Edward Nicholas

Sir Edward Nicholas (4 April 15931669) was an English officeholder and politician who served as Secretary of State to Charles I and Charles II. He also sat in the 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 Royalist cause in the English Civil War and accompanied the court into exile, before assuming the post of Secretary of State on the Restoration.

Early life and education Nicholas was the eldest son of John Nicholas of a Wiltshire family. He was educated at Salisbury Grammar School, Winchester College, and The Queen's College, Oxford.

Career 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.

After the king's death, Nicholas remained on the continent, concerting measures on behalf of the exiled Charles II with Hyde and other royalists, but the hostility of 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 while in exile in 1654.

Nicholas returned to England at the Restoration and duly took office as Secretary of State along with William Morice, a former parliamentary supporter. Nicholas was soon retired, much against his own wishes, in favour of Charles's favourite Henry Bennet.

Later life and death 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, son of Sir Walter Raleigh, and there he lived till his death in 1669.

In 1649, augmented arms were granted to Sir Edward Nicholas, blazoned 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.