Thomas Colepeper

Thomas Colepeper (1637–1708) was an English colonel. Life Colepeper was the only son of Sir Thomas Colepeper, knt., lieutenant of Dover Castle, and St. Stephen's, otherwise Hackington, Kent, by his wife, Lady Barbara, daughter of Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester, and widow of Thomas Smythe, 1st Viscount Strangford. He was born on the Christmas Day of 1637. Colepeper lost both his parents six years later. Colepeper lived as a steward with the Strangford family. With his half-brother, Philip, Viscount Strangford, he busied himself in promoting the king's return and was imprisoned by the council of state in August and September 1659. In 1662 he married Frances, third and youngest daughter of John, Lord Frecheville, of Staveley, Derbyshire, by his second wife, Sarah, daughter and heiress of Sir John Harrington, knt. It was a stolen match, and so displeasing to Lord Frecheville that while outwardly reconciled, he refused to make his daughter any settlement. At his death in March 1682, he left her an annuity of £300, which owing to the reduced state of his fortune, was probably never paid. Lord Frecheville had been obliged to sell his manor of Staveley and other lands to the Earl of Devonshire in the October previous to his death. Colepeper afterward made this sale the subject of much litigation. He used every means in his power to set aside the sale, and, exasperated by repeated failure, he took occasion to publicly insult his opponent by striking him within the precincts of the court at Whitehall Palace on 9 July 1685; John Evelyn witnessed the assault. For this offense, Colepeper was imprisoned in the Marshalsea Prison and subsequently condemned to lose his hand. His wife's letters to him during his imprisonment are in British Library Harley MS 7005. At her request, Lord Danby used his influence with the king and Colepeper was pardoned.