Sir Peter Wentworth
SIR PETER WENTWORTH (1592-1675) was a grandson of Peter Wentworth, being the son of Peter's eldest son Nicholas, from whom he inherited the manor of Lillingstone Lovell. As sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1634 he was charged with the duty of collecting the levy of ship-money, in which he encountered popular opposition. He was member for Tamworth in the Long Parliament, but refused to act as a commissioner for the trial of Charles I. He was a member of the council of state during the Commonwealth; but was denounced for immorality by Cromwell in April 1653, and his speech in reply was interrupted by Cromwell's forcible expulsion of the. Commons. Sir Peter, who was a friend of Milton, died on the 1st of December 1675, having never been married. By his will he left a legacy to Milton, and considerable estates to his grand-nephew Fisher Dilke, who took the name of Wentworth; and this name was borne by his descendants until dropped in the 18th century by \\Yntworth Dilke Wentworth, great-grandfather of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (q.v.).
See W. L. Rutton, Three Branches of the Family of Wentworth of Nettlestead (London, 1891); Joseph Foster, Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire (2 vols., London, 1874) ; Charles Wriothesley, Chronicle of England during the Reigns of the Tudors, edited by W. P. Hamilton (2 vols., London, 1875-1877); Bulstrode Whitelocke, Memorials of the English Affairs: Charles I. to the Restoration (London, 1732); John Strype, Annals of the Reformation (7 vols., Oxford, 1824) ; Mark Noble, Lives of the English Regicides (2 vols., London, 1798) containing; a memoir of Sir Peter Wentworth; Lord Clarendon, History of the Rebellion (7 vols., Oxford, 1839), and Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers ; S. R. Gardiner, History of England from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak of the Civil War (10 vols., London, 1883-1884), and History of the Great Civil War, 1642-1649 (3 vols., London, 1886-1891); 1. A. Froude, History of England (12 vols., London, 1856-1870); G. E. C., Complete Peerage, vol. viii. (London, 1898). See also articles " Wentworth " by A. F. Pollard, C. H. Firth and Sir C. W. Dilke, in Diet. Nat. Biog. (London, 1899). (R. J. M.)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
