LUCY, Sir Fulk (c.1623-77), of Henbury, Cheshire.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

16 May 1664 - 26 Aug. 1677

Family and Education

b. c.1623, 6th s. of Sir Thomas Lucy (d.1640) of Charlecote, Warws. by Alice, da. and h. of Thomas Spencer of Claverdon Warws.; bro. of Richard Lucy. m. c.1656, Isabel, da. and h. of William Davenport of Henbury, 8s. (2 d.v.p.) 5da. Kntd. by 1661.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Cheshire 1657, 1661-d., Westminster 1677-d., militia, Cheshire Mar. 1660, j.p. Mar. 1660-d.

Capt. Lord Gerard’s Horse 1666-7.2

Biography

Lucy acquired an estate in Cheshire by marrying the heiress of a cadet branch of a prominent county family. He was knighted soon after the Restoration, being so styled in the assessment commission of 1661. But he had connexions with the dissenters, and his return for the county at a by-election in 1664 was probably a defeat for the Court. An inactive Member of the Cavalier Parliament, he was named to only 35 committees. On 21 Dec. 1666 he carried the estate bill of Henry Mildmay to the Lords. In the autumn of 1667 he was appointed to the committees to report on defects in the Act against the import of Irish cattle and to consider the additional bill which was recommended. He carried another private bill on 11 Mar. 1670, that for settling the Leigh estate, and introduced the Weaver navigation bill in December. He was appointed to the committee on the bills for better observance of the Lord’s day in 1671 and preventing abuses in parliamentary elections in 1673. On the working lists it was suggested that Lucy’s support might be gained through the influence of Philip Meadows, the Cromwellian diplomat and a distant connexion by marriage. But soon afterwards (Sir) Joseph Williamson described Lucy as ‘very bitter against the lord treasurer’, and Sir Richard Wiseman noted that he was ‘touchily and peevishly angry ... and watcheth who bids most for him’. Lord Gerard of Brandon, his partner in the Weaver canal project, and Gilbert Gerard II were recommended to manage him, presumably with success, for when Parliament reassembled in 1677 Shaftesbury marked him ‘vile’. He died of a fever on 26 Aug., aged 54. His son later inherited the family estate in Warwickshire and sold Henbury; but none of his descendants sat in Parliament.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Gillian Hampson

Notes

  • 1. Ormerod, Cheshire, iii. 708.
  • 2. CSP Dom. 1665-6, p. 557.
  • 3. A. Fairfax-Lucy, Charlecote and the Lucys, 142, 171-3, 187, 420; W. Beamont, Hale and Orford, 124; CSP Dom. 1675-6, pp. 562-3; BL Loan 29/83, Strettell to Harley, 1 Sept. 1677; Vis. Warws. (Harl. Soc. lxii), 93-94.