James Whitelocke

Sir James Whitelocke SL (28 November 1570 – 22 June 1632) was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1610 and 1622.

Early life Whitelocke was the younger of posthumous twin sons of Richard Whitelocke, a London merchant, by Joan Brockhurst, widow, daughter of John Colte of Little Munden, Hertfordshire. He was educated from 1575 at Merchant Taylors' School, and on 11 June 1588, he was elected probationer at St. John's College, Oxford. He matriculated on 12 July 1588, and was elected fellow of his college in November 1589. His tutors were Rowland Searchfield, in classics and logic, and Alberico Gentile in the civil law. He also studied Hebrew and other Semitic languages. He graduated bachelor in civil law on 1 July 1594. Among the contemporaries at Oxford with whom he formed lasting friendships were William Laud, Humphrey May, and Ralph Winwood. In London he moved in the circle of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, and about in 1600 he joined the Society of Antiquaries. He pursued his professional studies first at New Inn, afterwards at the Middle Temple, where he was admitted on 2 March 1593, called to the bar in August 1600, elected bencher in Hilary term 1618–19, and reader in the following August.

Under James I Whitelocke was appointed steward of the St. John's College estates in 1601. He became recorder of Woodstock on 1 August 1606, steward of and counsel for Eton College on 6 December 1609, and joint steward of the Westminster College estates on 7 May 1610.

In 1610 Whitelocke was elected in a by-election as Member of Parliament for Woodstock. He took part in the debates on impositions in 1610. He also acted as the mouthpiece of the Commons on the presentation (24 May) of the remonstrance against the royal inhibition which terminated the discussion. The subsequent proceedings drew from him (2 July) a defence of the rights of the subject and delimitation of the royal prerogative which was long attributed to Henry Yelverton.

Whitelocke's eldest son was the parliamentarian Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke (born 1605). His son James was born in 1612. His daughter Elizabeth, born in 1603, married Thomas Mostyn in 1623, the others were; Mary (1606-1611); Cecilia born in March 1607; Joan in 1609 and died in 1610; Dorothy born and died in 1610.

Whitelocke's twin brother, William, served under Francis Drake, and fell at sea in an engagement with the Spaniards. Of two other brothers, the elder, Edmund, was a courtier who was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot.