24 Facts About Richard Ottley

Sir Richard Ottley was an English Royalist politician and soldier who served as a youth in the English Civil War in Shropshire.

The Ottley family were part of the landed gentry of Shropshire and claimed descent from the more ancient Ottleys of Oteley, near Ellesmere, Shropshire.

However, Thomas Richard Ottley, the ancestor who bought Pitchford Hall in 1473, was a Merchant of the Staple with a house in Calais as well as in Shrewsbury.

Richard Ottley had a brother, Adam, who was born in 1628 and a sister, Mary, who was born in 1630.

Richard Ottley, who was commissioned a captain in the royalist army, served under his father in the Shrewsbury garrison.

Richard Ottley was removed by Prince Rupert in the summer of 1644.

Richard Ottley was present at the siege of Bridgnorth in 1646 and was covered by the surrender agreement negotiated by his father, which allowed the Royalist garrison to choose between peace and exile.

The estates of both Sir Francis and Lady Richard Ottley had been sequestrated by Parliament.

Lady Richard Ottley used the good offices of a friend and relative, Elinor Davenport, in contacting the sequestrators over furnishings and clothing.

Richard Ottley spent a considerable part of this time in London with his father, often having to attend Goldsmiths' Hall, where the Committee for Compounding with Delinquents was housed.

Lettice Richard Ottley was by this time pregnant with their second child, as one of her great aunts, Cassandra Willoughby of Wollaton Hall noted shortly afterwards in a letter.

Richard Ottley seems thereafter to have been mainly quiescent during the rule of Oliver Cromwell.

Mackworth recommended that Richard Ottley pay up, as Cromwell was exasperated by royalists because of the recent rising.

Apparently Richard Ottley decided to wait on events and Moloy's petition to Cromwell portrayed her as the daughter of a hero of the Nine Years' War in Ireland who had taken refuge in England during the Civil War.

Richard Ottley released Waring after a short time, as he was not persuaded there were good grounds or valid warrant for his detention.

Richard Ottley's intervention sent Jones back to Shrewsbury, where he tried to get all vacant places on the council immediately filled with supporters.

Richard Ottley's election was almost certainly the result of Newport's influence.

Richard Ottley was a member of no less than 230 committees.

Richard Ottley was on the committee that steered the Act of Uniformity 1662.

Richard Ottley was a member of the committees for the Conventicle Act 1664 and a second Corporations Act, both elaborating the Clarendon Code which bore down on both Catholics and Protestant Nonconformists.

Richard Ottley had been one of the commissioners implementing the scheme in Shropshire.

Richard Ottley's arrears were remitted shortly before he died in 1670, although Scriven did not settle his debt until 1682.

Richard Ottley was married to Lady Lettice Ridgeway, daughter of Robert Ridgeway, 2nd Earl of Londonderry.

Richard and Lady Lettice Ottley had six sons and one daughter, five of whose baptisms are recorded in the Pitchford parish register.