Edward Clarke (MP for Hythe)

Edward Clarke (referred to as Ned Clarke) (died 1628) was an English courtier, politician and diplomat employed by Charles I of England and George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham.^[1]

Life

Clarke was made clerk extraordinary of the Privy Council in 1620, successor to William Beecher, and was introduced at court by Buckingham. He was not a success with the king, however, because of a deformed hand. He became a courier.^[1]

In September 1623 Clarke was entrusted by Charles with secret orders to Lord Bristol, then British ambassador at Madrid, for the postponement of the Spanish Match. He sat for Hythe in the short-lived parliament of 1625. For an attempted defence of Buckingham he was on 6 August 1625 imprisoned by the House of Commons at Oxford. ^[2]

The next year Buckingham tried to persuade the small electorate Bridport to return Clarke, as they had already done for Sir Richard Strode, another of his nominees; but they showed independence, on the grounds they had promised the second place for the constituency to Sir Lewis Dyve. Shortly Clarke was spreading upbeat rumours a French alliance was at hand. In 1627 he was sent on a mission to Christian IV of Denmark, then beset in the Thirty Years' War by Imperial forces.^[2]

In March 1628 Clarke was acting as the king's agent at the Siege of La Rochelle. Two months later he accompanied the fleet to La Rochelle, though his private advice to Buckingham was that this expedition would fail. While there he managed to offend Buckingham, and on his return was shunned at court. He did not long survive his assassinated patron.^[2]

Notes

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Clarke, Edward (d.1630)". Dictionary of National Biography. 10. London: Smith, Elder & Co.