George la Zouche, tenth baron (d. 1569), and his wife Margaret, daughter and coheir of William Welby of Molton, Lincolnshire. The family claimed descent from Eudes la Zouche, a younger son of Alan la Zouche, baron Zouche [q. v.] His son William, first baron Zouche of Harringworth, was summoned to parliament from 13 Jan. 1308 to 14 Feb. 1348, and died in 1352. William, the fifth baron (1402?–1463), married Alice de jure baroness St. Maur, daughter of Sir Thomas St. Maur, baron St. Maur, and the sixth and succeeding barons Zouche are now considered to have been also de jure barons St. Maur. John, the seventh baron (1460–1526), was attainted in 1485 as an adherent of Richard III, but was restored in blood and dignity in 1495.
Edward succeeded as eleventh Baron Zouche on the death of his father, George, on 30 June 1569. As a ‘ward of state’ he came under the care of Sir William Cecil, who entrusted his education to Whitgift, then master of Trinity College, Cambridge. On 19 Aug. 1570 Whitgift wrote to Cecil, ‘My Lord Zouche is in good health … and shall not lack my carefulness and diligence. … He continueth in his well-doing,’ but apparently did not take a degree (Whitgift, Works, iii. 599). He received his first summons to parliament on 2 April 1571, but being a minor did not take his seat for some years. Subsequently he lamented his ‘fond spending of his time in youth;’ ‘I passed my youth,’ he wrote, ‘in little searching for knowledge, and in that time spent my patrimony’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1591–4, p. 91; Cal. Hatfield MSS. vi. 195). In 1575 he quarrelled with Roger North, second baron North [q. v.], and on 12 Feb. 1575–6 both peers were summoned before the privy council and bound over to keep the peace. In 1586 Zouche was one of the peers who tried Mary queen of Scots, and in the following year he went to live on the continent, partly to qualify himself for public service and partly, as he said, ‘to live cheaply.’ He went by sea to Hamburg in March 1587, and thence to Heidelberg and Frankfort. In April 1588 he was at Basle, and in 1590 he met at Altdorf (Sir) Henry Wotton [q. v.], with whom he corresponded much in after years. Wotton's letters to Zouche were published separately in 1685 (London, 8vo), and were also appended to the edition of the ‘Reliquiæ Wottonianæ’ which appeared in that year. In August 1591 Zouche was living at Vienna; thence he proceeded to Verona, but in 1593 he was back in England.
On 22 Dec. of that year he was sent as envoy extraordinary to James VI of Scotland to protest against his leniency towards Huntly, Errol, and Angus, who were known to be in league with Spain, and to inform him that Elizabeth would resist the landing of any Spanish troops in Scotland (instructions dated 20 Dec. in Cotton MS. Caligula D. ii. ff. 151, 155; cf. Cal. State Papers, Spanish, 1587–1603, p. 613). He had audience of James VI on 15 Jan. 1593–4, but his ‘zeal caused him to exceed his authority,’ and he returned in the following April (Thorpe, Cal. Scottish State Papers, ii. 642–677; Cotton MS. Calig. D. ii. f. 169). In June 1598 he was sent on a commercial mission to Denmark, (Sir) Christopher Perkins [q. v.], who had already been several times as envoy to the Danish court, being selected to accompany him (Cotton MS. Nero B. iv. ff. 195, 204, 211). These missions did nothing to restore Zouche's private fortunes, and in 1600 he retired for the sake of economy to Guernsey, where for a few months he was persuaded to act as deputy-governor. He returned to England in 1601, when Chamberlain anticipated his appointment as ambassador to Scotland. The report was unfounded, but in June 1602 Zouche was appointed president of Wales (Harl. MS. 7020, art. 26), and four months later Chamberlain wrote, ‘Lord Zouche plays rex in Wales with both council and justices, and with the poor Welshmen’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1601–3, pp. 45, 201, 249).
Zouche was continued in this office by James I, who further gratified him by making him grants of land worth 80l. a year in 1604, and others in subsequent years (ib. 1603–10, pp. 137, 142, 214, 220). After Salisbury's death in 1612 he was one of the commissioners to whom the treasury was entrusted (Court and Times of James I, i. 173). He was now able to indulge in colonial ventures; in 1609 he was member of the council of the Virginia Company, and in 1617 he invested a hundred pounds in Lord De la Warr's expedition [see West, Thomas, 1577–1618]. In 1619 he sent his pinnace, the Silver Falcon, to Virginia, and on 3 Nov. 1620 was appointed one of the first members of the New England council.
Meanwhile, in spite of complaints that his treatment brought disgrace upon the office he held, Zouche remained president of Wales until 13 July 1615, when he was given the important and dignified office of lord warden of the Cinque Ports (Gardiner, ii. 327); his official correspondence in this capacity fills no small portion of the ‘Domestic State Papers.’ His political importance was slight, but what influence he possessed he seems to have exerted in the anti-Spanish interest,
