Nathaniel Barnardiston

Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston of Kedington, alias Ketton, Suffolk was an English landowner, magistrate and senior representative of a long-established knightly family, one of the wealthiest in Suffolk, who sat in the House of Commons for Sudbury twice and for the Shire three times between 1625 and 1648. Of Parliamentarian sympathies, he was considered an exceptional example of Christian piety in personal character and in the management of his household and of the parishes under his patronage, as much as in his rectitude and even-handedness in his public service, and in his loyalty to his nation despite his opposition to the policies of King Charles I. John Burke remarked that he was "esteemed the greatest ornament of his family", and cited Samuel Fairclough, who called him "one of the most eminent patriots of his time, and the twenty-third knight of his family". J.P. Ferris observed, "As a strong parliamentarian and a Presbyterian elder he was the dominant figure in Civil War Suffolk".