WOLSELEY, Robert (d. aft. 1663).

Robert Wolseley was the second son of the prominent Staffordshire royalist, Sir Robert Wolseley, and brother of Sir Charles Wolseley, the Cromwellian courtier. Despite the importance of his relatives, little is known of Robert Wolseley. A vague comment by Anthony Wood, that he ‘had been a student in this university [Oxford] for eight years time’ cannot be confirmed from the records of the university.6Wood, Fasti, ii. 217-8; Al. Ox. By the mid-1650s, and at little more than 20 years of age, Wolseley was serving as commissary for Ayrshire in Scotland, and he is referred to as holding this post in March 1656 and July 1657.7Scot. and Protectorate ed. Firth, 317; NLS, MS 9752, f. 11. It was this position, as well as the importance of his brother in protectoral counsels, which presumably recommended him to the Edinburgh government for a parliamentary seat. Bearing in mind the close political alliance which existed between his brother and Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), it is tempting to see the president of the Scottish council as the main force behind Robert Wolseley’s return for Dornoch Burghs in the elections for the second protectorate Parliament in August 1656.8C219/45, unfol. At Westminster, Wolseley certainly seems to have followed his brother’s lead. Four of his six committee appointments were in tandem with Sir Charles, including the committee to debate a motion to increase the land grant awarded to Lord Broghill on 5 June 1657.9CJ vii. 444a, 464b, 505b, 546a. He was also named with other Scottish MPs on committees to prevent obstructions to the seizure of estates owned by Catholics (22 Oct.) and to protect the family of Sir William Dick of Edinburgh from his creditors (9 Feb.).10CJ vii. 444a, 488b. Wolseley’s attachment to his brother, and his connection with Broghill, explains his inclusion in the list of ‘kinglings’ – those who voted for Cromwell to be offered the crown on 25 March.11Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 23 (E.935.5).

After the end of this Parliament, nothing more is known of Robert Wolseley. References to a Robert Wolseley serving as a soldier in Ireland after 1662 are surely to his nephew, a career soldier who went on to be employed as an envoy to the elector of Bavaria (at Brussels) in the 1690s.12CB; ‘Charles Wolseley’, Oxford DNB; HMC Ormonde, o.s. i. 241, 348; ii. 189, 204. Some confusion is caused by a reference by the earl of Anglesey (Arthur Annesley*) to ‘Cornet Wolseley’ as ‘Sir Charles, his brother’ in 1679, but it seems unlikely that the former MP, by then perhaps 45 years of age, would hold such a junior rank.13HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 198. The family pedigree, drawn up in 1663, does not mention that Robert had married, and he may have died, childless, shortly afterwards.14Vis. Staffs. 324.