Robert Danvers

Who was Robert Danvers?

Robert Danvers also Wright, Howard and Villiers was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1659 and 1660. The illegitimate child of a notorious liaison, Danvers had four different names, changed religion four times and sided according to circumstances with Royalists, Parliamentarians, the restored monarchy and its opponents.

Danvers was the illegitimate son of Frances Villiers, Lady Purbeck, the estranged wife of John Villiers, 1st Viscount Purbeck probably by Sir Robert Howard of Clun Castle, Shropshire and was baptised as Robert Wright. His mother was the daughter of Sir Edward Coke of Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. After they were convicted of adultery, his parents went to France where he was educated between 1633 and 1641 under the name Howard and brought up as a Catholic. His mother brought him back to England at the start of the English Civil War and Lord Purbeck was persuaded to recognise him as his son and let him assume the name Villiers. As Villiers, he fought for the king at the Battle of Edgehill and in 1643 became a colonel of foot in the Royalist army and governor of Oswestry. In 1644 he was dismissed by Prince Rupert, became a Presbyterian and submitted to Parliament. He inherited the estates of his mother on her death in 1645. He paid fines of £2,650 for his delinquency with borrowed money, but the estates were not freed of sequestration until 1653. After he married the daughter of the regicide Sir John Danvers he stated that he would have been willing to act as the King’s executioner. When his father-in-law died, Oliver Cromwell allowed him to assume the name and arms of Danvers "because those of the name of Villiers had sided" with the King. On Lord Purbeck’s death in 1658 he renounced the peerage.