He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Bedingfield of Oxburgh Hall (c. 1587–1657)[1] by his second marriage to Elizabeth Houghton (1590–1662).
[4] After his grandfather's death, his grandmother married, as his second wife, Sir Henry Jerningham of Cossey.
[6] His father, an MP for Norfolk, and elder half-brother, Col. Thomas Bedingfield (c. 1605–1685), were both active in the Royalist cause during the English Civil War and spent time in prison and with the exiles on the Continent.
[6] Following the restoration of Charles II, Col. Thomas Bedingfield began the process of attempting to recover his estate.
[7] Presumably as compensation for the unrecovered loss, as heir apparent to Thomas, Henry Bedingfield, a Captain in the King's Army, was created a baronet in January 1661 as his elder half-brother had no son.