User:Rich Farmbrough/DNB/N/i/Nicholas Parker

Sir Nicholas Parker|1547|1619| Sir Nicholas Parker (born 1547 died 1619), military commander, son of Thomas Parker of Ratton in Sussex, by Eleanor, daughter of William Waller, was born in 1547. He is first mentioned as commanding the soldiers on board the galleon Leicester in Fenton's voyage in 1582 [see Fenton, Edward]. He afterwards served in the army in the Low Countries, and was knighted by Lord Willoughby in 1588. In 1589 he was master of the ordnance for the forces in France under Willoughby; in 1592 he commanded a hundred lances in the Low Countries, and had still the same command in April 1596. In September 1596 he wrote to Cecil, begging that in consideration of his long and faithful service in the wars, and of having had great losses, he might have a regiment, if any forces were sent to Flanders, as a comfort for his latter days. In 1597 he had command of a detachment of soldiers in the Islands' voyage under Essex, and in October was appointed to command in Sussex, on threat of invasion. In 1598 he was deputy lieutenant of Cornwall, and governor of Pendennis Castle, in which post he continued apparently till his death, on 9 March 1619. He was also governor of Plymouth in succession to Sir Ferdinando Gorges from 1601 to 1603. In 1602 he was named in the charter of the Virginia Company as one of the adventurers; and another of them, Adrian Moore, married Parker's daughter Anne. After Moore's death she married Sir John Smith, a name whose frequency renders identification difficult.

DNB references
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