Editing Edward Nicholas

{{Short description|17th-century English courtier and politician}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2018}}
{{Infobox person
|honorific_prefix = Sir
| name          = Edward Nicholas
| birth_date    = 4 April 1593
| death_date    = 1669
| image         = Sir Edward Nicholas by Sir Peter Lely.jpg
| image_size    = 
| caption       = Portrait by [[Peter Lely]]
| nickname      = 
| birth_place   = [[Wiltshire]], England
| death_place   = [[West Horsley]], England
| burial_place  = 
| alma_mater    = 
| spouse        = Jane Jay
| children      = 
| parents       = 
| relations     = 
| signature     = 
| signature_alt = 
}}
'''Sir Edward Nicholas''' (4 April 1593{{snd}}1669) was an English officeholder and politician who served as [[Secretary of State (England)|Secretary of State]] to [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] and [[Charles II of England|Charles II]]. He also sat in the [[House of Commons of England|House of Commons]] at various times between 1621 and 1629. He served as secretary to Edward la Zouche and the Duke of Buckingham in the Admiralty and became a clerk of the Privy Council. He supported the [[Cavaliers|Royalist]] cause in the [[English Civil War]] and accompanied the court into exile, before assuming the post of Secretary of State on the Restoration.

==Life==
Nicholas was the eldest son of John Nicholas of a [[Wiltshire]] family. He was educated at [[Salisbury Cathedral School|Salisbury grammar school]], [[Winchester College]], and [[Queen's College, Oxford]].<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Nicholas, Sir Edward|volume=19|page=656}}</ref>

After studying law at the [[Middle Temple]], in 1618 Nicholas became secretary to [[Edward la Zouche, 11th Baron Zouche]], lord warden and admiral of the [[Cinque Ports]].<ref name="EB1911"/> In 1621 he was elected as a [[Member of Parliament]] for [[Winchelsea (UK Parliament constituency)|Winchelsea]]. He was re-elected as one of the Members for Winchelsea in 1624 for what became known as the [[Happy Parliament]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}} Nicholas kept diaries of all the parliaments in which he sat. When Zouche resigned his office of lord warden to the [[George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham|Duke of Buckingham]], the Duke, upon Zouche's recommendation, on 9 December 1624 appointed Nicholas as his secretary for the business of the Cinque Ports. In 1625 Nicholas became the first holder of the office of [[Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Royal Navy)|Secretary to the Admiralty]]; shortly afterwards he was appointed an extra clerk of the [[Privy Council of England|privy council]], with duties relating to Admiralty business.<ref name="EB1911"/> In 1628 he was elected a Member for [[Dover (UK Parliament constituency)|Dover]] and sat until 1629, when King Charles decided to rule without parliament and in the event did so for eleven years. Appended to a copy of Charles's speech at the dissolution of this parliament on 10 March 1629 is a poem of twenty-four verses in Nicholas's hand, beginning:

<blockquote>
:The wisest king did wonder when he spide
:The nobles march on foot, their vassals ride
:His majestie may wonder now to see
:Some that would needs be king as well as he.</blockquote>

From 1635 to 1641 Nicholas was one of the clerks in ordinary to the council. In this situation, he had much business to transact in connection with the levy of ship-money. When in 1641 [[Charles I of England|King Charles I]] went to [[Scotland]], he remained in London and was responsible for keeping the king informed of the proceedings of parliament. When Charles returned to London, Nicholas was knighted and appointed a [[Privy Council of England|privy councillor]] and a [[Secretary of State (England)|Secretary of State]], in which capacity he attended the king while the court was at Oxford and carried out the business of the [[Treaty of Uxbridge]].<ref name="EB1911"/>

Throughout the Civil War, Nicholas was one of Charles's wisest and most loyal advisers. He arranged the details of the king's surrender to the Scots on 5 May 1646, although he does not appear to have advised or even to have approved of the step. He also had the duty of treating for the capitulation of Oxford on 24 June 1646, which included permission for Nicholas himself to retire abroad with his family. He went to France, being recommended by the king to the confidence of the [[Charles II of England|Prince of Wales]].<ref name="EB1911"/>

In 1648 Nicholas wrote a pamphlet, [https://library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections/view/1201 ''An Apology for the Honorable Nation of the Jews''], which called for the [[Resettlement of the Jews in England|readmission of the Jews to England]]. It is one of the few examples of pro-admission writing that does not also call for the [[Conversion of the Jews (future event)|conversion of the Jews]] and is cited by [[Menasseh Ben Israel]] in his ''Humble Addresses'', although [[Cecil Roth]] wonders whether the pamphlet might actually have been written by a Jew.<ref>Scult, Mel (1978). [https://books.google.com/books?id=1tQUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27 ''Millennial Expectations and Jewish Liberties: A Study of the Efforts to Convert the Jews in Britain, Up to the Mid Nineteenth Century'']. Brill Archive. pps.27.</ref>

After the king's death, Nicholas remained on the continent, concerting measures on behalf of the exiled Charles II with [[Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon|Hyde]] and other royalists, but the hostility of [[Henrietta Maria of France|Queen Henrietta Maria]] deprived him of any real influence in the counsels of the young sovereign. He lived at [[the Hague]] and elsewhere in a state of poverty which hampered his power to serve Charles, but which the latter did nothing to relieve. Charles appointed him [[Secretary of State (England)|secretary of state]] while in exile in 1654.<ref name="EB1911"/> As an enthusiastic Royalist, in a letter dated 10 September 1657 to [[Sir Edward Hyde]], Nicholas speaks of [[Oliver Cromwell|Cromwell]],

<blockquote>... I conceive his Majesty should do well to set a good price on his head and all the heads of the chief commanders in Ireland and also in Scotland ...<ref>'The Nicholas Papers, Vol IV' p.13, London: Offices of the Society, 1920</ref></blockquote>

[[File:West Horsley Place (geograph 5263391).jpg|thumb|West Horsley Place]]
Nicholas returned to England at the [[English Restoration|Restoration]] and duly took office as Secretary of State along with [[William Morice (Secretary of State)|William Morice]], a former parliamentary supporter. Nicholas was soon retired, much against his own wishes, in favour of Charles's favourite [[Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington|Henry Bennet]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}} He received a grant of money and the offer of a peerage, which he felt too poor to accept. He retired to a country seat in Surrey (the manor of West Horsley) which he purchased from [[Carew Raleigh (1605–1666)|Carew Raleigh]], son of Sir [[Walter Raleigh]], and there he lived till his death in 1669.<ref name="EB1911"/>

==Family==
Nicholas married Jane Jay, a daughter of Henry Jay, an alderman of London and had several sons and daughters. His eldest son was [[John Nicholas (1624-1705)|Sir John Nicholas]], a Clerk of the Signet and [[Clerk of the Privy Council (United Kingdom)|Clerk of the Privy Council]]. His daughter Susannah married as his second wife the Irish statesman [[George Lane, 1st Viscount Lanesborough]]: like her father, he spent years in exile with Charles II, and by 1659 the couple were almost destitute, but was well rewarded after the Restoration. Susannah died in 1671.

His younger brother [[Matthew Nicholas]] (1594–1661) was successively [[Dean of Bristol]], canon of Westminster and [[Dean of St Paul's]].<ref name="EB1911"/> His country seat was at [[Sunninghill, Berkshire|Sunninghill]] in [[Berkshire]].

==Correspondence==
The collected correspondences of Nicholas were published in three volumes by the Royal Historical Society in 1920.

==Arms==
<div style="float:right;clear:right">
[[File:Nicholas (of Wiltshire) arms.svg|thumb|120px|Paternal arms]]
[[File:NicholasArms 1649 Augmentation SirEdwardNicholas SecretaryOfState.svg|120px|thumb|Augmented arms]]</div>

The arms of Nicholas’s father were: ''Argent, a fess wavy between three ravens sable'', a differencing of the arms of Nicholas of Winterborne Earls, Wiltshire.<ref name=GA>Burke, Sir Bernard, The General Armory, London, 1884, p.732</ref>

In 1649, augmented arms were granted to Sir Edward Nicholas, [[blazon]]ed ''Argent, on a cross gules an imperial crown or'', which he bore in the 1st & 4th quarters, with his paternal arms in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.<ref name=GA/>

==References==
{{More footnotes needed|date=August 2019}}
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Donald Nicholas (1955), ''Mr Secretary Nicholas (1593–1669), His Life and Letters''
*{{DNB Cite|first=William Arthur |last=Shaw |authorlink=William Arthur Shaw |wstitle=Nicholas, Edward |volume=40|pages=430–435}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholas, Edward}}
[[Category:1593 births]]
[[Category:1669 deaths]]
[[Category:Lords Privy Seal]]
[[Category:Secretaries of state of the Kingdom of England]]
[[Category:Cavaliers]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Clerks of the Privy Council]]
[[Category:People from Sunninghill]]
[[Category:English MPs 1621–1622]]
[[Category:English MPs 1624–1625]]
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