Francis Leigh, 1st Earl of Chichester ( 28 April 1598 – 21 December 1653) was a Royalist politician and courtier around the period of the English Civil War.
[1] His father was Sir Francis Leigh; his mother was Mary, daughter of Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley.
He remained close to Lord Brooke and, under King Charles I, was himself raised to the peerage as Baron Dunsmore in the County of Warwick on 31 July 1628, with remainder failing heirs male to grantee's body, to his stepson John Anderson, PC.
Despite this, he was appointed to meet the Scottish commissioners at Ripon in autumn 1640 and his opposition was further softened by both the militancy of the King's enemies and personal encouragement from Charles.
[1] In August 1642 his Warwickshire estate was looted by Parliament forces from Coventry (ironically, under the command of the new Lord Brooke).
He married twice, and within a year his first wife, 31 July 1617, Susan Banning née Northam,[3] died childless.