Francis Ashley

Who was Francis Ashley?

Sir Francis Ashley was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1614 and 1625.

Ashley was born at Damerham, the son of Sir Anthony Ashley of Damerham in Wiltshire and his wife Dorothy Lyte, daughter of John Lyte of Lytes Cary, Somerset. At the age of 16 he entered Magdalen College, Oxford, and graduated with BA on 5 June 1589. He went on to study law at the Middle Temple where he was called to the bar in 1596. In 1610 he was appointed recorder of Dorchester. He purchased the Old Friary on the north side of the town by the river Frome where he made extensive alterations and lived there with his family.

In 1614, Ashley was elected Member of Parliament for Dorchester. He became reader at the Middle Temple in 1616. In 1617 he became Serjeant-at-law and in the same year granted to Rev. Robert Cheeke, the master of the Free School and Rector of All Saints Church, all his "tithes of corne, grayne, hay, woole, lambes, oak etc belonging to the free chapel of Pudle Waterston". Ashley was knighted on 5 July 1618. In 1621 he was re-elected MP for Dorchester but on 13 February 1621 resigned his place in favour of Sir Thomas Edmondes. However Edmondes chose to sit elsewhere and Ashley was chosen again as MP for Dorchester on 9 Mar 1621. He was greatly influenced by the Rev. John White rector of Holy Trinity and St Peters, and with him and others invested in 1624 in the Dorchester Company.