Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/123

 fifth earl of Sussex [see under, third ]. Manningham the diarist attributes to Whitelocke's evil influence that nobleman's scandalous neglect of his wife. Whitelocke was on a visit to the Earl of Sussex at Newhall in Essex in the autumn of 1608 when he was taken ill and died. He was buried in the family tomb of his host at Boreham.



WHITELOCKE, JAMES (1570–1632), judge, was born on 28 Nov. 1570, the younger of posthumous twin sons of Richard Whitelocke, merchant, of London, by Joan Brockhurst, widow, daughter of John Colte of Little Munden, Hertfordfordshire. His twin-brother, William, served under Drake, and fell at sea in an engagement with the Spaniards. Of two other brothers, the elder, Edmund, is separately noticed. For a liberal education and the means of starting in life Whitelocke was indebted to his mother, whose care and prudence surmounted the difficulties in which she was involved by an unfortunate third marriage with a spendthrift merchant named John Price. She placed Whitelocke in 1575 at Merchant Taylors' school, whence, on 11 June 1588, he was elected probationer at St. John's College, Oxford. He matriculated on 12 July following, and was elected fellow of his college in November 1589. Besides the classics and logic, in which his tutor was [q. v.] (afterwards bishop of Bristol), he studied Hebrew and the cognate tongues, and under [q. v.] the civil law, in which he graduated bachelor on 1 July 1594. Among the contemporaries at Oxford with whom he formed lasting friendship were Laud, [q. v.] and [q. v.] In London his taste and aptitude for learned research drew him into the circle of Sir [q, v.], and about 1600 he joined the Society of Antiquaries. His professional studies he pursued first at New Inn, afterwards at the Middle Temple, where he was admitted on 2 March 1592-3, called to the bar in August 1600, elected bencher in Hilary term 1618-19, and reader in the following August. His reading on the statute against pluralities, 21 Henry VIII, c. B, is in Ashmolean MS. 1150, ff. 1-8.

Whitelocke was appointed steward of the St. John's College estates in 1601, steward of and counsel for Eton College on 6 Dec. 1609, and joint steward of the Westminster College estates on 7 May 1610. On 1 Aug. 1606 he was chosen recorder of Woodstock, for which borough he was returned to parliament on 9 Feb. 1609-10. He represented the same constituency in the parliaments of 1614 and 1621-2. In parliament he took the popular side, and especially distinguished himself in the debates on impositions in 1610. He also acted as the mouthpiece of the commons on the presentation (24 May) of the remonstrance against the royal inhibition which terminated the discussion (see his speech in Stowe MS. 298, if. 84 et seq.) The subsequent proceedings drew from him (2 July) the masterly defence of the rights of the subject and delimitation of the royal prerogative which was long attributed to Sir [q. v.] A reprint of the argument (from an edition of 1658) is in 'State Trials' (ed. Cobbett, ii. 477 et seq.) A contemporary summary ascribed to Whitelocke is in 'Parliamentary Debates in 1610' (Camden Soc., pp. 103 et seq.; cf. Stowe MS. 297, ff. 89 et seq.)

In 1613 Whitelocke's jealousy of prerogative brought him into sharp collision with the crown. The administration of the navy stood in urgent need of reform, and in the winter of 1612-13 a preliminary step was taken by the issue of a commission investing the lord high admiral (Earl of Nottingham), the lord chancellor (Ellesmere), the lord privy seal and lord chamberlain with extraordinary powers for the investigation of abuses and the trial of offenders. As legal adviser to Sir [q. v.], who was interested in defeating the investigation, Whitelocke drew up a series of 'exceptions' to the commission, in which he very strictly circumscribed the prerogative. A copy of the exceptions came into the hands of the crown lawyers, who at once suspected that they were Whitelocke's. Evidence was wanting; but his contemporaneous opposition to the transfer of a cause in which he was retained from the chancery to the court of the earl marshal furnished a pretext for his committal to the Fleet prison (18 May); and he was not released until he had made full submission in writing (13 June). The detailed account which Whitelocke wrote of this affair is, unfortunately, lost; and, as the text of the commission is also missing, it is impossible to pronounce whether his exceptions were tenable or no. In any case, however, his incarceration was a flagrant breach of counsel's privilege, which greatly increased his popularity.

In the short parliament of 1614 Whitelocke was nominated with Sir Thomas Crew 