Family and Education

bap. 20 July 1630, 1sts. of Sir John Franklin^† of Willesden, Mdx. by Elizabeth, da. of George Purefoy of Wadley, Berks. educ. G. Inn, entered 1648; Balliol, Oxf. 1649. m. (1) by 1653, Elizabeth (bur. 21 Nov. 1660), da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Cheke of Pirgo, Essex, 3s. (1 d.v.p.) 1da.; (2) 30 Apr. 1661, Eleanor, da. of Sir Samuel Tryon, 2nd Bt., of Boys Hall, Halstead, Essex, and h. to her bro., Sir Samuel, 3rd Bt., 3da. suc. fa. 1648; kntd. 14 July 1660; cr. Bt. 16 Oct. 1660.1

Offices Held

J.p. Herts. and St. Albans 1658-d.; commr. for militia, Herts. Mar. 1660; capt.-lt. of militia horse, Herts. Apr. 1660; commr. for assessment, Herts. and Mdx. Aug. 1660-80, St. Albans 1664-9, Glos. 1673-80; dep. lt. Herts. 1662-d.2

Gent. of the privy chamber (extraordinary) June 1660, (ordinary) 1666-85.3

Biography

Franklin’s ancestors achieved gentry status only towards the end of the 16th century. His father represented Middlesex in 1625, and again in the Long Parliament as a parliamentary supporter. On coming of age Franklin bought Moor Park, and at is marriage his estates were valued at £2,300 p.a. He was appointed a j.p. under the Protectorate, but he attached himself to the Court at the Restoration, and was granted a baronetcy.4

Franklin was returned for Hertfordshire at the general election of 1661. A moderately active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was appointed to 113 committees, including those for the corporations bill and the bill of pains and penalties in the opening session. On the fall of Clarendon he was appointed to the committee to consider the charges against Lord Mordaunt, and added to the committee of inquiry into the miscarriages of the war. On 17 Apr. 1668 he was ordered to carry to the Lords the bill to establish a trust for the children of Richard Taylor. His tenure of Moor Park, celebrated for its magnificent gardens, was brief. He had already sold the house to the Duke of rmonde, and the manor followed a few years later. He was listed among Ormonde’s friends, but not as a member of the court party at this time. But his activity increased on the dissolution of the Cabal. He was appointed to the committee for the prevention of abuses in elections in 1673, and in 1675 to those for the abolition of de heretico comburendo and for appropriating the customs to the use of the navy. He was named as an excise pensioner, receiving money from the French subsidies, and appeared in three of the working lists, once with a query. Sir Richard Wiseman noted him as being ‘in the care of (Sir) Christopher Musgrave’. He was marked ‘doubly vile’ by Shaftesbury in 1677 and appeared in both lists in 1678. Among his committees in that year were those to draw up reasons for a conference on the growth of Popery and to consider the bill excluding Papists from both Houses of Parliament. He did not stand again and died at his house in Charing Cross. He was buried at Willesden on 16 Sept. 1685, the last of his family to sit in Parliament.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: E. R. Edwards / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

• 1. Clutterbuck, Herts. i. 194; Letters of Dorothy Osborne ed. Moore Smith, 95; The Ancestor, ii. 185.
• 2. Parl. Intell. 16 Apr. 1660.
• 3. LC 3/2; Carlisle, Privy Chamber , 177, 192.
• 4. Keeler, Long Parl. 181-2; Clutterbuck, i. 194, 196; Letters of Dorothy Osborne, 119.
• 5. Clutterbuck, i. 194, 196; Morant, Essex, ii. 252; Survey of London, xvi. 71