WHITELOCKE, BULSTRODE English lawyer and parliamentarian, eldest son of Sir James Whitelocke (q.v.), was baptized on Aug. 19, 16o5, and educated at Merchant Taylors' school and at St. John's college, Oxford, where he matric ulated on Dec. 8, 1620. He was called to the bar in 1626 and chosen treasurer in 1628. He was M.P. for Stafford in the parlia ment of 1626 and had been appointed recorder of Abingdon and Henley. In 1640 he was chosen member for Great Marlow in the Long Parliament. He took a prominent part in the proceedings against Strafford. He drew up the bill for making parliaments indissoluble except by their own consent, and supported the Grand Remonstrance and the action taken in the Commons against the illegal canons; on the militia question, however, he advocated a joint control by king and parliament. On the outbreak of the Great Rebellion he took the side of the parliament. He was sent to the king at Oxford in 1643 and 1644 to negotiate terms, and the secret communications with Charles on the latter occa sion were the foundation of a charge of treason brought against Whitelocke and Denzil Holles (q.v.) later. He was again one of the commissioners at Uxbridge in 1645. Nevertheless, he opposed the policy of Holles and the peace party and the proposed dis banding of the army in 1647, repudiated the claims of divine authority put forward by the Presbyterians for their Church, and approved of religious tolerance. He thus gravitated towards Cromwell and the army party. Under the Commonwealth he was nominated councillor of State and became a commissioner of the New Great Seal. In 1653 he went on a mission to Christina, queen of Sweden, to conclude a treaty of alliance and to secure the freedom of the Sound. On his return he again became a commis sioner of the Great Seal, and also a commissioner of the Treas ury. In 1654 and 1656 he sat as M.P. for Buckinghamshire.
As a lawyer, Whitelocke supported a bill introducing the use of English into legal proceedings, drafted a new treason law, and introduced modifications into chancery procedure. His resistance to the ill-considered changes in the court of chancery proposed by Cromwell and the council, however, led to his dismissal from the commissionership of the Great Seal. He still advised Crom
well on foreign affairs, and was chairman of the committee to urge Cromwell to accept the crown. In Dec. 1657 he became a mem ber of the new House of Lords. He was again a commissioner of the Great Seal under Richard Cromwell, and was a member (May 14, 1659) and president (Aug. 1659) of the council of State. On the expulsion of the Long Parliament, in which he had a seat, he was included in the committee of safety which super seded the council. He again received the Great Seal on Nov. 1.
On the failure of his plan to persuade Fleetwood to forestall Monk by making terms with Charles, he retired to the country. He lived at Chilton, in Wiltshire, dying on July 28, 1675.
He was the author of Memorials of the English Affairs from the beginning of the reign of Charles I. . . . published 1682 and reprinted, largely a compilation from various sources, composed after the events and abounding in errors. His work of greatest value, his Annals, still remains in ms. in Lord Bute's and Lord de la Warr's collections (Hist. Brit. Comm. III. Rep., pp. 202, 217 ; also Egerton mss. Brit. Mus. 997, add. mss. 4,994) his Journal of the Swedish Embassy . . . was published 1772 and re-edited by Henry Reeve in 1885 (add. mss. 4,902, and 4,995 and Hist. MSS. Comm. III. Rep., 190, 217) ; Notes on the King's Writ for Choosing Members of Parlia ment . . . were published 1766 (see also add. mss. 4,993) ; Memorials of English Affairs from the supposed expedition of Bruce to this Island to the end of the Reign of James I., were published 1709; Essays Ecclesiastical and Civil (1706) ; Quench not the Spirit . . . (1711) ; some theological treatises remain in ma., and several others are attributed to him.
See the article by C. H. Firth in the Dict. Nat. Biog., with author ities there quoted; R. H. Whitelocke, Memoirs of B. Whitelocke (T86o) ; H. Reeve's edition of the Swedish Embassy; Foss's Judges of England; Eng. Hist. Rev., xvi. 737; Wood's Ath. Oxon., iii. 5042.