Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham

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Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham bigraphy, stories - English Baron

Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham : biography

1605 – 23 July 1666

Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham (baptised 1614 – 23 July 1666) was an English peer of the House of Lords.

He succeeded to the title 14 October 1617 on the death in infancy of his elder brother Henry Willoughby, 4th Lord Willoughby of Parham. Francis Willoughby was second son of William Willoughby, 3rd Lord Willoughby of Parham The young and unexpected death of his elder brother Henry made Francis successor to the hereditary peerage and seat in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. Francis Willoughby was an early supporter of the Parliamentarian cause during the English Civil War but later became a Royalist. He twice served as governor of English colonies in the Caribbean. Francis Willoughby died without male heirs of his body and the title passed to his younger brother William Willoughby, 6th Lord Willoughby of Parham, the third son of William Willoughby, 3rd Lord Willoughby of Parham.

Will and family relations

Francis Willoughby and Elizabeth Cecil had four children:

  1. Diana, married 21 May 1673 Heneage Finch, 3rd Earl of Winchilsea
  2. Frances Willoughby(1625–September, 1680) married William Brereton, 3rd Lord Brereton
  3. Elizabeth Willoughby (born about 1633-1 August, 1695) married 28 October 1662 Richard Jones, 1st Earl of Ranelagh
  4. William Willoughby (born about 1635); died young and unmarried in his father’s lifetime

In his will, he left extensive holdings in Barbados, Antigua, and Suriname to his children and his nephew Henry Willoughby as well as smaller grants of currency or sugar to various associates and servants.

Background

Francis Willoughby was born in perhaps 1605 to William Willoughby, 3rd Baron Willoughby of Parham and Frances Manners, daughter of John Manners, 4th Earl of Rutland of Nottingham at Parham in Suffolk. His father died in 1617, and the barony was held by his older brother Henry for one year until he too died, at which point Francis inherited the seat in the House of Lords and with it the family title.

On 16 November 1628 Willoughby married Elizabeth Cecil (1606–1661), the daughter of the soldier Edward Cecil, 1st Viscount Wimbledon and Theodosia Noel.

As tensions between the king and Parliament grew in the 1630s, he found himself opposed to Charles I over the levying of ship money. His loyalty was further strained by the Bishops’ Wars, in which he was reluctant to fight the Scots.

Parliamentary Commander

When the king in 1642 issued his Commission of Array to form a loyal army, Willoughby rejected his summons and instead took command of a horse regiment under the Parliamentary commander, the Earl of Essex. By January 1643 he was made commander-in-chief of Lincolnshire.

On 16 July of the same year, he led his soldiers in a surprise attack on Gainsborough where he seized the town. Facing a counterattack, Willoughby’s soldiers fought along with those under Oliver Cromwell to hold off an advancing Royalist force of superior strength. The main body of the Parliamentary army withdrew to Boston with only two dead.

That September, Willoughby was a subordinate commander under the Earl of Manchester and Cromwell. He fought at the Battle of Winceby and accepted the surrender of Bolingbroke Castle in November.

Willoughby’s relations with the Parliamentarians began to fray in 1644. In March he joined with Sir John Meldrum in the assault on Newark, the failure of which has been partially attributed to Willoughby’s supposed unwillingness to take orders from Meldrum. Willoughby quarrelled with Manchester and was forced to make an apology to the House of Lords as a result. Furthermore, Cromwell himself saw fit to complain about the conduct of Willoughby’s soldiers.

In the next few years, Willoughby became the leader of the Presbyterian force within Parliament, opposed the formation of the New Model Army and was elected as speaker of the House of Lords in July, 1647. However, when the Parliamentary army took London in September, Willoughby was imprisoned along with six other peers and held for four months at which point he was released without charge, fleeing to the Netherlands to join the Royalists.