DIGHTON, Christopher (1559-1604), of High Street, Worcester

Dighton should be distinguished from a namesake, a Fenland sewer commissioner who was almost certainly a member of the Lincolnshire Dightons. C181/5, f. 75v; Lincs. Peds. ed. A.R. Maddison (Harl. Soc. l), 298-90. Another namesake was a customs searcher at Gravesend, in Kent. HCA 13/46, ff. 287, 296, 316, 489; CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 374. Christopher Dighton belonged to the tightly knit group of families that governed Worcester. His father and second father-in-law represented Worcester in Parliament and his father was high bailiff when the queen visited the city in 1574. Dighton’s sister Martha married Robert Abbot, later bishop of Salisbury and brother of the Jacobean archbishop of Canterbury. Although his father was a vintner, Dighton became a prominent member of the Clothiers’ Company. When his father died in 1587, Dighton’s elder half-brother John, who had taken holy orders, sold him their father’s house, which was almost certainly the inn or tavern subsequently called the Earl’s Post. Dighton probably supplied it with beer himself, since he referred to various malt houses in his will. Buchanan-Dunlop, 84-7; PROB 11/104, ff. 199v-200.

Dighton was elected to James’s first Parliament along with his brother-in-law, John Coucher, on 2 Mar. 1604. Chamber Bk. 82. On 20 Apr. he was named to the conference to discuss the Union and on 16 June he was appointed to consider a bill concerning tanners. CJ, i. 180a, 241a. He was replaced on the last day of the year, having died on 2 August. Chamber Bk. 87. In his will, dated 26 July 1604, he bequeathed his three daughters £200 each, and cancelled the debts of Robert Abbot and his sister Martha. The overseers of his will included Coucher, who acted as a witness. He asked to be buried near his father in St. Helen’s church. He appointed his wife as executrix, who proved his will on 23 Aug. 1604. None of his descendants sat in Parliament. PROB 11/104, ff. 199v-200.