Family and Education

bap. 4 June 1615, 5th s. of Conyers, 4th Baron Darcy; bro. of Conyers, later 1st Earl of Holdernesse, and Hon. James Darcy. educ. Trinity Coll. Camb. 1631; L. Inn 1633. unm.1

Offices Held

Lt.-col. of ft. (royalist) 1642-4; col. of horse 1644-5.2

Gent. usher of the privy chamber by 1656-d.; surveyor of gt. wardrobe 1672-d.3

Commr. for assessment, Yorks. (N. Riding) 1673-4, 1679-80, (W. Riding) 1677-9, recusants (N. Riding) 1675; recorder, Richmond 1684-d.4

Biography

Darcy, always ‘Duke’ to his friends, served in the King’s army under his cousin Lord Belasyse until the surrender of Newark. He was one of Charles II’s followers expelled from Scotland in 1650, and lived peacefully in exile at Ratisbon until 1655. Then, as ‘a gallant gentleman and nobly allied in the northern parts’, he was selected to lead a royalist rising in Yorkshire. After its failure he joined the exiled Court and was given a post in the privy chamber, which he retained for the rest of his life.5

Darcy returned to England with the King at the Restoration, and was elected for Richmond on the family interest in 1665. An inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was appointed to 19 committees at most, but only the committee of elections and privileges in three sessions and two private bill committees can be certainly assigned to him. In consideration of his ‘services and sufferings’ he was given £1,050 in 1667, but a further £3,000 long remained unpaid. As a court dependant, his name appeared on both lists of the court party in 1669-71, and also in Flagellum Parliamentarium, though the author confused him with his brother James, the master of the royal stud. In 1672 he succeeded Bullen Reymes as surveyor of the great wardrobe, with a salary of £300 p.a. He was noted as one of the officials in the Commons in 1675, classed as ‘thrice vile’ by Shaftesbury, and listed as a government supporter by the Court in 1678.6

Although not blacklisted in the ‘unanimous club’, Darcy was overwhelmingly defeated by Humphrey Wharton at the general election and never stood again, though he presented the loyal address from Richmond in 1681 and succeeded the exclusionist Thomas Cradock as recorder under the new charter. With strong support from Ormonde, his claims on the crown were settled in 1684 by the grant of £3,600 spread over six years. He died in his bed in Windsor Castle on 3 July 1687, and was buried in St. George’s chapel.7

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: P. A. Bolton / Paula Watson

Notes

• 1. Clay, Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ii. 81; HMC Var. viii. 66.
• 2. List of Officers Claiming (1663); HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 390.
• 3. Archaeologia, xxxv. 338; CSP Dom. 1672-3, p. 306.
• 4. SP44/335/144.
• 5. C. Brown, Hist. Newark, i. 114; Cal. Cl. SP, ii. 69, 324, 395; Clarendon, Rebellion, v. 374; Nicholas Pprs. (Cam. Soc. n.s.l), 327; D. Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 139-41; Archaeologia, xxxv. 338; CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 292, 311.
• 6. Pepys Diary, 24 May 1660; CSP Dom. 1667, p. 139; 1671-2, p. 22.
• 7. C. Clarkson, Richmond, 115; London Gazette, 22 Aug. 1681; HMC Ormonde, n.s. vii. 277-9; CSP Dom. 1684-5, p. 210; HMC Downshire, i. 253; Ashmole, Berks. iii. 174.