He was the eldest son of Henry Mordaunt, 4th Baron Mordaunt , a Roman Catholic kept for a year in the Tower of London on suspicion of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot , who died in 1610.[ 1] Henry Compton, 1st Baron Compton , also a Catholic, was deprived by James I of the custody of her child John. He was made a ward of Archbishop George Abbot , and educated at Oxford.[ 2]
Taken to court by the king, who was struck by his beauty and intelligence, John was made a K.B. on the occasion of Prince Charles being created Prince of Wales , 3 November 1616, and was remitted an unpaid fine of £10,000 which had been imposed on his father. By Charles I, he was created Earl of Peterborough , by letters patent of 9 March 1628.[ citation needed ]
On the outbreak of the First English Civil War he adhered to the parliament, and held the commission of general of the ordnance under the Earl of Essex , but he died of consumption , on 18 June 1642. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Howard, 3rd Baron Howard of Effingham , he left two sons: Henry Mordaunt, 2nd Earl of Peterborough and John , afterwards Lord Mordaunt of Reigate and Viscount Mordaunt of Avalon; and a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Thomas, son and heir to Edward Howard, 1st Lord Howard of Escrick . Lady Peterborough was a noted beauty but was also famed for piety: she was a close friend of James Ussher , Archbishop of Armagh , who spent his last years in her house. She died in 1671.[ citation needed ]
