descendant of an ancient Norfolk family, was mayor of Norwich in 1582 (see Egerton MS. 2713), and represented that city in parliament in 1586. He married in 1559 Elizabeth (d. 1569), daughter of William Barwick. Their eldest son, Edmond Suckling (the poet's uncle), was dean of Norwich from 1614 until his death, at the age of seventy-two, in July 1628 (Le Neve, Fasti, ii. 476). In 1618 he drew up a protest against Archbishop Abbot's visitation of the see (cf. Addit. MS. 32092, f. 308). The poet's father, Sir John Suckling (1569–1627), entered Gray's Inn on 22 May 1590 (Foster, Register, p. 77), and was returned to parliament for the borough of Dunwich in 1601 (Members of Parl. i. 440). In 1602 he was acting as secretary to the lord treasurer, Sir Robert Cecil, and in December 1604 he became receiver of fines on alienations, in succession to Sir Arthur Aty (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–10, pp. 162, 175, 377). In the parliament of 1614 he appears to have sat for Reigate (Members of Parl. App. p. xl). He was knighted by James I at Theobalds on 22 Jan. 1615–16 (Metcalfe, Knights, p. 166); in February 1620 he became a master of requests, and in 1622 he was appointed comptroller of the royal household, ‘paying well for the post.’ The position was doubtless a very lucrative one in the hands of a man like Suckling, who had hitherto let slip no opportunity of accumulating manors, fee-farms, and advowsons in various parts of the country (State Papers, Dom. 1619–23, pp. 161, 434; several of his official commissions are preserved in Addit. MS. 34324 ff. 230–2). In September 1621 he had been mentioned as Weston's most serious competitor for the chancellorship of the exchequer (Sydney Papers, 1746, ii. 353, 364), and in March 1622 he was actually promoted to be secretary of state, while Charles I, upon his accession three years later, created him a privy councillor. In 1623 he elected to serve in parliament as member for Middlesex, having been elected not only for that county, but also for Lichfield and Kingston-on-Hull. In 1625 he represented Yarmouth, and in 1626 he elected to sit for Norwich in preference to Sandwich (Members of Parl. pp. 465, 470, 473). This was in Charles's second parliament, and he died on 27 March 1627.
The poet's mother was Martha, daughter of Thomas Cranfield, citizen and mercer of London, by Martha, daughter of Vincent Randill; she was thus sister to Lionel Cranfield [q. v.], who was in 1622 created first Earl of Middlesex. The poet is said, upon the somewhat dubious testimony of Aubrey, to have inherited his wit from her, his comely person from his father. Dame Martha Suckling died on 28 Oct. 1613, aged 35, her son John being then but four and a half years old (see inscriptions upon family tombs in St. Andrew's, Norwich, ap. Blomefield, Norfolk, iv. 307–311). She also left Martha, who married Sir George Southcott of Shillingford, Devonshire, and, after his suicide in 1638, married as her second husband William Clagett of Isleworth, and died at Bath on 29 June 1661 (she is said to have been the favourite sister of the poet, who sent her a consolatory letter in 1638); Anne, who married Sir John Davis of Bere Court (Le Neve, Pedigrees of Knights, p. 162), and died on 24 July 1659; Mary and Elizabeth, who died unmarried (cf. monument in Pangbourne church, Oxfordshire). After his first wife's death the elder Sir John married Jane, widow of Charles Hawkins, and originally of the Suffolk family of Reve or Reeve. At her instance about 1600 he purchased the estate of Roos or Rose Hall, near Beccles, and to her he left this manor, together with his house in Dorset Court, Fleet Street. He was anxious that after his death his son should purchase from his stepmother the reversion of the manor of Rose Hall; but the poet failed to do so, and when the widow took as her third husband Sir Edwyn Rich, knight, of Mulbarton, Norfolk, she carried the estate into that family (for this somewhat obscure transfer of property, see Suckling, Hist. of Suffolk, i. 29; cf. Davy, Suffolk Collections, vol. lxxiv.).
The only reason for supposing that Suckling was educated at Westminster seems to be that Aubrey made a memorandum to question Dr. Busby about the matter. At sixteen he went to Cambridge, matriculating from Trinity College as a fellow-commoner on 3 July 1623. He took no degree, and, though Davenant speaks in extravagant terms of his proficiency as a scholar, it seems safer to conclude with Isaac Reed that his learning was polite rather than profound. He is said to have had a very good ear for music, and with this went, as is often the case, a marked linguistic faculty. Suckling was admitted of Gray's Inn on 23 Feb. 1626–7 (Foster, Register, p. 180). His father's death, on 27 March following, made him heir to rich estates in Suffolk, Lincolnshire, and Middlesex, and enabled him to cut a considerable figure at court. Among his associates would appear to have been Sir Tobie Matthew [q. v.], Thomas Nabbes (who dedicated his play of ‘Covent Garden’ to him in 1638), Wye Saltonstall [q. v.] (who dedicated to him his translation of Ovid's ‘Epistolæ de Ponto’ in 1639), ‘Tom’ Carew, ‘Dick’ Lovelace, and ‘Jack’ Bond. He was
