Family and Education

bap. 17 Nov. 1623, 2nd s. of William, 1st Baron Sherard of Leitrim [I]; bro. of Bennet Sherard, 2nd Baron Sherard. educ. St. John’s, Oxf. 1639; travelled abroad (Italy) 1641; Padua 1642. m. c.1645, Margaret, da. of Sir Thomas Denton of Hillesden, Bucks., wid. of John Pulteney of Misterton, Leics., and of Hon. William Eure of Old Malton, Yorks., 3s. 1da.1

Offices Held

Capt. (Dutch army) to 1645; capt. of horse, regt. of Francis, Lord Hawley June-Nov. 1660; cornet, R. Horse Gds. (The Blues) 1661, lt. 1665-72.2

Commr. for militia, Rutland Mar. 1660, capt. of militia horse Apr. 1660, j.p. July 1660-82, 1689-d., dep. lt. Rutland c. Aug. 1660-82, 1690-d., Leics. 1667-?82; commr. for assessment, Rutland Aug. 1660-80, Glos. and Leics. 1661-3, 1664-80, 1689-90, loyal and indigent officers 1662, enclosures, Deeping fen 1665, recusants, Oxon. 1675.3

Biography

Sherard went abroad with his brother shortly before the Civil War, and took service in the Dutch army, in which he rose to the rank of captain. In 1645 he married the widow of a Cavalier colonel and converted her to Protestantism. A lover of field sports, he settled on a Rutland estate which had been in the family since the 15th century. Unlike his brother, he held no local office until the eve of the Restoration, and was listed by Roger Whitley as a Royalist.4

Sherard’s brother-in-law wrote on 14 Mar. 1660 that the gentry of Rutland were ‘resolved’ on him both as militia officer and knight of the shire. He was duly elected, and doubtless voted with the court party, but he was not active in the Convention. He was appointed to the committee of elections and privileges and five others. On 10 May he brought a message from the Lords about the instructions for the messengers to the King. He presented the loyal address from his county on the Restoration, and obtained a temporary commission in a Commonwealth regiment, which Sir Ralph Verney commented was not worth much. He was given leave to go to his regiment on 29 June, but had returned by the beginning of August, when his name appears on a private bill committee. After the recess he helped to consider the marital separation bill and the bill for draining the fens.5

Sherard was re-elected in 1661, probably without a contest. He was proposed for the order of the Royal Oak, with an estate of £600 p.a. An inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was appointed to 33 committees, of which the most important were for the corporations bill in the first session and the second conventicles bill (2 Mar. 1670). As an officer in The Blues until 1672, he was included in both lists of 1669-71 and in Flagellum Parliamentarium as a placeman. But he seems to have resigned his commission during the third Dutch war and gone into opposition. In the spring session of 1675 he was named to the committees to inquire into the state of Ireland and to prevent illegal exactions, and on 8 Nov. he proffered a paper concerning the alleged assault by a Jesuit on the convert Luzancy. Shaftesbury classed him as ‘doubly worthy’ in 1677.6

Re-elected to the Exclusion Parliaments, Sherard was again marked ‘worthy’ on Shaftesbury’s list. In 1679 he was appointed only to the committee on expiring laws and to one other on a private bill. He probably voted for exclusion, although he is said to have been absent from the division; but this may have been due to confusion with his brother. He left no trace on the records of the second and third Exclusion Parliaments. He was removed from local office in 1682, and took no further part in politics, his son Bennet replacing him as knight of the shire in the Convention. He was buried at Whissendine on 4 Mar. 1695.7

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

• 1. Lyons, Environs, iii. 296; Nichols, Leics. ii. 338, 346.
• 2. Verney Mems. i. 176; Parl. Intell. 2 July 1660; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 162; 1664-5, p. 315; 1672-3, p. 606.
• 3. Parl. Intell. 9 Apr. 1660.
• 4. Verney Mems. i. 176.
• 5. Verney Mems. ii. 159; BL, M636/17, Sir Ralph to Edmund Verney, 2 July 1660; VCH Rutland, i. 200-1.
• 6. Grey, iii. 423.
• 7. The Gen. vii. 45.