Sir Henry Wood, 1st Baronet (1597 - 25 May 1671) was an English courtier 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 ...

from 1661 to 1671. Wood was the son of Thomas Wood, of Hackney, Middlesex, and his wife Susanna Cranmer, daughter of a merchant of London, and was baptised at Hackney on 17 October 1597. His father was Sergeant of the Pastry and died on 18 May 1649. Wood was Clerk of the Spicery in the Royal Household. He purchased the estate of Loudham Park in Ufford and other lands in Suffolk, producing "a rental of nearly £4,500 a year". George Edward Cokayne ''Complete Baronetage, Volume 3'' 1900
/ref> He was the brother of Thomas Wood, later

Bishop of Lichfield The Bishop of Lichfield is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lichfield in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers 4,516 km2 (1,744 sq. mi.) of the counties of Powys, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and West M ...

. Wood attended the King's court at Oxford in 1643, during 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 was knighted there on 16 April 1644. In that year he accompanied the Queen, Henrietta Maria, to France, as Treasurer of her Household, an office he retained till his death. He compounded on 31 May 1649 and was fined £273 by Cromwell's authority on 15 June 1649. In about 1657 he was created a

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

by Charles II, when in exile. At the Restoration he was appointed as

Clerk of the Green Cloth The Clerk of the Green Cloth was a position in the British Royal Household. The clerk acted as secretary of the Board of Green Cloth, and was therefore responsible for organising royal journeys and assisting in the administration of the Royal H ...

. He attended Queen Catharine on her voyage from Lisbon in 1661, and was subsequently a member of her Council. In 1661, he was elected one of the Members of Parliament for

Hythe Hythe, from Anglo-Saxon ''hȳð'', may refer to a landing-place, port or haven, either as an element in a toponym, such as Rotherhithe in London, or to: Places Australia * Hythe, Tasmania Canada *Hythe, Alberta, a hamlet in Canada England *The ...

. Wood died at the age of about 73, when the Baronetcy became extinct. He was buried at Ufford on 31 May 1671. Wood married firstly in about 1630 Anne Webb, probably a sister of Anthony Webb, Warden of the

Merchant Taylors' Company The Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors is one of the 111 livery companies of the City of London. The Company, originally known as the ''Guild and Fraternity of St John the Baptist in the City of London'', was founded prior to 1300, first in ...

from 1658 to 1660. She died without issue while they were in France following the English Civil War and was buried at Charenton, near Paris, on 9 June 1648. He married secondly, at Paris in November 1651, Mary Gardiner, a daughter of the Royalist Sir Thomas Gardiner, of Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire, and his wife Rebecca Childe. Maid of Honour to Queen Henrietta Maria and one of the four Dressers to Queen Catharine, she died of smallpox aged 38 on 17 March 1671 and was buried in

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British m ...

on 1 April 1671. In 1670 Wood's daughter Mary, then aged seven and the heiress to his substantial fortune, was betrothed to Charles FitzRoy, Earl of Southampton, an illegitimate son of Charles II and

Barbara Villiers Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland, Countess of Castlemaine ( ; – 9 October 1709), was an English royal mistress of the Villiers family and perhaps the most notorious of the many mistresses of King Charles II of England, by whom she ...

. Following her father's death in 1671, Mary went to live with Barbara Villiers, and in 1679 the marriage took place and she became Duchess of Southampton, but in 1680 she died, like her mother, of smallpox, when she was scarcely seventeen, and was buried with her mother in Westminster Abbey.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Henry, Sir, 1st Baronet 1597 births 1671 deaths English MPs 1661–1679 Baronets in the Baronetage of England Cavaliers