Family and Education

b. 6 Jan. 1652, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. and h. of Edmund Waller I, being 2nd s. by 2nd w. educ. Christ Church, Oxf. 1666; M. Temple 1668, called 1675. m. 10 July 1686, Abigail (d.1689), da. of Frederick Tilney of Rotherwick, Hants, s.p. suc. fa. 1687.1

Offices Held

J.p. Bucks. Feb. 1688-98, dep. lt. Feb.-Oct. 1688, 1691-?98; commr. for assessment, Bucks. and Westminster 1689-90; recorder, Chipping Wycombe 1689-95; bencher M. Temple 1696.2

Biography

Of a weakly constitution and a melancholy spirit, unlike his father, Waller became a lawyer and a member of the Green Ribbon Club; but, when interrogated after the Rye House Plot, he declared that he had ‘quitted that sort of company’, and was released on bail. He was still ‘fierce against’ the Tory candidates for Buckinghamshire in 1685. He succeeded to an estate reduced to under £1,400 p.a. by his father’s mismanagement, his elder brother being of unsound mind, but was not mentioned in his father’s will. He was apparently one of James II’s Whig collaborators, but is said to have joined William of Orange when he landed.3

At the general election of 1689 Waller was returned for Amersham, where he had strengthened the family interest by buying back Coleshill, his father’s birthplace. An inactive Member of the Convention, he was appointed to only six committees, of which the most important were to bring in a list of the essentials for securing religion, laws and liberties, and to manage a conference on the state of the throne. He did not vote for the disabling clause in the bill restoring corporations, and indeed there is no evidence that he attended the second session. He remained a country Whig until he joined the Society of Friends in 1698. He died at Bath shortly before 6 Jan. 1700, and was buried in the Quaker cemetery. His nephew Edmund was returned for Marlow as a Whig in 1722.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Leonard Naylor

Notes

• 1. Beaconsfield par. reg.; Lipscomb, Bucks. iii. 182; East Anglian Peds. (Harl. Soc. xci), 221; Guildhall RO, St. Bride’s par. reg.
• 2. CSP Dom. 1687-9, p. 148; 1689-90, p. 268; 1690-1, p. 358; 1695; p. 57; Bucks. Sess. Recs. i. 511; ii. 456; Wycombe Ledger Bk. ed. Ashford, 30, 42.
• 3. S. F. Locker-Lampson, Quaker Post Bag, 71-72; CSP Dom. July-Sept. 1683, p. 53; 1685, p. 123; Waller, Poems (1712), pp. xxxiii, xl, xliv.
• 4. VCH Bucks. iii. 151; Waller, pp. xlv, xlvi; Luttrell, iv. 354, 601.