LAWLEY, Sir Francis, 2nd bt. (c.1626-96), of Spoonhill, Salop and Canwell Priory, Staffs.

Wenlock was the residence of the Lawley family by the early 1400s, and the first of the family to sit in Parliament went to Westminster in the reign of Henry VI, to sit not for Wenlock but for Bridgnorth. Afterwards, in the shape of the junior branch of the family, they were an important force in Wenlock’s municipal politics. Francis Lawley’s father was the youngest of three brothers who survived into adulthood, and was apprenticed to a London draper. Thomas Lawley became a Merchant Adventurer, specialising in the ‘New Draperies’, and returned to Wenlock in 1625. He represented the borough in three Parliaments of Charles I, but made little impression on the records of them. In 1640 he seems not to have put himself forward at either election that year, choosing instead to concentrate on his London business interests and civic career there, serving as alderman of Castle Baynard ward in January 1641. He served in this latter capacity only briefly, retiring through ill health only weeks after his appointment.

In the civil war, Lawley was forced to choose between being a Shropshire landowning royalist – in a county which made an early declaration for the king – or a London businessman parliamentarian. He fixed on the latter course, and served as master of the Drapers' Company. He paid his dues to the parliamentary war effort, but left for Holland when his term as master ended, perhaps to avoid becoming further drawn into the cause. When he made his will, he left his Shropshire estates to his eldest son, Francis. After Thomas Lawley’s death in October 1646, his widow remarried John Glynne*, the recorder of London, who thus became Francis’s stepfather.13HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Thomas Lawley’.

Nothing is known of Francis Lawley’s early life and education, though it can be assumed that some of his upbringing took place at Twickenham as well as in Shropshire. He inherited the baronetcy after his father’s death. By the time he entered into his inheritance of lands, the Committee for Advance of Money* had finished its dealings with the family after an assessment on Thomas Lawley of £800 in June 1643. He had been able to persuade the committee that royalists in Shropshire had invaded his estates there, and gave an advance of plate to clear himself.14CCAM 169. It was thus as an unencumbered landowner with sound local loyalties that Sir Francis Lawley attended the Parliament of Richard Cromwell* for the seat his father had represented. He made no recorded impact on its proceedings.

Although Lawley was returned to the Convention, he was as invisible in his second Parliament as he had been in his first. He was described in 1663 as ‘loyal and orthodox’, with an estate of £8,000 a year, and in 1675 took the government whip. He was identified as one of the ‘dependables’ of George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham, and was therefore considered hostile by Anthony Ashley Cooper*, 1st earl of Shaftesbury. After a career of support for James II, Lawley accepted the revolution of 1688, and held office under William III. He died on 25 October 1696.15HP Commons 1660-1690.