LITTLETON, SIR THOMAS, judge of the common pleas, was the eldest son of Thomas Westcote, Esq. of the county of Devon, by Elizabeth, sole heiress of Thomas Littleton of Frankley in Worcestershire, at whose request he took the name and arms of that family. He was educated at one of our universities, probably at Cambridge. Thence he removed to the Inner-Temple, where he became one of the readers; and was afterwards, by Henry VI. made steward or judge of the court of the palace, or marshalsea of the king's household. In 1455, the thirty-third of that reign, he was appointed king's serjeant, and rode the northern circuit as judge of assize. In 1462, the second of Edward IV., he obtained a pardon from the crown; and, in 1466, was appointed one of the judges of the common pleas, and rode the Northamptonshire circuit. In the year 1474 he was, with many of the first nobility, created knight of the Bath. He died in 1481; and was buried in the cathedral church of Worcester, where a marble tomb, with his statue upon it, was erected to his memory. As to his character as a lawyer, it is sufficient to inform the reader, that he was the author of the Treatise upon tenures, on which Sir Edward Coke wrote a comment, well known by the title of Coke upon Littleton.