WHITELOCKE, Bulstrode (1605-1675), son of Sir James Whitelocke, a justice of the King’s Bench, was born at London, on 2d August 1605. He was educated at Eton and afterwards at Merchant Taylors’ School, London. In 1620 he entered St John’s College, Oxford. In preparing for the bar he became acquainted with Selden, who aided him in his studies and gave him the use of his library. Whitelocke sat for Stafford in the parliament of 1626, and in the course of that year was called to the bar. In 1630 he married a daughter of Alderman Bennett. During the years that followed he was in the favour of Laud. He was not a man likely to raise disturbances in church and state; and he took an active part in the preparation of the law of Court Masque after Prynne’s condemnation in 1634, not long after which his wife died. Before the year was out he made a runaway match with the sister of Lord Willoughby of Parham....
When the troubles began Whitelocke’s cautious nature led him to distrust Laud, though he kept himself from all communication with the Scots. In the Long Parliament he represented Great Marlow, and took part in the impeachment of Strafford. Later on he did his best to avert a civil war, but prudently remained at Westminster instead of joining the king. When the Royalists advanced after Edgehill, his house, Fawley Court, was pillaged by the soldiers. When attempts were subsequently made to open negotiations with the king, he became a leading member of the peace party, though, as he tells us himself, he “kept fair with the other leading men of the House, as Mr Pym, Hampden, and the rest, and would not entirely engage in any party, which made him the more courted by all.” He was one of the commissioners appointed to carry the terms of the Parliament to Oxford in May, and drew on himself suspicions of too close intercourse with the king. Having at the close of 1644 taken part in a conference between some of the Scots and the English Presbyterians, his advice did much to frustrate a proposal for a parliamentary accusation of Cromwell. On the other hand, he spoke in the Commons against the Self-Denying Ordinance. He was again a commissioner in the negotiation with the king at Uxbridge early in 1645. Whitelocke was present at the siege of Oxford in 1646, and was on excellent terms with Fairfax and Cromwell. Later in the year he opposed an ordinance for punishing heretics. His common-sense seems to have rallied him to the tolerationists, and he took their side in opposing the divine right of presbytery and in getting rid of the Scottish army. In 1647 he tried, to moderate the opposition of the Presbyterians to the army, but as usual he did not throw himself violently on either side. In 1648 he was named a commissioner of the great seal. He was much troubled at the attack on the House of Commons by Pride’s “purge,” but he did not resign his post. He refused to have anything to do with the king’s trial; but he accepted a commissionership of the new great seal of the commonwealth after the king’s execution. Both before the trial and afterwards he was on intimate terms with Cromwell. In May 1649 his second wife died. In January 1650 he proposed to Lady Hungerford, but, being refused by her, he was married in the following August to the widow of Alderman Wilson. Whitelocke was now a member of the council of state, striving to keep on good terms with all parties. After Cromwell’s return from the Scottish war in 1651 Whitelocke was much consulted by him; but he gave offence by suggesting a restoration of the young king. After the dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1653 he was sent as ambassador to Sweden, as he thought, merely to get him out of the way. Returning in July 1654, he was chosen member of the first parliament of the Protectorate by the county of Buckingham, and he again became a commissioner of the great seal. In May 1655, after the dissolution of that parliament, he refused to execute an ordinance made by the Protector and council only for the reform of Chancery, and was consequently dismissed in June, but was soon afterwards appointed commissioner of the treasury. He again sat for Buckinghamshire in the second Protectorate parliament in 1657, and took an active part in forwarding the Humble Petition and Advice. In December he was appointed one of Cromwell’s lords.
After Cromwell’s death Whitelocke rallied to his son, and in January 1659 was again a commissioner of the great seal. After Richard’s fall he sat in the council of state, and when the Rump was turned out by the soldiers he accepted an appointment to the army’s committee of safety. On 1st November he became keeper of the great seal; but on the return of the Rump he thought it prudent to go into hiding. Monk’s arrival delivered him from his fears; but, when the Convention Parliament was chosen, he, characteristically “foreseeing what would come to pass, did not think fit to labour to be a Parliament man.” Of course he accepted the Restoration and was included in the Act of Oblivion. He died at his seat at Chilton in Wiltshire in 1675.
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