of the de Vere family for over five hundred years, and, among other landholdings, he also owned the manors of Haddock, Littlebury, and Balsham, all near Saffron Walden in Essex.

In 1588 Sutton contributed £100 to defend the realm against the Spanish Armada, and it has been suggested he owned, and perhaps commanded, The Sutton, a barque of seventy tons and thirty men out of Weymouth,