WHITLOCK, Sir William (c.1636-1717), of Phyllis Court, Henley, Oxon.

Whitlock, a successful lawyer, began his career with ‘much the same principles with his father’,1Hearne, Colls. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.) vi. 109. an eminent Cromwellian official, but subsequently became a high Tory. Returned unopposed for the University of Oxford in 1715, he was put down as ‘a recognised Jacobite’ in the list of that Parliament drawn up for George I, which describes him as being well heard by the House of Commons, ‘car il ne manque jamais de faire rire’. He spoke against the Address in March 1715, suggesting that the Whig ministry would start a new war and increase the land tax to 6s. in the pound. On 5 Apr. he desscribed the dissolution proclamation, urging the electors to choose as members ‘such as showed a firmness to the Protestant succession, when it was most in danger’, as ‘unprecedented and unwarrantable’. In August he, Shippen, Sir William Wyndham, and John Hungerford are described as the only Tory speakers against the impeachment of the late Tory ministers. ‘The others do not speak, though they vote, and a good many do not attend the House’.2Egmont Diary, 9 Aug. 1715, Add. 47087. He also spoke against the septennial bill in April 1716. Known as ‘old shoe strings’,3HMC Portland, vii. 231. from his attachment to the fashions of a former age, he died 22 Nov. 1717, aged 81.