HARTOPP, Sir Edward, 1st Bt. (1572-1655), of Buckminster, Leics.

Hartopp came from a Leicestershire yeoman family that both rose and spread spectacularly in the sixteenth century. His great-grandfather headed the subsidy roll at Burton Lazars in east Leicestershire in 1524, his father and brother founded branches nearby at Freeby and Little Dalby, and the family became armigerous in 1596. W.G. Hoskins, ‘Leics. Farmer in the Sixteenth Century’, Trans. Leics. Arch. Soc. xxii. 64; Nichols, ii. 280; VCH Leics. ii. 209; Grantees of Arms ed. W.H. Rylands (Harl. Soc. lxvi), 117. Unlike his elder brothers, Hartopp was not sent to the inns of court, and probably took to soldiering in the Low Countries at an early age. He inherited the manor of Freeby after the death of his brother Thomas in 1604 and attached himself to the Hastings interest, supporting the 5th earl of Huntingdon in 1611 over the appointment to the county bench of Sir John Bale, who came from an equally recent family. ‘Depopulation Returns for Leics. in 1607’, p. 255; HEHL, HA5436. Huntingdon, as lord lieutenant, appointed him one of the county’s militia captains, and in 1614 he bought Buckminster, which became his principal residence. Nichols, ii. 123. However, he lost his captaincy when the militia was reorganized in 1616 and, apart from serving as sheriff in 1617-18, he held no further local office until the 1640s, although he was able to acquire a baronetcy in 1619. T. Cogswell, Home Divisions, 112; Nichols, ii. 267; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 98.

By the late 1620s Hartopp seems to have entered the circle of Henry, 2nd Lord Grey of Groby. Reporting on preparations for the Leicestershire election of 1628, Sir Wolstan Dixie* informed Huntingdon that he relied on Lord Grey to ‘procure Sir Edward Hartopp his presence’ at the hustings. Hartopp was subsequently elected for the county alongside Huntingdon’s son Ferdinando, Lord Hastings, which suggests that a deal was struck between Huntingdon and Grey. The first of his family to sit, Hartopp played no known part in the third Caroline Parliament. Procs. 1628, vi. 154-5;

Hartopp’s son Edward was knighted in 1634, married the daughter of secretary of state (Sir) John Coke*, and commanded a regiment in the parliamentary army during the Civil War. Hartopp himself also supported Parliament, serving on several of its local commissions, as a result of which the royalists seized his estate. He was buried at Buckminster on 10 Jan. 1655. Nicholas, ii. 127-8; HMC Cowper, ii. 331; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 82; CCAM, 396. His will, dated 29 Sept. 1654, was proved on 21 Mar. 1655. PROB 11/250, ff. 347v-8v. His grandson represented Leicestershire in the three Exclusion Parliaments as a Whig. HP Commons, 1660-1690, ii. 503.