WENTWORTH, PETER (153o-1596), English politician, was a prominent Puritan leader in parliament, which he first entered as member for Barnstaple in 1571. He was examined by the Star Chamber in connection with a speech delivered in parlia ment on Feb. 8, 1576, and spent some time in the Tower. He was enduring a third imprisonment in the Tower when he died on Nov. Io, 1596. While in the Tower he wrote A Pithie Exhortation to her Majesty for establishing her Successor to the Crown, a famous treatise preserved in the British Museum. Peter Went worth was twice married ; his first wife, by whom he had no chil dren, was a cousin of Catherine Parr, and his second a sister of Sir Frances Walsingham, Elizabeth's secretary of State. His third son, Thomas Wentworth (c. 1568-1623), recorder of Oxford, was an ardent opponent of royal prerogative in parliament, where he represented Oxford from 1604 until his death.
A grandson, SIR PETER WENTWORTH (1592-1675), represented Tamworth in the Long Parliament, but refused to act as a com missioner for the trial of Charles I. He was a member of the council of State during the Commonwealth; but was denounced for immorality by Cromwell in April 1653, and his speech in reply was interrupted by Cromwell's forcible expulsion of the Com mons. By his will he left a legacy to John Milton, and consider able estates to his grand-nephew Fisher Dilke, who took the name of Wentworth; and this name was borne by his descendants until dropped in the 18th century by Wentworth Dilke Wentworth, great-grandfather of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (q.v.).