WARRE, Roger (d.1641), of Bridgwater, Som. and the Middle Temple, London; later of West Monkton, Som.

Warre belonged to a wealthy landowning family but, being one of nine younger sons, received only an annuity of £20 under his father’s will. PROB 11/127, f. 245. Accordingly he trained as a lawyer, following the example of his elder brother Thomas, under whose wing he was taken at the Middle Temple. MTR, 458, 560, 601, 619. In 1613 he became feodary of Somerset, and after Thomas’s untimely death four years later he succeeded him in Bridgwater, first as recorder and then as an MP.

Warre left no trace on the records of the 1621 Parliament, but the borough’s accounts offer some clues to his activities at Westminster. The corporation gave him a present, usually wine or sugar, each time he travelled to or from London during this session, but they expected some services in return. During the first sitting he may have bought for the borough a copy of the Proclamation for the arrest of the monopolist (Sir) Giles Mompesson*. In the second sitting he was paid 16s. for ‘drawing the books for a bill to be exhibited in the Parliament for the long casey [sic]’. Som. RO, D/B/bw 1609: 23 Dec. 1620, 8 Mar., 13 and 23 Apr., 13 Nov. 1621. Assuming that ‘casey’ is an eccentric spelling of carsey or kersey, a type of cloth made at Bridgwater, the corporation was probably responding to a bill introduced during the first sitting ‘for the true making of woollen cloths’, which would have restricted the length of kerseys that the town could legally produce. In the event, this latter measure failed to complete its passage, which may explain why Warre did not bring the Bridgwater bill into the Commons. CD 1621, vii. 123-8. Warre was again returned for Bridgwater in 1624, but no record survives of his communications with the corporation that year. He again failed to attract any appointments in the Commons, but he may have been the Mr. Warre who acted as counsel for one William Weare, a petitioner to the Lords against an injustice concerning some lands in Wiltshire. HLRO, Lords main pprs. 14 May 1624.

In 1623 the heralds recorded that Warre was one of Bridgwater’s resident gentlemen, although he still possessed a chamber at the Middle Temple, where in 1626 he was joined by his nephew, Thomas Warre. Vis. Som. (Harl. Soc. xi), 135; MTR, 696, 711. However, in early 1628 an important local gentleman, Sir Thomas Wrothe*, replaced him as Bridgwater’s recorder. Why this happened is unknown, but Warre moved away from the town soon afterwards. Following his second marriage in December 1628, Warre joined his wife in purchasing the wardship of the latter’s daughter Mary, thereby acquiring a landed interest at Taunton. He subsequently settled nearby at West Monkton. Sales of Wards, 94. In 1637 he surrendered his feodary’s role to his nephew, Thomas Warre, following mediation by Sir Robert Pye*. He later claimed that he had been promised £725 in compensation, of which he actually received only £225, but his efforts to recover the remainder through the courts were apparently unsuccessful. C2/Chas.1/W63/53; Sales of Wards, p. xix. Warre was still living in early 1641, when he was assessed for the subsidy at West Monkton, but was dead by November that year. No will or grant of administration has been found. Warre was the last of this branch of the family to sit in Parliament, but Sir Francis Warre of Hestercombe represented Bridgwater between 1685 and 1700. E179/172/395; E115/403/125.