BERNARD, Sir Robert, 3rd Bt. (d.1703), of Brampton Park, Hunts.

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

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

o.s. of John Bernard by 1st w. m. 26 May 1692, Anne, da. of Robert Weldon, mercer, of Fleet Street, London, 1s. 5da. suc. fa. as 3rd Bt. 25 June 1679.1

Offices Held

Dep. lt. Hunts. Mar. 1688-d., j.p. Oct. 1688-d., commr. for assessment 1689-90; sheriff, Cambs. and Hunts. 1691-2.

Biography

Bernard was pricked as sheriff in November 1688, probably soon after he came of age, but was replaced a few days later. He was probably the ‘Sir Robert Barton’ who was in arms under the 4th Earl of Manchester for William of Orange at the end of the month. He was elected to the Convention as knight of the shire, but he was not an active Member. He may have been appointed (as ‘Mr Bernard’) to the committee on the leather trade on 8 Aug. 1689. Although presumably a Whig, he did not support the disabling clause in the bill to restore corporations, and apparently never stood again. He nominated his uncles, Sir Walter St. John and Francis St. John as trustees under his will, and by a codicil bequeathed the living of Hemingford Abbots to his ‘loving friend’ the vicar of Brampton. He died on 26 July 1703. His son, the 4th baronet, apparently had no parliamentary ambitions, but his grandson sat for the county from 1765 to 1768, and later for Westminster as a radical.2

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: E. R. Edwards

Notes

  • 1. M. Noble, Mems. Cromwell Fam. ii. 31, Misc. Gen. et Her. i. 79; Mar. Lic. (Harl. Soc. xxxi), 222.
  • 2. Lansd. 921, f. 11; Hatton Corresp. (Harl. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 116; PCC 84 Degg.