Sir William Drake, 1st Baronet (28 September 1606 – 28 August 1669) of Shardeloes, near Amersham, Buckinghamshire was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

between 1640 and 1648 and again from 1661 to 1669.

Life

Drake was the son of Francis Drake of

Esher Esher ( ) is a town in the borough of Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge in Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole, Surrey, River Mole. Esher is an outlying suburb of London, close to the London–Surrey border; with Esher Commons at its ...

, and his wife Joan Tothill, daughter of William Tothill of Shardeloes, Buckinghamshire. He studied under Charles Croke. He then went to

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church (, the temple or house, ''wikt:aedes, ædes'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by Henry V ...

in 1624, where he befriended John Gregory, and was tutored by George Morley. In 1626 he went to the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

, where his cousin John White was also

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

; in that year he inherited the Shardeloes estate from his mother's side of the family. Kevin Sharpe, ''Reading Revolutions: The politics of reading in Early Modern England'' (2000), pp. 69–71. Drake's father died in 1633, leaving his son Esher which was sold. In 1637 he purchased the manor of

Amersham Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, south-east of Aylesbury and north-east of High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. There ar ...

, which his father had represented in Parliament during the 1620s. At around the same time he bought office in the Court of Common Pleas. He was later (1652) a chirographer (the officer responsible for noting final concords and filing records of fines) to the court.John Burke ''A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain''
/ref> In April 1640, Drake was elected Member of Parliament for

in the

Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on 20 February 1640 and sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640. It was so called because of its short session of only three weeks. After 11 years of per ...

.History of Parliament Online – Drake, Sir William, 1st Bt.
/ref> He was knighted on 15 July 1641 and created baronet, of Shardeloes on 17 July 1641. He was re-elected to Amersham in 1641 in the

Long Parliament The Long Parliament was an Parliament of England, English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660, making it the longest-lasting Parliament in English and British history. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened f ...

and was excluded in

Pride's Purge Pride's Purge is the name commonly given to an event that took place on 6 December 1648, when soldiers prevented members of Parliament considered hostile to the New Model Army from entering the House of Commons of England. Despite defeat in the ...

in 1648. The exclusion was nominal, however: Drake was very unwilling to come off the fence at the beginning of the

First English Civil War The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An estimated 15% to 20% of adult males in England and Wales served in the military at some point b ...

, and in 1643 applied for leave to travel abroad. He was out of the country for most of the period to 1660. He was re-elected for Amersham in 1661 and held the seat until his death. Drake died unmarried at the age of 63 and his estates passed to his nephew Sir William Drake.

Legacy

A collection of

commonplace book Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into blank books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such book ...

s was discovered at Shardloes in 1643, but was first identified with William Tothill, who had served as steward to

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

. As such they were purchased by C. K. Ogden, who left them to

University College, London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. They were identified as Drake's in 1976. With other materials from the collections, manuscripts that have been identified subsequently, and some of Drake's books that have survived with annotations, Sharpe has called Drake's legacy "the greatest archival resource we have to chart how an early modern English gentleman read".Sharpe, pp. 73–5.

References

External links

Parliamentary Archives, Sir William Drake's Common-Place Book
, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Drake, William 1606 births 1669 deaths 17th-century English lawyers English MPs 1640 (April) English MPs 1640–1648 English MPs 1661–1679 Baronets in the Baronetage of England