Family and Education

b. 1 Sept. 1602, illegit. s. of Sir Edward Hoby^† of Bisham Abbey by Katharine Pinckney. educ. Eton 1612-16. m. 14 Apr. 1631, Katharine (d.1687), da. of Sir William Doddington^† of Breamore, Hants, and coh. to her bro. Edward, 5s. (2 d.v.p.) 2da. suc. fa. 1617.2

Offices Held

Commr. for sewers, Berks. and Wilts. 1639; sheriff, Berks. 1640-1, commr. for assessment 1643-8, Sept. 1660-d., sequestrations 1643, militia 1648, Mar. 1660, j.p. Mar. 1660-d.; commr. for oyer and terminer, Oxford circuit July 1660, recusants, Bucks. 1675.3

Biography

Bisham Abbey was acquired by Sir Philip Hoby in 1553, and Hoby’s father represented Berkshire under Elizabeth. Hoby inherited the property despite his illegitimacy, and was brought up in the Calvinist household of Archbishop Abbot. He sat in the Long Parliament for Marlow, just across the river from his home, until Pride’s Purge, after which he did not sit. He held no further local office until the eve of the Restoration. He regained his seat when the representation of Marlow was restored in 1659, and was re-elected to the Convention. Lord Wharton marked him as a friend, reserved for his own management. An inactive Member, he made no recorded speeches and was named to only seven committees, including those for settling the revenue, enabling soldiers to exercise trades, and taking accounts of public moneys.4

Hoby was re-elected in 166I, and again included in Wharton’s list of friends. He was a moderately active committeeman in the Cavalier Parliament, but few of his 175 committees were of major political significance. He took no part in the Clarendon Code, but his only tellership on 7 May 1663 was for imposing on those who refused the oaths of allegiance and supremacy the status of recusant convicts. After the heralds’ visitation of Berkshire in 1664, Hoby was given leave to use his father’s arms, with a bordure for difference, as one ‘generally known to be well deserving, not only for his good conversation and discreet demeanour, but also for a prudent discharge of his duty to his country, having been a burgess in Parliament for the town of Marlow’. In 1666 his eldest son was created a baronet. Hoby’s income about this time was estimated at £1,000 p.a. He was among those appointed to manage a conference on the impeachment of Lord Mordaunt on 29 Dec. 1666, but he probably went over to the Court temporarily under the Cabal, being listed by Sir Thomas Osborne in 1669 among the independent Members who had usually voted for supply. On 23 Nov. 1667 he brought in a complaint about a young heir alleged to have been seduced by the Jesuits, but it turned out to be unfounded. In 1671 he was among the Members ordered to bring in a bill to prevent the growth of Popery, and added to the committee for considering an additional conventicles bill. In 1675 he was appointed to the committees on the bills to abolish de heretico comburendo, and to hinder Papists sitting in Parliament. Sir Richard Wiseman listed him among six Buckinghamshire gentlemen of whom he had ‘little cause to hope well’, and Shaftesbury marked him ‘worthy’ in 1677. He is unlikely to have stood for re-election, however, for he was buried at Bisham on 6 May 1679.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: M. W. Helms / Leonard Naylor / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

• 1. Did not sit after Pride’s Purge, 6 Dec. 1648.
• 2. Eton Coll. Reg. ed. Sterry, 175; Vis. Berks. (Harl. Soc. lvi), 228; Bisham Par. Reg. (Par. Reg. Soc. xv), 10, 11, 22, 23, 36, 39.
• 3. C181/5/271.
• 4. VCH Berks. iii. 147; Keeler, Long Parl. 217.
• 5. Vis. Berks. (Harl. Soc. lvii), 150; Salisbury Cathedral Library, Bp. Seth Ward, Liber Notitiae, f. 53; Milward, 136; Bisham Par. Reg. 37.