LITTLETON, SIR THOMAS, a judge of the common pleas, was the eldest son of Mr Thomas Westcote, 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 the universities, probably at Cambridge, and thence removed to the Inner Temple, where he became one of the readers. He was afterwards made steward or judge of the court of the palace, or marshalsea of the king's household, to Henry VI. In 1455, being the thirty-third of that reign, he was appointed king's sergeant, and travelled 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 went 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 a statue on it, was erected to his memory. As to his character as a lawyer, it is sufficient to state, 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.