Simonds d ewes autobiography templates

In the second of a four-part series, Dr Stephen Roberts, editor of the Commons 1640-60 section, discusses the problems associated with judging the life of a prolific diarist…

Simonds D’Ewes was born into a family recently settled in Suffolk but with roots in the Netherlands.

Simonds d ewes autobiography templates

He was the son and grandson of lawyers, and was himself put to the law at a very young age. He was called to the bar at the age of 21, but his inherited landed wealth meant that he did not need to practise law to make a living.

He first entered Parliament in 1640 for the Suffolk borough of Sudbury, and sat in the Long Parliament all through the English civil war until Col. Thomas Pride’s purge in December 1648. He was a staunch Puritan of a conservative kind.

D’Ewes’s fame rests on his parliamentary diaries, which provide unrivalled insights into the politics of the House of Commons between 1640 and 1645.

D’Ewes was a compulsive diarist, and started keeping a diary 20 years before he entered Parliamen