DAVIE, Sir John, 2nd Bt. (1612-78), of Creedy, Devon.

Davie’s grandfather, a merchant, was three times mayor of Exeter. His father sat for Tiverton in 1621, was created a baronet by Charles I and was later appointed to the Devon commission of array. His estates were sequestrated in 1649 on a charge of lending the King £400 and assisting him with horses, but the sequestration was taken off in the following year. Davie himself, though a Presbyterian, held local office during the Interregnum. But at the Restoration he was proposed for the order of the Royal Oak with an annual income of £2,000. At the general election of 1661 he challenged the Russell interest in Tavistock, and was returned by the portreeve on the broader franchise of ‘the freeholders generally’. There was a double return, but he was allowed to take his seat on the merits of the return. He was appointed to no committees in the Cavalier Parliament, however, and was unseated by the Hon. William Russell seven months later, when the House declared in favour of confining the franchise to the ‘freeholders of inheritance only’.3Trans. Dev. Assoc. lxvii. 320; Cal. Comm. Adv. Money, 1127.

Davie kept a Presbyterian chaplain, and in 1663 headed the list of Devon justices who were ‘arrant Presbyterians’. According to the bishop of Exeter his mansion at Creedy was their ‘chief place of resort’. He was removed from local office, though he later acted as deputy lieutenant. He was buried at Sandford on 31 July 1678. His widow married Sir Nicholas Slanning.4D. R. Lacey, Dissent and Parl. Pols. 388; PCC 109 Reeve; Devon and Cornw. N. and Q. xxi. 284.