suc. uncle 2 July 1671 as 2nd Bar. LUCAS of SHENFIELD.
First sat 4 Feb. 1673; last sat 10 Feb. 1686
b. bef. 1649; 1st s. Sir Thomas Lucas and Anne, da. of Sir John Byron; bro. of Robert Lucas*, later 3rd Bar. Lucas. m. Penelope, da. of Francis Leke†, earl of Scarsdale, and Anne Carey, 2da. suc. fa. bef. 19 Oct. 1649.1 d. bef. 29 Oct. 1688.
Associated with: Tenter House, Lexden, Essex.
Charles Lucas succeeded to the barony under the special remainder attached to its creation. His date of birth is unknown, but it must have been before his father’s death sometime in 1649. Lucas is one of those enigmatic peers who took his role in the House of Lords seriously but for whom there is little evidence to establish why he attended so assiduously or what he did there. As the family estates had been left to his cousin, the countess of Kent, Lucas was almost certainly to be classified as one of the ‘poor’ peers. In 1675 Charles II conferred on him an annuity of £500 perhaps to assist him to maintain an appropriate lifestyle. Lucas was, however, sufficiently prosperous to have made a gift of a silver cup and patten to the parish church of St. Leonard’s, possibly to commemorate his elevation to the peerage.2 He appears to have taken little interest in local electoral politics, but the family’s holdings in Lexden were enough to secure the return of his son-in-law, Edward Cary‡, for Colchester in 1690, two years after Lucas’s death.
Unlike his uncle, whose sympathies had been decidedly with the ‘country’ cavaliers, Lucas was firmly identified with the interests of the court. He took his seat at the first opportunity, at the opening of the 1673 session on 4 Feb. 1673 and as in each subsequent session was named to the usual sessional committees. Thereafter he was present for nearly 59 per cent of sittings and was named to eight select committees. He missed only one of the five days of the second 1673 session and was named to the only select committee of the session.
During the 1674 session Lucas was present on 75 per cent of sitting days. The following session, the first of 1675, saw him present on all but two days. He was now firmly identified with the interests of Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). Danby listed him as a potential supporter of the proposed non-resisting Test Act. Lucas was soon rewarded for his support. In June he was granted an annual pension of £500, backdated to the previous Lady Day (25 March). Unlike many royal pensions, it seems that it was regularly and promptly paid.3 Lucas was present on all but four days of the short second 1675 session and on 20 Nov. voted against requesting a dissolution of Parliament.
Lucas’s attendance dropped back to 58 per cent during the 1677-8 session; he covered one of his absences, from 21 Feb. 1678 to 4 Mar. 1678 with a proxy to Louis de Duras, earl of Feversham. He was named to 12 select committees. He continued to be regarded as a supporter of Danby, leading Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, to list him as doubly vile. On 4 Apr. 1678 he voted Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, guilty of manslaughter. The following session, of the summer of 1678, Lucas’s attendance recovered to 88 per cent; he was named to six select committees. During the second session of 1678 he was present on 88 per cent of sitting days. He missed the crucial vote on the test bill on 15 Nov. but took the requisite oaths on 2 December. On 27 Dec. he voted against committing Danby.
During the first Exclusion Parliament Lucas’s attendance reached nearly 92 per cent and he was appointed to three select committees. Danby’s surviving parliamentary lists consistently indicate Lucas as one of his supporters. Lucas’ subsequent votes bore out this assumption. On 22 Mar. he entered a dissent to the decision of the House to appoint a committee to prepare a bill for banishing and disabling Danby; he voted against the bill of attainder on 4 Apr. and not only voted against it but entered a dissent on 14 April. On 10 May he voted against the appointment of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against the impeached lords. On 27 May he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases.
Lucas attended two of the prorogation days between the dissolution of the first Exclusion Parliament and the opening of the second Exclusion Parliament. His attendance at the Second Exclusion Parliament was surprisingly low, only just over 52 per cent. Most of his absences were concentrated in the opening and closing weeks of the session, but he was also frequently absent in November 1680 when arguments over the exclusion of James, duke of York, were at their height. Nevertheless, he loyally turned out on 15 Nov. to reject the exclusion bill at its first reading and he was present on 23 Nov. to vote against the resolution to appoint a committee in conjunction with the Commons to consider the state of the nation. He was also present in December for the trial of William Howard, Viscount Stafford, and on 7 Dec. was one of the few members of the House to find him not guilty. By this time his loyalty to the court may have been wearing thin. Despite Danby’s expectations, Lucas did not attend the Oxford Parliament at all.
During the 1685 session of Parliament Lucas was present on nearly 77 per cent of sitting days and was named to six select committees. His pension was continued by James II, to whom he was close.4 A stray reference in Bramston’s Autobiography describes an incident at court involving James II and Christopher Monck, 2nd duke of Albemarle. He recorded that this had been related to him by ‘Lord Lucas who was in the bedchamber.’ Lucas was not a gentleman of the bedchamber so his presence indicates the possibility of a friendly personal relationship with the king.5 Although Lucas is listed as ‘undeclared’ on one of the surviving parliamentary lists of 1687, others identify him not simply as sympathizing with James’s pro-Catholic policies, but as a Catholic himself. John Verney‡, (later Viscount Fermanagh [I]) also believed Lucas to be a Catholic.6 His mother may well have been a crypto-Catholic: she was related to the Catholic Walmsley family of Lancashire and in 1650 was in possession of their estate at Dunkenhalgh.7 In the event Lucas’s loyalties were not to be put to the test; he died about a week before William of Orange landed at Torbay. His honours passed to his younger brother, Robert, but in so doing parted company from the remainder of the Lucas estate at Lexden, which passed instead to Lucas’s daughters Anne, wife of the former monk and future Tory Member of the Commons, Edward Cary, and Penelope, later wife of Isaac Selfe.8
R.P.