LUCY, Thomas (c.1655-84), of Charlecote Park, Warws.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

28 Dec. 1678
Mar. 1679
Oct. 1679

Family and Education

b. c.1655, and but o. surv. s. of Richard Lucy. educ. G. Inn, entered 1667. m. Catherine, da. of Robert Wheatley, poulterer, of Holborn, London and Bracknell, Berks., 1da. suc. fa. 1677.1

Offices Held

Recorder, Stratford-on-Avon 1678-d.; commr. for assessment, Warws. and Westminster 1679-80, j.p. Warws. 1680-d., sheriff 1682-3, dep. lt. 1683-d.2

Capt. Duke of Monmouth’s Ft. 1678-9, R. Horse Gds. (The Blues) 1679-d.

Biography

Lucy, an army officer, succeeded to his father’s seat at Yarmouth only two days before the Cavalier Parliament was prorogued. Shaftesbury at once marked him ‘vile’, possibly because of his marriage to a Roman Catholic of obscure family, ‘rich only in beauty’, and addicted to gambling; but he is unlikely to have sat, though on 2 Jan. 1679 his privilege was infringed by a distraint on his coach and horses. He was re-elected to the first Exclusion Parliament, and again marked ‘vile’. He was named to the committee of elections and privileges, and according to the list in the state papers voted against the exclusion bill, though Morrice included him among the absent Members. By the autumn he had disposed of his Isle of Wight property to Sir Robert Holmes, and he was returned for Warwick, six miles from Charlecote, no doubt with the support of Lord Brooke (Fulke Greville). A moderately active Member of the second Exclusion Parliament, he was one of those instructed to examine a convicted priest in Newgate on 3 Nov. 1680 and to draft an address for a day of fasting and humiliation. On 9 Dec. he reported that the search of Sheridan’s lodgings in York Buildings had failed to reveal any suspicious papers. His last committee was on the bill to disarm Papists and expel them from the metropolitan area; but on 21 Dec. he had leave to go into the country. He was re-elected in 1681, but left no trace on the records of the Oxford Parliament.3

As sheriff of Warwickshire Lucy was responsible after the Rye House Plot for searching the homes of prominent Whigs, among them Arbury, where, according to Sir Richard Newdigate, he carried out the task politely. Hearing that in Coventry three-quarters of the people were as disaffected as any in the nation, he caused the oath of allegiance to be administered to the suspects. He secured the surrender of the Stratford charter and its return without alteration. He died of smallpox on 1 Nov. 1684 and was buried at Charlecote. His heir was his cousin, the son of Sir Fulk Lucy, but the estate was diminished by a bequest of £10,000 to his daughter, and no later Member of the family entered Parliament. In 1684 his widow caused a court scandal by marrying Charles II’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Northumberland.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: A. M. Mimardière

Notes

  • 1. Vis. Warws. (Harl. Soc. lxii), 94; Luttrell, i. 373.
  • 2. A. Fairfax-Lucy, Charlecote and the Lucys, 164-5.
  • 3. HMC Portland, iii. 395; M. E. Lucy, Lucy Fam. 37-38; CJ, ix. 582; VCH Hants, v. 285.
  • 4. Newdigate-Newdegate, Cavalier and Puritan, 215-17; CSP Dom. Jan.-June 1683, pp. 362, 374; VCH Warws. iii. 352; Fairfax-Lucy, 167, 170; Evelyn Diary, iv. 505; HMC Rutland, ii. 107-10.