Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 1st Baronet

His father, an MP for Norfolk, and elder half-brother, Col. Thomas Bedingfield (c. 1605–1685), were both active in the Royalist cause during the English Civil War and spent time in prison and with the exiles on the Continent. The family's estate was impoverished by the parliamentary exactions for their royalism and their recusancy.^[7] Following the restoration of Charles II, Col. Thomas Bedingfield began the process of attempting to recover his estate. In a petition to the King, he calculated the loss to be £60,000, of which he had been paid £21,000.^[8] Presumably as compensation for the unrecovered loss, as heir apparent to Thomas, Henry Bedingfield, a Captain in the King's Army, was created a baronet in January 1661 as his elder half-brother had no son.^[2]

In 1685, Henry inherited Oxburgh from his half-brother Thomas, although the hall was too dilapidated for habitation.^[9]

In April 1635, Bedingfeld married Margaret Paston (c. 1619–1703), a daughter of Frances Sydenham and Edward Paston of Appleton, Norfolk. Together, they were the parents of:^[2]

• Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 2nd Baronet (d. 1704), who accompanied Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester to England in 1660; he married Lady Anne Howard, a daughter of Charles Howard, 2nd Earl of Berkshire. After her death, he married Elizabeth Arundell, a daughter of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall.^[10]
• John Bedingfeld (d. 1693), who married Dorothy Ramsey, daughter and co-heiress of John Ramsey, Esq.^[10]
• Edward Bedingfeld, a barrister who married Mary Fisher, sister of Sir Clement Fisher, 3rd Baronet.^[11]
• Elizabeth Bedingfeld, who married Thomas Weetenhall Esq.^[10]
• Johanna Bedingfeld, who married Richard Caryll, Esq. of Harting, Sussex.^[10]
• Mary Bedingfeld, who married Thomas Eyre, Esq. of Hassop Hall, Derbyshire.^[10]
• Anne Bedingfeld, who became a Carmelite nun at Lierre.^[4]
• Margaret Bedingfeld, who also became a Carmelite nun at Lierre.^[4]

Sir Henry, who died on 24 February 1685, and his parents are commemorated by a monument erected by his widow in the Bedingfield chapel in St John's Church, Oxborough.^[12]

Through his eldest son Henry's second marriage to Elizabeth Arundell, he was a grandfather of Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 3rd Baronet (d. 1760), Margaret Bedingfeld (wife of Sir John Jerningham, 4th Baronet) and Frances Bedingfeld (wife of Sir Francis Anderton, 6th Baronet).^[11]

Through his son Edward, he was a grandfather of Mary Bedingfield, who married Sir John Swinburne, 3rd Baronet of Capheaton, Northumberland, a son of Sir William Swinburne, 2nd Baronet.^[11]