Background
Hagthorpe was the son of Rowland Hagthorpe (died 1593) of Nettlesworth in the parish of Chester-le-Street, County Durham, by his first wife, Clare, daughter of Sir Ralph Hedworth, of Harraton in the same county. He married Judith, daughter of Anthony Wye, who had a lawsuit in 1605 with Elizabeth Saltonstall, mother of Wye Saltonstall, the poet. On 27 February 1608, being then of Whixley, Yorkshire, he surrendered certain copyhold lands in Chester-le-Street to the use of Henry Thompson and Jane his wife, who was his father"s widow.
Career
He was baptised 12 February 1585. In his writings he refers to the time when he lived in Scarborough Castle, Yorkshire. In 1607 he sold his manor and estate of Nettlesworth to John Claxton.
He does not seem to have profited by these transactions, for he complains bitterly in the dedication of his ‘Divine Meditations’ to James I of poverty caused by lawsuits in which he had been worsted.
He added that there was not a man named Hagthorpe in England "beside myself and mine." If this statement be literally true he must be identical with the Captain John Hagthorpe who, on 22 April 1626, was certified by Robert Hemsworth as a fit person to command "one of the ships to waft the cloth fleet to the East land". During the same year Captain Hagthorpe did good service in protecting the Hull ships bound for Holland against the attacks of the "Dunkirkers".
He had also taken part in the Cadiz expedition of 1625, and with four other captains petitioned Duke of Buckingham on 20 September 1626 for payment of the king"s gratuity of one hundred nobles. A week later he was charged by William Hope, gunner of the Rose of Woodbridge, with illegally selling ship"s stores, a course he was probably driven to adopt on account of the persistent neglect of the admiralty to furnish him with victuals and beer.