LUCY, Francis (c.1597-1687), of Lincoln’s Inn, London; later of St. Giles Cripplegate, London, The Strand, Westminster and College Place, Hammersmith, Mdx.

As the youngest of six brothers, Lucy inherited only a £30 annuity and pursued a career in the law. His shortlived clerkship on the Midland circuit, which commenced before he completed his legal training, was presumably arranged by his eldest brother, Sir Thomas, a leading Warwickshire gentleman, who was certainly responsible for Lucy’s repeated election to Parliament for Warwick. PROB 11/106, f. 205; Procs. 1628, vi. 169. During the 1624 Parliament Lucy received two committee appointments, one to scrutinize the bill to enfranchise county Durham (25 Mar.), the other to examine complaints against the president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford (28 April). CJ, i. 692b, 749b. Warwick’s elections from 1625 were marred by franchise disputes, and Lucy’s apparent lack of activity in the Commons during his three remaining parliaments may partly be explained by the fact that the validity of his return was questioned each time. Matters came to a head in 1628, when Warwick’s corporation initially overlooked Lucy and elected instead Sir Thomas Puckering, the principal instigator of the disputes. When Puckering opted to sit elsewhere, Lucy was returned at an election, the outcome of which was declared void on 31 May. He was finally re-elected on a broader franchise in the following January, but left no mark on the records of the 1629 session. Procs. 1625, p. 206; Procs. 1626, ii. 16; CD 1628, iv. 37; Procs. 1628, vi. 169-70.

Lucy’s later career was closely tied to that of his brother Sir Richard, a resident of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, who probably facilitated his marriage into a family from neighbouring Hoddesdon. Sir Richard stood to inherit extensive Hampshire estates from his mother, and Lucy was a trustee of the 1630 deed which confirmed this arrangement. During the early 1630s Lucy lived in Cripplegate, perhaps in his mother’s townhouse, but by 1637 he had settled in Westminster, where he occupied a dwelling in the Strand. C142/586/112; PROB 11/174, f. 248v; GL, ms 6419/2; St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 117; Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, DR67/1. In December 1643 the committee for the advancement of money ordered his arrest after he refused to pay £500 by way of assessment, but following Sir Richard’s intervention a reduced payment of £400 was agreed. CCAM, 311-12. When Sir Richard died in 1667, Lucy became guardian of his 18-year-old heir, Kingsmill†, whose marriage he promptly arranged. Because the financial settlement for the boy’s minority prevented the establishment of a jointure for his wife, Lucy had to obtain a parliamentary Act in the following year to confirm the marriage settlement. PROB 11/323, ff. 373v-5; HLRO, HL/PO/PB/1/1667/19&20C2n12.

Although not conspicuously wealthy, Lucy married his daughters advantageously to Sir Edward Atkyns†, later chief baron of the Exchequer, Sir Philip Meadowes, ambassador to Denmark, and Sir Samuel Eyre, a King’s Bench justice. He retained his ties with Lincoln’s Inn as late as 1681, and was still living in Westminster the following year. However, by 1686 he was resident at Hammersmith, where he was buried on 4 Feb. 1687. In his will, drawn up on 7 Sept. 1682, he bequeathed £100 each to his sons-in-law and two surviving daughters, and made generous provision for his servants. Lucy left no heirs in the male line, but two of his grandsons, Robert Eyre and Sir Philip Meadowes, entered the Commons in the 1690s. LI Black Bks. iii. 136; Coll. Top. et Gen. iv. 399; PROB 11/386, ff. 191-2v.