Sir Edward Littleton, 2nd Baronet

He was taken prisoner by the Parliamentary at Worcester in 1642 and his estates were sequestrated[3] As he had large debts, Sir Edward was unable to come to an arrangement with the Committee for Compounding with Delinquents.

Presumably, Littleton had meanwhile acquired some form of legal training, as he was Commissioner for oyer and terminer at Oxford shortly after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660.

[6] In inheriting his father's title and estates, Littleton took on the traditional role of his family as pillars of the county, serving in a range of administrative, judicial and military posts.

A list of county landed gentry drawn up in 1662 describes him as "loyal, orthodox and sober, but of only ordinary parts."

In the 1690s the Littletons were forced to defend their rights in the manor formerly belonging to the college (canon law) of St. Michael, Penkridge.

In 1661 Archbishop James Margetson carried out a canonical visitation – something to which he no right as his predecessors had never been ordinary of the church: rather they had acted as agents of the Crown.

In the 1690s things went a large step further when the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry requested permission to carry out a visitation on behalf of Archbishop Narcissus Marsh.

The process was delivered to the churchwardens of St. Michael's, who immediately involved the Littletons, although it appears that the baronet's son Edward dealt with matters on the spot.

Littleton was not initially elected to represent Staffordshire: the county's MPs were Sir Thomas Leigh and Randolph Egerton.

He reminded Clarendon that Littleton would be ineligible as MP if appointed sheriff, an unpopular post for which he was presumably being considered.

After this he retired to the Moat House, Tamworth with his second wife, leaving his 17-year-old, newly married son to occupy Pillaton Hall.

He was removed from the lieutenancy and the commission of the peace, and his son, also Edward Littleton represented the county in James II's Loyal Parliament.

He welcomed the Glorious Revolution and was rewarded with the honorary post of Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to William III in 1692, holding it until the end of the reign in 1702.

Sir Thomas de Littleton , ancestor of the Littleton families of Frankley , Penkridge and Stoke Milburgh. An 18th-century engraving after a 15th-century painting.
Remains of Pillaton Old Hall, near Penkridge , Staffordshire. The original moated manor house became ruinous after the family moved to Teddesley Hall in the mid-18th century, but the Gatehouse and Chapel were restored in the 1880s.