Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Clarke, Robert (d.1607)
CLARKE, Sir ROBERT (d. 1607), judge, was admitted a student at Lincoln's Inn on 15 Feb. 1562, called to the bar in 1568, elected reader at Lincoln's Inn in the autumn of 1582, took the degree of serjeant-at-law on 12 June 1587, and ten days later was raised to the exchequer bench, and immediately assigned to take the Hertford assizes. In 1590 he took the Surrey assizes, at which one John Udal [q. v.], a puritan clergyman, was indicted of felony under the statute 23 Eliz. c. 2, § 4. He had been previously examined by Chief-justice Sir Edmund Anderson [q. v.] at the privy council. Udal was accused of writing one of the Mar-Prelate tracts, entitled ‘A Demonstration of the Truth of that Discipline which Christ hath prescribed in his Word for the Government of the Church,’ in which he roundly accused the bishops of being the cause of all ungodliness. The case was tried in July 1590 at Croydon, before Clarke and Serjeant Puckering, neither of whom seems to have been unfavourably disposed towards the prisoner. Udal argued that the statute applied exclusively to cases of libel directed against the sovereign personally. Being overruled in this contention, he was found guilty, but sentence was deferred until the spring assizes, in order that he might have the opportunity of making a full submission to her majesty. The judges required that he should admit in writing that the work contained ‘false, slanderous, and seditious matters against her majesty's prerogative royal, her crown, and dignity.’ This, however, Udal would not do. Accordingly, on 20 Feb. 1590–1, he was sentenced to death. Subsequently he was reprieved by the queen, and attempts were made to elicit a further submission from him; but while they were still in progress he died in prison (1592). On the accession of James I (March 1602–3) Clarke's patent was renewed, and on 23 July 1603 he was knighted at Whitehall. In a letter of Cecil to Windebank, dated 27 Jan. 1602–3, he is described as old and infirm, and about to be pensioned. Nevertheless, he tried, in 1606, the celebrated Bates's case. His judgment was for the king, but it amounted to an admission that the impost, not being in accordance with the statute 1 Jac. I, c. 33, was illegal at common law, though he attempted at the same time to justify it by exchequer precedents. He died on 1 Jan. 1606–7, and was buried in the parish church of Good Estre, Essex, in which county he had purchased several estates. He married four times: (1) Mary, who died in February 1585–6; (2) Catherine, daughter of Henry Leake, citizen and clothworker of London, and widow of Barnabas Hilles of London, who died in January 1589–90; (3) between 1591 and 1602, Margaret, daughter of John Maynard, M.P. for St. Albans in 1553—the grandfather of the first lord Maynard—and widow of Sir Edward Osborne, lord mayor of London in 1582 and ancestor of the first duke of Leeds; she died in 1602; (4) in 1602, Joice or Jocosa, widow of James Austin, who survived him, dying in 1626, and was buried at St. Saviour's Church, Southwark, where her monument still exists. By his first wife Clarke had issue Robert, who succeeded to his manor of Newarks, and died on 18 May 1629, and five daughters; a son and daughter by his second wife; and two daughters by his third wife. By his will he directed that his funeral expenses should not exceed 20l., and that twice that sum should be distributed in alms.
[Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 96, 97; Dugdale's Orig. 253; Coke's Reports, iii. 16 b; Lane's Exch. Reports, p. 21; Cobbett's State Trials, i. 1271–1315; Strype's Annals (fol.), iv. 21, 24, 25–7; Strype's Whitgift, p. 375; Nichols's Progresses (James I), i. 207; Morant's Essex, i. 345, ii. 453, 459; Cal. State Papers (Dom. 1601–3), p. 285, (Dom. 1603–10) p. 348; Coll. Top. et Gen. v. 51; Collins's Peerage (Brydges), i. 254, vi. 282; Willis's Not. Parl. iii. 27; Foss's Judges of England.]