Family and Education

b. 1 May 1624, 1st s. of Sir Henry Mackworth, 2nd Bt., of Normanton by Mary, da. of Robert Hopton^† of Witham Friary, Som. and coh. to her bro. Sir Ralph Hopton^†, 1st Baron Hopton of Stratton. educ. travelled abroad (France, Low Countries) 1644-6. m. (1) Dorothy, da. of George Darell of Calehill, Little Chart, Kent, 1s. d.v.p. 2da.; (2) by 1661, Anne, da. of Humphrey Mackworth of Betton Grange, Salop, 4s. (3 d.v.p.) 4da. suc. fa. 24 Aug. 1640.1

Offices Held

Commr. for oyer and terminer, Midland circuit July 1660; j.p. Rutland July 1660-d., dep. lt. c. Aug. 1660-Mar. 1688, 1690-d.; commr. for assessment Rutland 1661-3, 1664-80, 1689-90, Leics. 1689, enclosures, Deeping fen 1665; sheriff, Rutland 1666-7.

Biography

Mackworth’s ancestor, who took his name from a village in Derbyshire and sat for that county in 1408 and 1418, acquired Normanton by marriage early in the 15th century, but the family had never previously sat for Rutland. Mackworth, a nephew of the Cavalier general, Sir Ralph Hopton, was himself a Royalist in the Civil War, although still under age. After a brief exile he compounded in 1648 for his delinquency, paying £879 at one-tenth. His estate was valued at £600 p.a. for the decimation tax. One of his brothers was killed in Booth’s rising, but he himself took no known part in royalist conspiracy, though at the Restoration he signed the loyal address from Rutland.2

Mackworth was returned for his county at the first general election of 1679, and classed ‘honest’ by Shaftesbury. His only committee in the first Exclusion Parliament was for an estate bill, and he was absent from the division on exclusion. It is not known whether he stood for re-election in August, but he regained his seat in a by-election after the death of Sir Abel Barker. He left no trace on the records of the second Exclusion Parliament, and lost his seat in 1681. But he recovered it four years later, and held it for the rest of his life. In James II’s Parliament he was moderately active. Of his three committees the most important was for the relief of insolvent debtors. As one of Hopton’s coheirs he petitioned against the bill for the relief of the Earl of Cleveland’s creditors. He presumably opposed the King’s religious policy, as he was omitted from the lieutenancy in 1688. Anthony Rowe listed him among those who voted to agree with the Lords that the throne was not vacant. He was given leave of absence on 28 Mar. 1689, and his only committee in the Convention was on the bill for the sale of the Duke of Buckingham’s estate. He was re-elected, presumably as a Tory, and buried at Empingham on 1 Dec. 1694. His only surviving son succeeded him as county Member and sat intermittently as a Tory until ruined by election expenses in 1727.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. Wards 7/94/199; Vis. Rutland (Harl. Soc. lxxiii), 11; Blore, Rutland, 128.
• 2. VCH Rutland, i. 200-1; ii. 145, 148; Cal. Comm. Comp. 1605; Thurloe, iv. 512.
• 3. CJ, ix. 733; Luttrell, iii. 408.