Edward Nicholas

Sir Edward Nicholas (4 April 1593 – 1669) was an English office holder and politician who served as Secretary of State to Charles I and Charles II. He also sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1629. He served as secretary to Edward la Zouche and the Duke of Buckingham and became a clerk of the Privy Council. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War and accompanied the court into exile, before assuming the post of Secretary of State on the Restoration.

Nicholas was the eldest son of John Nicholas of a Wiltshire family. He was educated at Salisbury grammar school, Winchester College and Queen's College, Oxford.

After studying law at the Middle Temple, Nicholas became secretary to Edward la Zouche, 11th Baron Zouche, warden, and admiral of the Cinque Ports, in 1618. In 1621, he was elected Member of Parliament for Winchelsea. He was re-elected MP for Winchelsea in 1624 for the Happy Parliament. When Zouche resigned his office of lord warden to the Duke of Buckingham, the Duke, upon Lord Zouch's recommendation, made Nicholas his secretary for the business of the Cinque ports on 9 December 1624 . In 1625 Nicholas became secretary to the admiralty; shortly afterwards he was appointed an extra clerk of the privy council with duties relating to admiralty business. In 1628 he was elected MP for Dover and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years. Appended to a copy of Charles's speech at the dissolution of this parliament on 10 March 1629 is a poem of twenty-four verses in Nicholas's hand, beginning:

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