Edward Clarke

Edward Clarke (referred to as Ned Clarke) (died 1628) was an English courtier, politician and diplomat employed by Charles I of England and George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. Life Clarke was made clerk extraordinary of the Privy Council in 1620, successor to William Beecher, and was introduced at court by Buckingham. He was not a success with the king, however, because of a deformed hand. He became a courier. In September 1623 he was entrusted by Charles with secret orders to Lord Bristol, then British ambassador at Madrid, for the postponement of the Spanish Match. He sat for in the short-lived parliament of 1625. For an attempted defence of Buckingham he was on 6 August 1625 imprisoned by the House of Commons at Oxford. The next year Buckingham tried to persuade the small electorate of , Dorset to return Clarke to Parliament, as they had already done for Sir Richard Strode, another of Buckingham's nominees, but they refused on the grounds that they had promised the second seat for the constituency to Sir Lewis Dyve.