William Clarke (politician)

William Clarke (born around 1623 in London , † June 14, 1666 ) was a British politician.

Clarke was a lawyer. He studied at the Inner Temple from 1645 and was admitted in 1653. He was secretary of the Council of the Army from 1647 to 1649 and secretary to General George Monck and the commanders of the Parliamentary Army in Scotland from 1651 to 1660 . From 1661 to 1666 he was Secretary of War . Clarke was also a favorite of Charles II , who ennobled him and made him live on a large estate in Marylebone Park. He was on Admiral Monck's flagship Royal Charles when he lost his leg to a cannonball on the second day of the four-day battle (June 12) and died two days later.

The Clarke Papers from 1623/24 to 1666 serve as an important source for the English Civil War and the period thereafter. They were given to Worcester College in Oxford by Clarke's son George (1660-1736). Selections were later published from the extensive holdings (51 bound volumes alone). The diary is in the British Museum.

He was with Dorothy Hyliard (co-heiress of the landowner Thomas Hyliard in Hampshire), who married John Milton's friend and doctor in the army of George Monck Samuel Barrow (1625-1682) for the second time . She died in 1695. From her marriage to Clarke there was a son George.

literature

• Charles Harding Firth (Editor): The Clarke papers. Selections from the papers of William Clarke, secretary to the Council of the Army, 1647-1649, and to General Monck and the commanders of the army in Scotland, 1651-1660, 4 volumes (Camden Society), 1891, 1901, volume 1 , Volume 2 , Volume 3 , Volume 4
• Frances Henderson (Editor): The Clarke Papers V, Cambridge University Press 2006
• Gordon Goodwin, article in Dictionary of National Biography , Wikisource