Nicholas Saunders

Sir Nicholas Saunders (1563 – 9 February 1649) was an English landowner and member of parliament. He was a Catholic but became a member of the Church of England and parliament. He had to sell property due to financial problems. His later life is known in some detail due to the extant diary of his daughter Isabella Twysden.

Life He was the eldest son of Nicholas Saunders of Ewell, Surrey and his first wife, Isabel Carew, daughter of Sir Nicholas Carew (executed for treason in 1539) and Elizabeth Bryan, and was educated at Balliol College, Oxford and the Inner Temple (1583). He spent part of his childhood in the household of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, who remained his friend. who married Sir Roger Twysden, 2nd Baronet. Elizabeth brought him a comfortable fortune, which he seems to have run through. Isabella "a lady of rare patience and prudence" kept a diary of the period 1645–51 in which she describes her father's last days.