, alias Sutton, was approaching 28 years old, inexperienced in public affairs, and not a property holder – hence technically disqualified.
It was later alleged that Whorwood, a Catholic sympathiser, improved their chances by drafting in at least five recusants from the county gaol and allowing even their wives to raise their voices in favour of Sutton, while Dudley brought in at least a hundred voters, most of them not qualified.
He decided on a coup d'état, planned for 8 February 1601, intending to resolve the succession issue in favour of James VI of Scotland.
Sir Edward Littleton was accused of being part of the armed group that prepared for the coup, and that was forced to act prematurely when the plot was discovered.
By 12 February, with the action over, Littleton was included on a list of known conspirators,[17] along with his kinsman John, son of Gilbert, and one of those indicted for fighting the Dudleys in Worcestershire.
An intelligence report to Cecil,[18] headed "An information concerning some gentlemen in Staffordshire, frequenters to the Earl of Essex," portrays Littleton as a key figure in the conspiracy.
It claims that, on the day of the rising, Littleton walked with Essex and Sir Christopher Blount, with his sword drawn, until they reached the River Thames.
After settling the debt, Edward and James then allegedly set off to rejoin the insurgents, who had returned to Essex's House, getting as far as Temple Bar.
The report sought to incriminate Edward Littleton further by accusing him of distributing arms in the countryside on the pretext of aiding the English forces in Ireland, and of plotting while at Blount's home in Drayton Bassett.
[2] Littleton's own version,[19] as told on 18 February to John Popham (Lord Chief Justice) and Edward Coke, the Attorney General, had features in common but was incompatible.
As soon as they heard that Thomas Gerard, a former ally of Essex, had proscribed the earl and his supporters, the Littletons got away and took refuge in a wool draper's shop near St Paul's.
By 26 February Edward's name had been added to a list of those "fit to be forborne from being indicted, but yet to be fined", with the proviso that he was "to be delivered upon good bonds.
The Devereux faction, essentially the Puritan minority among the local gentry, were able to reorganise and to pursue a coherent policy, informed by previous mistakes.
The Catholic basis of Stanford's nomination was recognised by Littleton, who later commented: "the common speech is that the assembly at Stafford on Thursday was rather to choose a pope then a knight for the Parliament because they were all of that tribe."
However, the informal plan for a balanced ticket of Littleton and Stanford ran into the enmity of Sir Walter Harcourt, an Essex supporter who had sat for the county twice.
All of the children, six sons and eight daughters, were represented on the front of their tomb in St. Michael's church, Penkridge, which also bears the effigies of the successor Edward and his wife, Mary Fisher, on an upper tier.
