Sir John Werden, 1st Baronet (also Worden) (1640 – 29 October 1716) was an English barrister, judge, politician, and diplomat.
Life
Born at
Cholmondeston,
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...
,
he was the eldest son of
Robert Werden, and his first wife, Jane Backham. He was
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 1660 at 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 ...
, and on 16 November 1664 was admitted baron of the exchequer for Cheshire.
Werden became secretary to the embassy in Spain and Portugal under the
Earl of Sandwich, and at the end of 1669 was sent to Holland with official instructions to
Sir William Temple to moderate his support for the
Triple Alliance, which
Charles II found untimely. In 1670 he went to Sweden as envoy extraordinary, but in 1672 he was again in Holland.
On 28 November 1672 Werden was created a baronet. He was also secretary to
James, Duke of York
James II and VII (14 October 1633 – 16 September 1701) was King of England and Monarchy of Ireland, Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II of England, Charles II, on 6 February 1 ...
, and took a shorthand report of
Titus Oates's's narrative before the
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...
. On 11 February 1673 he was returned to Parliament for
Reigate
Reigate ( ) is a town status in the United Kingdom, town in Surrey, England, around south of central London. The settlement is recorded in Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Cherchefelle'', and first appears with its modern name in the 1190s. The ea ...
in
Surrey
Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
, retaining his seat until the dissolution in January 1679. On 22 May 1683 he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the
university of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
. At this period Werden employed
John Ashton, the future
Jacobite plotter.
After the accession of
James II Werden was again returned to Parliament for Reigate, on 27 March 1685, and on 2 April was appointed a commissioner of customs. On the dissolution of Parliament in July 1687 he did not seek re-election. On 1 October 1688 he was placed on the commission of the lieutenancy of London, but on the landing of
William of Orange, like his father, he deserted the king; and in consequence was excluded by name from James's declaration of pardon in 1692. William continued him in the commission for the customs, but not for the lieutenancy of London. In August 1697 he was removed from the customs, but was replaced on the accession of
Queen Anne.
Werden was a Tory, and retired from office and public life in 1714 on the
Hanoverian succession
The Act of Settlement ( 12 & 13 Will. 3. c. 2) is an act of the Parliament of England that settled the succession to the English and Irish crowns to only Protestants, which passed in 1701. More specifically, anyone who became a Roman Catho ...
. He died on 29 October 1716, and was buried on 7 November in the church of
St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
Legacy
Some of Werden's letters written while he was secretary of the Duke of York went to the
British Museum
The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
, and later to the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
(in the
Stowe MSS.).
Family
Werden was twice married: first, to Lucy Osbourne, daughter of a doctor of divinity, and secondly to Mary (died 22 August 1683), daughter of William Osbourne of
Kennford, Devon. By his second wife he had an only son John, whose daughter Lucy married
Charles Beauclerk, 2nd Duke of St Albans; on the death of Sir John Werden, 2nd Baronet, without male issue, on 13 February 1758, the
Werden baronetcy became extinct, and his estates passed to
George Beauclerk, 3rd Duke of St Albans.
Notes
References
*
Attribution
* Endnotes:
**Burke's ''Extinct Baronetcies'', 1844;
**Wotton's ''English Baronetage'', 1741, iii. 548–50;
**''Hist. Reg. 1716'', p. 547;
**Pepys's ''Diary and Correspondence'', ed. Braybrooke, iv. 171;
**Foster's ''Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714'';
**Harleian ''MS. 2040'', f. 296.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Werden, John
1640 births
1716 deaths
English barristers
17th-century English diplomats
Baronets in the Baronetage of England
English MPs 1661–1679
English MPs 1685–1687