Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex (1575 – 6 August 1645) was an English merchant and politician. He sat in the House of Commons between 1614 and 1622 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Cranfield.
Life
He was the second son of Thomas Cranfield, a mercer at London, and his wife Martha Randill, the daughter and heiress of Vincent Randill of Sutton-at-Hone, Kent. He was apprenticed to Richard Sheppard, a mercer in London and went into partnership with him in around 1599. He was introduced to King James I and VI of England and Scotland by Lord Northampton, and entered the Royal service in 1605.
Cranfield was appointed Receiver-General of rents and revenues from royal lands in Dorset and Somerset by letters patent in 1605. This included the manors in the jointure lands given to Anne of Denmark. Much of the work was done by Randolph Baron, Sheriff of Bath, who served as deputy collector, and by clerks employed in London. A part of the income was used to pay the keepers of Portland Castle and Sandsfoot Castle. Some of Cranfield's receivership papers survive.
In 1613, he was knighted and was appointed Surveyor-General of Customs. He was elected Member of Parliament for Hythe in 1614. In 1616 he became one of the Masters of Requests, briefly in 1618 Keeper of the Great Wardrobe and in 1619 Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries and Chief Commissioner of the Navy.
He was elected MP for Arundel in 1621. Cranfield was responsible for many economies in the public service, and his business acumen was very useful to the King.
He took part in the attack on Lord St Alban in 1621, and although, contrary to general expectation, he did not succeed him as Lord Chancellor, he was created Baron Cranfield, of Cranfield in the County of Bedford, in July of that year. In 1621 also he became Lord High Treasurer and in September 1622 was created Earl of Middlesex.
Family
thumb|125px|left|Frances Cranfield (1622–1687)
Cranfield married Richard Sheppard's daughter Elizabeth in 1599. His second wife was Anne Brett (died 1670), a cousin of Buckingham's mother, whom he married somewhat reluctantly in 1621 in order to ensure Buckingham's support. Cranfield unsuccessfully tried to promote Anne's brother Arthur Brett as a royal favourite.
His heir was James Cranfield, 2nd Earl of Middlesex (1621–1651), who succeeded him as 2nd Earl and was a partisan of the parliamentary party during the English Civil War. The 2nd Earl was succeeded by his brother, Lionel, who died without issue in October 1674, thereafter the Earldom of Middlesex and Barony of Cranfield became extinct.
The 1st Earl's youngest surviving daughter, Frances, married Lord Buckhurst, later 5th Earl of Dorset, and their eldest son, Charles, by then Lord Buckhurst, was created Earl of Middlesex in 1675. Two years later he succeeded as 6th Earl of Dorset, and this Earldom of Middlesex was held by the Earls and then Dukes of Dorset until 1843, when it became extinct.