William Shippen (''bap''. 30 July 1673 – 1 May 1743) was an English

Jacobite Jacobite means follower of Jacob or James. Jacobite may refer to: Religion * Jacobites, followers of Saint Jacob Baradaeus (died 578). Churches in the Jacobite tradition and sometimes called Jacobite include: ** Syriac Orthodox Church, sometimes ...

and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1707 to 1743. Shippen was educated at

Stockport Grammar School Stockport Grammar School is a co-educational independent day school in Stockport, England. Founded in 1487 by former Lord Mayor of London Sir Edmund Shaa, it is the second oldest in the North of England, after Lancaster Royal Grammar School, ...

, and entered

Brasenose College, Oxford Brasenose College (BNC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It began as Brasenose Hall in the 13th century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the mi ...

on 16 July 1687. Shortly one year after his matriculation he was elected king's scholar at Westminster. Admitted a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge on 26 June 1691 he became a scholar there the next year. Shippen went to the Middle Temple in 1693 and graduated with a BA the year after and was called to the bar in 1699., Stephen W. Baskerville, �
Shippen, William (bap. 1673, d. 1743)
��, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 7 Dec 2009. On 17 July 1712 he married Frances Stote (''d''. 1747), daughter of Sir Richard Stote of Jesmond Hall, Northumberland. Shippen made several contributions to the fierce propaganda war between Tories and Whigs in the early 18th century. In reign of Queen Anne he wrote and published two satirical poems, ''Faction Display'd'' (1704) and ''Moderation Display'd'' (1705). Both were successful, running into several editions and provoking Whig counterattacks. Stephen W. Baskerville, �
Shippen, William (bap. 1673, d. 1743)
��, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 7 Dec 2009. Years later, in 1732, Shippen produced a prose defence of Charles I.Stephen W. Baskerville, �
Shippen, William (bap. 1673, d. 1743)
��, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 7 Dec 2009. Shippen was Member of Parliament for

Bramber Bramber is a former manor, village and civil parish in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It has a ruined mediaeval castle which was the ''caput'' of a large feudal barony. Bramber is located on the northern edge of the South Downs ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

from 1707 to 1713 under the patronage of Lord Plymouth. He was elected member for Saltash, Cornwall at the

1713 general election Events January–March * January 17 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore leads the Carolina militia out of Albemarle County, North Carolina, in a second offensive against the Tuscarora. Heavy snows force the troops to take re ...

. At the

1715 general election Events For dates within Great Britain and the British Empire, as well as in the Russian Empire, the "old style" Julian calendar was used in 1715, and can be converted to the "new style" Gregorian calendar (adopted in the British Empire i ...

he was elected MP for Newton, Lancashire which he represented for the rest of his life. In the Commons Shippen often 'distinguished himself, speaking forcefully in debates...His purpose throughout was to advance the Stuart cause by any means that seemed likely to prove effective'.Stephen W. Baskerville, �
Shippen, William (bap. 1673, d. 1743)
��, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 7 Dec 2009. In 1717 Shippen criticised George I's speech as "rather...calculated for the Meridian of Germany, then for Great Britain" and called King George "a Stranger to our Language and Constitution". The House resolved that Shippen had said words "highly dishonourable to, and unjustly reflecting on, his Majesty's Person & Government" and he was sent to the Tower of London on 4 December 1717. In March the next year he wrote to the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, informing him that all his wishes would be obeyed "with the utmost pleasure as well as fidelity". In mid-1721 Shippen, as the main go-between of English and Scottish Jacobites, met George Lockhart in Newcastle in order to come to an agreement on the best way to correspond. In 1740, however, Shippen was dropped from the Pretender's correspondence with English Jacobites for a French-backed rising due to the way he "trembles, and infuses his fears into the gentlemen to whom the King

he Pretender He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

wrote". In February 1741 Shippen absented himself from the Commons rather than vote for Samuel Sandys's motion for Sir

Robert Walpole Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader ...

's removal from office, declaring: "Robin and I are two honest men, he is for King George and I for King James; but those men with the long cravats only desire places either under King George or King James". He further commented that he would not "pull down Robin on republican principles".Eveline Cruickshanks, ''Political Untouchables; The Tories and the '45'' (London: Duckworth, 1979), p. 26. He died childless in 1743.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shippen, William 1673 births 1743 deaths People from Stockport People educated at Stockport Grammar School Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Members of the Middle Temple English Jacobites Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1707–1708 British MPs 1708–1710 British MPs 1710–1713 Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for constituencies in Cornwall British MPs 1713–1715 British MPs 1715–1722 British MPs 1722–1727 British MPs 1727–1734 British MPs 1734–1741 British MPs 1741–1747