the bar in 1653. He was appointed secretary at war on 28 Jan. 1661 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, p. 490). He had previously acted for more than twelve years as secretary to General Monck. At the Restoration he was knighted and given the great lodge and sixty acres of land in Marylebone Park (Lysons, Environs, iii. 246). He attended Monck in his official capacity on board the Royal Charles in the expedition against the Dutch in the spring of 1666. A fight took place on 1 June, and continued for four successive days. On the second day Clarke's right leg was shattered by a cannon-ball. He ‘bore it bravely,’ but died two days later, aged 43. He was buried near the south door of the chancel of Harwich church, where a memorial to him was afterwards erected by his widow (inscription and plate in Taylor's Harwich, p. 39). Monck, in commending his widow and child to the favour of the king, wrote of Clarke that in him he had lost ‘a faithful and indefatigable servant,’ and that he ‘cannot express too much kindness to his memory’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1665–6, p. 471). Clarke married Dorothy, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Hyliard of Hampshire and Elizabeth Kimpton. By her he had an only son, George Clarke (1660–1736) [q. v.] Lady Clarke married secondly Samuel Barrow, M.D. (1625–1682), Milton's friend, chief physician to Monck's army in Scotland, and after the Restoration physician in ordinary to the king, advocate-general and judge-martial. His widow survived until 1695, and was buried near him in the south aisle of Fulham church. Her monument by Grinling Gibbons is said to have cost 300l. (Faulkner, Fulham, pp. 82–4).
Clarke's diary relating to naval affairs (23 April–1 June 1666) is preserved in the British Museum (Addit. MS. No. 14286).
[Haydn's Book of Dignities, p. 199; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, 1664–5, 1665–6, 1666–7; Taylor's Harwich, pp. 39–41; Pepys's Diary (Bright), iii. 463, 469; Lysons's Environs, ii. 370–1; Will reg. in P. C. C. 95, Mico; Masson's Life of Milton, vi. 714; Students adm. to Inner Temple, 1547–1660, ed. W. H. Cooke, p. 320.]
CLARKE, WILLIAM (1640?–1684), physician, son of George Clarke, by the sister of William Prynne, was born at Swainswyke, near Bath; entered Merton College, Oxford; graduated B.A. in 1661; was elected fellow of Merton 1663, and after three years resigned his fellowship, and practised physic at Bath. He wrote a work entitled ‘The Natural History of Nitre,’ London, 1670, characterised by boundless conceit, giving all information then attainable on the subject. The substance was published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ No. 61. He afterwards practised at Stepney in Middlesex, and died on 24 April 1684.
[Clarke's Nitre, British Museum; Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iv. 133.]
CLARKE, WILLIAM (1696–1771), antiquary, born at Haughmond Abbey, Shropshire, in 1696, was the son of a yeoman who occupied a tract of land under the Kynastons of Hardwick (Shropshire), and who acted as confidential agent for that family. Clarke was educated at Shrewsbury school and at St. John's College, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1715, M.A. 1719, and became a fellow of his college on 22 Jan. 1716–17. On leaving the university he acted as chaplain to Dr. Adam Ottley, bishop of St. David's, and on Ottley's death in 1723 was for a short time domestic chaplain to Thomas Holles, duke of Newcastle. In 1724 he was presented by Archbishop Wake to the rectory of Buxted in Sussex, and in September 1727 was made prebendary of Hova Villa in Chichester Cathedral, and in 1738 canon residentiary. In 1768, having held the rectory of Buxted for more than forty years, he obtained permission to resign it to his son Edward. In June 1770 Clarke was installed chancellor of Chichester (also holding the rectories of Chiddingly and Pevensey annexed to the chancellorship). In August of the same year he was presented to the vicarage of Amport, the vicarial residence of which he resigned to a friend who died in July 1771. In the spring of 1771 Clarke suffered from gout, and died on 21 Oct. of that year. He was buried in Chichester Cathedral, behind the choir (for sepulchral inscriptions, see Nichols, Lit. Anecd. iv. 370, 371). He had married (before 1724?) Anne Wotton (b. June 1700, d 11 July 1783), daughter of Dr. William Wotton, by whom he had three children, two of whom survived him—a son, the Rev. Edward Clarke (1730–1786) [q. v.], and a daughter, Anne, who died, unmarried, at Chichester.
Hayley, who was intimate with the Clarkes, wrote some memorial verses beginning
Mild William Clarke and Anne his wife.
