William Freke

William Freke (1662–1744) was an English mystical writer, of Wadham College, Oxford and barrister of the Temple.

Freke first comes to attention as a Socinian Unitarian who suffered at the hands of Parliament in 1694 for his anti-Trinitarian beliefs, and later recanted. William Freke sent his Brief but Clear Confutation of the Doctrine of the Trinity to both Houses of Parliament, was fined and the book burnt. The same happened the next year to John Smith (1695), a clockmaker who had written a similar pamphlet.

In 1703 he published Lingua Tersancta. Or, a Most Sure and Compleat Allegorick Dictionary to the Holy Language of the Spirit. Presumably unbalanced, Freke proclaimed himself the great Elijah in 1709.

A younger son of Thomas Freke or Freeke, he was born at Hannington Hall, Wiltshire; his mother was Cicely, daughter of Robert Hussey of Stourpaine, Dorset. He was at school at Somerford (? Somerford Keynes), Wiltshire, and early in 1677, having attained the age of fourteen, he became a gentleman commoner of Wadham College, Oxford. After two or three years he went to study at the Temple, and was called to the bar, but does not seem to have practised.

He became a reader of 'Arian books' but he continued to attend the services of the Church of England as a silent worshipper, holding schism to be a sin, and believing his conduct to be directed by divine guidance. He studied astrology, but was convinced of its unscientific character. In May 1681, after recovering from smallpox, he had the first of a series of dreams, which he esteemed to be divine monitions. His first volume of essays (1687), 'per Gulielmum Liberam Clavem, i.e. FreeK,' is an attempt to moderate between 'our present differences in church and state.' A second volume of essays (1693) had a plan for a 'Lapis Errantium; or the Stray-Office: For all manner of things lost, found or mislaid within the weekly bills of mortality of the city of London.’ He gives tables of rates to regulate the reward payable to the finder and the fee to the office for safe custody.

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