Robert Nicholas 1595-1667

Robert NICHOLAS 1595-1667

Biographical Note

Son of John Nicholas of Devizes, Wiltshire, gentleman. BA Queen's College, Oxford 1613, entered Middle Temple the same year, barrister 1621. Recorder of Devizes 1639, MP for Devizes 1640; he became an active advocate of the parliamentarian cuase, and was involved in the impeachment of William Laud. He was Judge of the Upper Bench and Baron of the Exchequer during the Interregnum; he was pardoned at the Restoration, and retired to Wiltshire.

Books

Nicholas gave books to Queen’s College, Oxford. Ca.25 legal manuscripts from his collections – mostly 17th c copies of law reports, for use in his legal practice – survive among (John Moore’s collection) in Cambridge University Library. His library may have been dispersed during the time of his grandson, the MP Oliver Nicholas (1651-1716).

Sources

• Baker, J. Catalogue of English legal manuscripts in Cambridge University Library, 1996, li-lii.
• Morgan, P. Oxford libraries outside the Bodleian. 2nd edn, Oxford, 1980.
• Orr, D. A. "Nicholas, Robert (bap. 1595, d. 1667), judge." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.