Ronald John McNeill

“ Cleveland was described by Clarendon as “a man of signal courage and an excellent officer”; his cavalry charge at Cropredy Bridge was one of the most brilliant incidents in the Civil War, and it was by his bravery and presence of mind that Charles II. was enabled to escape from Worcester. At his death the earldom of Cleveland became extinct. He outlived his son Thomas (1613–1645) , who was called up to the House of Lords in his father’s lifetime as Baron Wentworth, and whose daughter Henrietta Maria became Baroness Wentworth in her own right on her grandfather’s death. ”

“ Another of Roger Wentworth’s sons. Sir Philip Wentworth, was the grandfather of Margery, wife of Sir John Seymour, mother of the Protector Somerset and of Henry VlII.’s wife Jane Seymour, and grandmother of King Edward VI. Margery’s brother Sir Robert Wentworth (d. 1528) married a daughter of Sir James Tyrrell, the reputed murderer of Edward V. and his brother in the Tower; and Sir Robert’s son by this marriage, Thomas Wentworth (1501–1551) , was summoned to parliament by writ in 1529 as Baron Wentworth of Nettlestead. ”

“ He was one of the peers who signed the letter to the pope in favour of Henry VIII.’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and was one of the judges of Anne Boleyn. He was lord chamberlain to Edward VI., and died in 1551 leaving sixteen children. ”