Peter Legh (died 1642)

Peter Legh (born circa 1622/23[1]-died 2 February 1642) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1640 and his death in 1642. He died after fighting a duel.

Legh of Lyme Hall, Cheshire, was the grandson of Sir Peter Legh, MP for Wigan in 1586 and 1589. His father, Piers,[2] died while he was a child and he succeeded to his grandfather's estates on 17 February 1636.[3] He was sent to a grammar school at Amersham, Buckinghamshire under Dr Robert Challenor and then to Oriel College, Oxford,[4] which he entered on 25 January 1638/39 aged sixteen.[2]

In November 1640, Legh, aged about seventeen,[4] was elected Member of Parliament for Newton in the Long Parliament.[5] On 27 January 1642 he attended a play and after a mistaken piece of horseplay was injured in a duel by Valentine Browne, a student of Gray's Inn and nephew of Lord Herbert of Cherbury,[4] and died six days later[6] at a lodging in Acton, Middlesex.[7] He was buried at Winwick, Cheshire.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Based on his alleged age of 16 on entry to Oxford University in 1638/9, see Foster's Alumni Oxonienses (cited elsewhere).
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Foster, Joseph (1892). Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714, Volume II Labdon-Zouch. Parker & Company, Oxford. p. 898.Entry reference Peter Le(i)gh.
  3. ↑ William Duncombe Pink, Alfred B. Beaven The parliamentary representation of Lancashire, (county and borough), 1258-1885, with biographical and genealogical notices of the members, &c. (1889)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Evelyn Caroline Bromley-Davenport The House of Lyme
  5. ↑ Willis, Browne (1750). Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ... London. pp. 229–239.
  6. ↑ Andrew Gurr Playgoing in Shakespeare's London
  7. ↑ Bromley Davenport, The House of Lyme. The writer believed this as the clergyman, Dr Featley, who attended him, was then Vicar of Acton which she held was the parish in which he died.
Parliament of England
Preceded by
Sir Richard Wynn, 2nd Baronet
William Sherman		 Member of Parliament for Newton
1640
With: William Ashurst		 Succeeded by
William Ashurst
Sir Roger Palmer