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 to by Blakeway (Sheriffs of Shropshire, 153) as 'an eminent sufferer in the royal cause,' by his first wife, Emma, daughter of Thomas Harby of Adston, Northamptonshire, also a goldsmith of London. He was born in London in 1614, and educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he educated B.A. in 1632. On 14 Nov. of the following year he entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called in due time to the bar. He was returned as member for Ludlow to Richard Cromwell's parliament in 1659, and to the first two parliaments of Charles II in 1660 and 1661. Although he took little part in the debates, except on points of form, he was in 1661 appointed chairman of the committee on elections. At the Restoration he was included in the first batch of new serjeants-at-law, and in 1662 obtained a grant of 3,700l. for services rendered by his father to Charles II (Cal. State Papers, 1662, p. 376). The same year he was appointed chief justice of Chester in succession to Sir Geoffrey Palmer, receiving on this occasion the honour of knighthood. He became king's Serjeant 20 May 1668. On 4 Feb. 1672–3 he was unanimously chosen speaker of the House of Commons, but the exciting debates which took place at this time rendered his duties so arduous that his health became affected, and after the house had adjourned on account of his indisposition from 15 Feb. to the 18th he, on its reassembling, desired 'leave to resign and retire into the country' (Parl. Hist, iv. 535). In a pamphlet entitled 'A Seasonable Argument,' &c., published in 1677, it is asserted that he gave up the speakership for a grant of 500l., but this grant was in reality made two years before, on 28 March 1671. In 1680 he was compelled to resign the chief justiceship of Chester in favour of Jeffreys, who had 'laid his eye on it,' because he was born at Acton, near Wrexham. Roger North, who refers to Charlton as 'an old cavalier, loyal, learned, grave, and wise,' states that he desired to die in that employment. 'But Jeffries, with his interest on the side of the Duke of York, pressed the king so hard that he could not stand it' {Life of Lord Guilford, ii. 10, 11). In lieu of that office Charlton was, 26 April 1680, made chief justice of the common pleas; but having given his opinion in opposition to the king's dispensing power (State Trials, ix. 592), he was removed from office 26 April 1680 (, Autobiography, 223). He was, however, restored to the chief justiceship of Chester, and on 12 May was created a baronet. He died at his seat at Ludford, Herefordshire, 29 May 1697. By his first wife, Dorothy, daughter and heiress of William Blundell of Bishop's Castle, he had four sons and three daughters, and by his second wife, Lettice, daughter of Walter Waring of Oldbury, he had one son and one daughter. The baronetcy became extinct with the fourth holder in 1784.



CHARLTON or CHERLETON, JOHN, first (d. 1353), sprang from a family that for several generations before his time had held of the abbey of Shrewsbury the manor of Charlton, in the parish of Wrockwardine, Shropshire. He was the son of Robert Charlton. Of his brothers, one, Alan, became the founder of the family of the Charltons of Apley, and another, [q. v.], was subsequently bishop of Hereford. His father's name disappearing from all records after 1300, it was probably then that John succeeded to the estates he is mentioned as possessing in 1306. In 1307 he was proxy for the men of Salop in the Carlisle parliament. Before 1308 he had become a knight. When he first attached himself to the court is unknown, but within three months of Edward II's accession he is spoken of by that king as 'dilectus valettus noster' in a charter that gave him the right of free warren on his demesne lands at Charlton and Pontesbury (18 Sept. 1307). In 1309 the dating of a power of attorney at Dublin suggests that he was serving in some Irish office. But on 25 June the death without issue of Gruffudd ap Owain, the representative of the old line of princes of Upper Powys (Powys Gwenwynwen), must have recalled him to the Welsh marches. He quickly obtained permission from Edward to many Hawyse, the sister and heiress of Gruffudd, and on 26 Aug. received livery of the castle of Welshpool (Powys Castle) and of the extensive domains of the Welsh chieftain. These had for several generations assumed, even under their Welsh rulers, the character of the adjacent lordships marcher, possessing, as Charlton himself claimed, every regalian right within their jurisdiction ('omnem regalem libertatem,' Rot. of. Parl. i. 355). Thus provided with rich estates, Charlton became one of Edward's most prominent and, for a time, faithful supporters. In 1310 he raised four hundred men for the abortive Scottish campaign of that year. In 131 he was excluded from office and court by the lords ordainers, and his sharing in the misfortunes of his sovereign probably led Gruffudd de la Pole, the uncle of Hawyse, to refuse to acquiesce any longer in holding as subtenant part of an estate the