HICKS, Sir William, 1st Bt. (1596-1680), of Beverstone, Glos.; Ruckholts, Low Leyton, Essex and Austin Friars, London

The godson of his father’s employer, Lord Burghley (Sir William Cecil†), Hicks inherited his estate while still a minor. His wardship was purchased by his mother. Although there is no record of his matriculation he studied with (Sir) Francis Nethersole* when the latter was fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Lansd. 93, ff. 13, 54v; WARD 9/162, f. 160. In July 1619 he was granted a baronetcy without paying money to the Exchequer, although the patent was not enrolled. CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 65. A puzzled John Chamberlain wrote that he ‘comes to it I know not by what title’. Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, ii. 260.

Hicks was returned for Great Marlow in 1626 on the interest of his father-in-law, Lord Paget, and is twice mentioned in the surviving parliamentary records. On 7 Mar. he was named to attend the conference with the Lords concerning the safety and defence of the kingdom, and two days later he was appointed to consider a bill to prevent the making of malt ‘at times unseasonable’. Procs. 1626, ii. 216, 238. Later that year the government decided to demand £200 from him in the form of a Privy Seal loan, and appointed him a loan collector, presumably for his native county. E401/2586, p. 460. In August 1627 he was returned as a Forced Loan defaulter. SP16/73/71. He is not known to have stood at the general election of 1628, but was returned for Tewkesbury at the by-election caused by the elevation of his uncle, Sir Baptist Hicks*, to the peerage. He left no mark on the records of this Parliament.

Hicks was elected to the Short Parliament for Great Marlow and supported the Long Parliament on the outbreak of civil war in 1642. However, he became a royalist in the second Civil War, and compounded for his delinquency at £1,000 on an estate valued at £800 p.a., with £2,500 out at interest. CCC, 2144; SP23/236/153. He made his will on 9 Feb. 1678 and was buried in accordance with his request at Leyton, where his tomb recorded ‘his loyalty to King Charles in the Great Rebellion’. His family’s parliamentary service thereafter lapsed, and was not resumed until 1794. PROB 11/365, f. 212; Chancellor, 306.