Life

He was born on 17 September 1602, a younger son of Sir John Newdigate of Arbury Hall

Arbury Hall

Arbury Hall is a Grade I listed country house in Nuneaton in Warwickshire, England, and is the ancestral home of the Newdigate family, later the Newdigate-Newdegate and Fitzroy-Newdegate families....

, in the parish of Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire

Warwickshire

Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

, by Anne Fitton, eldest daughter of Sir Edward Fitton, baronet, of Gawsworth

Gawsworth

Gawsworth is a civil parish and village in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is one of the eight ancient parishes of Macclesfield Hundred. Twenty acres of the civil parish were transferred to Macclesfield civil parish in 1936The country houses...

 in Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

. John Newdegate was his grandfather. Matriculating at Trinity College, Oxford

Trinity College, Oxford

The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...

, on 6 November 1618, he left the university without a degree, and entered in 1620 Gray's Inn

Gray's Inn

The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...

, where he was called to the bar in 1628, elected an ancient in 1645, and a bencher in 1649. He was High Steward of the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield from 1646 until his death.

Newdigate was counsel with William Prynne

William Prynne

William Prynne was an English lawyer, author, polemicist, and political figure. He was a prominent Puritan opponent of the church policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Although his views on church polity were presbyterian, he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for...

 and John Bradshaw

John Bradshaw (judge)

John Bradshaw was an English judge. He is most notable for his role as President of the High Court of Justice for the trial of King Charles I and as the first Lord President of the Council of State of the English Commonwealth....

 on behalf of the state in the proceedings taken against Connor Maguire, 2nd Baron of Enniskillen

Connor Maguire, 2nd Baron of Enniskillen

Connor Maguire, 2nd Baron of Enniskillen was an Irish nobleman from Ulster who took part in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. He was executed for high treason.-Life:...

, and other Irish rebels in 1644–5. He was also one of the counsel for the eleven members impeached by Thomas Fairfax in June 1647. On 9 February 1653–4 he was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law

Serjeant-at-law

The Serjeants-at-Law was an order of barristers at the English bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law , or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are writs dating to 1300 which identify them as descended from figures in France prior to the Norman Conquest...

, and on 31 May following was made a justice of the upper bench, in which capacity he was placed on the special commission for the trial of the Yorkshire insurgents on 5 April 1655. He declined to serve, on the ground that levying war against the Lord Protector

Lord Protector

Lord Protector is a title used in British constitutional law for certain heads of state at different periods of history. It is also a particular title for the British Heads of State in respect to the established church...

 Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

 was not within the statute of treason

Treason

In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...

; and in consequence was removed from his place (3 May), and resumed practice at the bar. He was, however, reinstated before 26 June 1657, when he attended, as justice of the upper bench, the ceremony of the reinvestiture of the Protector in Westminster Hall.

Newdigate was continued in office during Richard Cromwell

Richard Cromwell

At the same time, the officers of the New Model Army became increasingly wary about the government's commitment to the military cause. The fact that Richard Cromwell lacked military credentials grated with men who had fought on the battlefields of the English Civil War to secure their nation's...

's protectorate; and after his abdication, on 17 January 1660 was advanced to be Lord Chief Justice

Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales

The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary and President of the Courts of England and Wales. Historically, he was the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, but that changed as a result of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005,...

. Anticipating his dismissal on the Restoration, he had himself to returned to the Convention parliament

Convention Parliament

A Convention Parliament is a parliament in English history which, owing to an abeyance of the Crown, assembled without formal summons by the Sovereign...

. On 5 April 1660 he was among the ‘old serjeants remade,’ and was briefly, in 1660, MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Tamworth

Tamworth (UK Parliament constituency)

Tamworth is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.- History :...

, Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

.

He was a successful and wealthy barrister. In 1675 he added the Warwickshire manor of Arbury, to which he had succeeded in 1642 on the death of his elder brother, that of Harefield, Middlesex, the ancient seat of his family, which had been alienated in the preceding century by his grandfather, a debtor, in a deal for Arbury with Edmund Anderson

Edmund Anderson

Sir Edmund Anderson , Chief Justice of the Common Pleas under Elizabeth I, sat as judge at the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.-Life:The Anderson family originated in Scotland and then came to Northumberland...

. On 24 July 1677 a baronetcy was conferred on him by Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 without payment of the ordinary fees.

He died at Harefield Manor on 14 October 1678, and was buried in Harefield parish church, where a monument was raised to his memory.

Family

Newdigate married, in 1631, Juliana, daughter of Sir Francis Leigh, K.B., of King's Newnham

King's Newnham

King's Newnham is a hamlet and civil parish in the English county of Warwickshire.It lost its population as a result of enclosures of the former Royal Manor. Its parish church, St Laurence's, was partially demolished in 1795...

, Warwickshire, and had issue six sons and five daughters. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Richard (d. 1710), whose son, Sir Richard, third baronet, was father of Sir Roger Newdigate.