Brome Whorwood

Brome WHORWOOD 1615-1684

Biographical Note

Son of Sir Thomas Whorwood of Sandwell Hall, Staffordshire. Matriculated Trinity College, Oxford 1634, but did not graduate. Inherited the family estate at Holton House, Oxfordshire on the death of his father in 1634. He spent part of the Civil War period abroad, but had royalist sympathies and his assistance to that cause led to his being fined as a delinquent. His wife Jane was closely involved with the King throughout the 1640s and her ODNB entry describes her as a royalist agent. Whorwood returned to Holton where he lived with his mistress, Catherine Allen; his wife sought a divorce and many years of legal battle ensued. He was elected MP for Oxford in 1661 and in successive parliaments down to 1681; he had an active parliamentary career, becoming an outspoken critic of government policy and an anti-papist who was heavily involved in the exclusion movement of the early 1680s. He also held various administrative positions for Oxfordshire. At the end of his life he fell under suspicion as a sympathiser with the Rye House Plot, and died just before he was due to be tried for treasonous libel against the King. Described by Anthony Wood as clownish and ill-natured, he was also given to drunkenness and domestic violence.

Books

Whorwood's probate inventory refers to a library of ca.100 books at Holton House at the time of his death; the contents are not known. In his will, he left his estate and goods at Holton to his daughter and son in law for their use during their lifetime, and afterwards to become the property of his son Thomas by Catherine Allen; there is no mention of books.

Characteristic Markings

None of Whorwood's books have been identified.

Sources

• History of Parliament.
• Cliffe, J. The world of the country house in seventeenth-century England, 1999, 164, 178.
• Fox, John. "Whorwood [née Ryder], Jane (bap. 1612, d. 1684), royalist agent." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.