Oliver St John, 5th Baron St John of Bletso KB (1603 – 23 October 1642) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1624 to 1629 and in the House of Lords from 1639. He died fighting in the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War.
Education and family
St John was the son of Oliver St John, 1st Earl of Bolingbroke and his wife Elizabeth Paulet, daughter of William Paulet. He was baptised on 2 April 1603. St John was admitted a fellow commoner of Queens' College, Cambridge on 3 November 1615, and was presumably the Oliver St John granted a passport to travel to Europe in June 1617. He matriculated at Queens' in 1618 and was awarded an MA in 1620.
In 1623, St John married Arabella Egerton, daughter of John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater, by whom he had four daughters: 1. Frances St John married Sir William Beecher of Howberry. 2. Elizabeth St John married George Bennett of Cotsback 3. Arabella St John married Sir Edward Wyse of Sydenham 4. Dorothy St John married Francis Charlton of Apley Castle, Shropshire.
In the Commons
In February 1624, his father arranged his return to Parliament as knight of the shire for Bedfordshire, replacing Oliver's uncle Sir Beauchamp St John. St John's father owned large estates there and dominated the representation of the county; Oliver was returned alongside his father's first cousin, Sir Oliver Luke, who was likewise supported by the family interest.
On 27 April, St John certified to the House that there were no recusants holding office in his county, but does not otherwise appear in Parliamentary records. After his father was created Earl of Bolingbroke on 28 December, St John adopted the courtesy title of Lord St John of Bletsoe. Re-elected for Bedfordshire in 1625, he was more active in that Parliament, serving on several legislative committees. He was appointed a justice of the peace for Bedford, Bedfordshire, and Hertfordshire that year.
St John was again returned for Bedfordshire in January 1626, to the 2nd Parliament of King Charles I. On 1 February 1626, he was created a Knight of the Bath at Charles' coronation, shortly before Parliament assembled. In that Parliament, he was appointed to the Committee of Privileges, and also to the committee that punished Sir Thomas Hartopp, High Sheriff of Leicestershire, for interfering in his county's election. However, his Parliamentary activity centered on committees dealing with various aspects of the war with Spain, and he was an open critic of the Duke of Buckingham's conduct. That Parliament was dissolved on 15 June after framing a remonstrance against Buckingham, being unwilling to grant a supply to the King until the Duke was removed. Immediately after the dissolution, St John and others possessing copies of the remonstrance were ordered to surrender them for destruction, by Royal command, although a copy survives in his family's papers; and through the agency of the Duke, Luke and the St Johns were removed from the commissions of the peace.
In the interval between Parliaments, St John was admitted at Lincoln's Inn on 9 August 1627. He was returned to the House of Commons for the last time in February 1628, to the 3rd parliament of King Charles I. Surprisingly, despite the ongoing struggle between his family and the King (Sir Oliver Luke, Sir Beauchamp St John, and Bolingbroke had all refused to pay the forced loan of the previous year), St John had only a minor role in the assembly of the Petition of Right. He was again appointed to the committee of privileges, but engaged in little other Parliamentary business. He and his relatives were re-appointed to their commissions of the peace in December 1628, shortly after the murder of Buckingham. His inactivity in Parliament during 1629 may have reciprocated this pacific gesture, but continued to adhere to the popular party in the Commons, and applied for a license to visit the Parliamentary leader Sir John Eliot in the Tower of London, where Eliot was imprisoned after the dissolution of Parliament.
Debts and death
During the 1630s, he took part in his father's efforts to drain the Great Level, serving as a commissioner of sewers there from 1631 to 1636 or later, but was largely occupied in dealing with his own accumulation of debts.