Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 1st Baronet
Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 1st Baronet (1620–1707) was an English Whig Member of Parliament and deputy governor of the East India Company. He was the defendant in some high-profile legal cases and involved in a highly contentious parliamentary election. Life Born 23 June 1620, he was the third son of Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston and Jane (née Soame) Barnardiston. He joined the London apprentices in 1640 in the rioting that took place at Westminster on the appointment of Colonel Thomas Lunsford as constable of the Tower of London. According to an anecdote of Paul de Rapin, Barnardiston's prominence in the crowd of apprentices with distinctive haircuts on this occasion gave rise to the political use of the word Roundhead, when Queen Henrietta Maria called out "See what a handsome young Roundhead is there!" Barnardiston became a Levant merchant, and in 1649 and 1650 he was residing at Smyrna as agent for the Levant Company, in whose service he became rich. He took no active part in the civil wars, but passed time during the Protectorate in Suffolk. At Brightwell, near Ipswich, he purchased a large estate, and built a large house known as Brightwell Hall. Barnardiston's household had a Puritan chaplain; in