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 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 parliament. ...

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 Surrey, England, to the east of the River Mole. Esher is an outlying suburb of London near the London-Surrey Border, and with Esher Commons at its southern end, the town marks one limit of the Greater London Built-Up Ar ...

, and his wife Joan Tothill, daughter of William Tothill of

Shardeloes Shardeloes is a large 18th-century country house located one mile west of Amersham in Buckinghamshire, England (). A previous manor house on the site was demolished and the present building constructed between 1758 and 1766 for William Drake, ...

, Buckinghamshire. He studied under Charles Croke. He then went to

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

in 1624, where he befriended John Gregory, and was tutored by

George Morley George Morley, 27 February 1598 to 29 October 1684, was a senior member of the Church of England from London, who served as Bishop of Worcester from 1660 to 1662, and of Winchester from 1662 to 1684. Early life Morley was born in London, Eng ...

. 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 exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

, 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 within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, from Aylesbury and from High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt. ...

, which his father had represented in Parliament during the 1620s. At around the same time he bought office in the

Court of Common Pleas A court of common pleas is a common kind of court structure found in various common law jurisdictions. The form originated with the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster, which was created to permit individuals to press civil grievances against one ...

. 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 A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

in the

Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on the 20th of February 1640 and sat from 13th of April to the 5th of May 1640. It was so called because of its short life of only three weeks. Aft ...

.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 English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence. In Septem ...

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. They include the Bishops' Wars, the Irish Confederate Wars, the Second English Civil War, the Anglo ...

, 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 books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are simi ...

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), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

. As such they were purchased by

C. K. Ogden Charles Kay Ogden (; 1 June 1889 – 20 March 1957) was an English linguist, philosopher, and writer. Described as a polymath but also an eccentric and outsider, he took part in many ventures related to literature, politics, the arts, and philos ...

, who left them to

University College, London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

. 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