Sir William Spring, 2nd Baronet

Sir William Spring, 2nd Baronet (1642–1684) was an English politician, member of the Spring family and MP for Suffolk 1679-1684.

Spring was educated at King Edward VI School and Christ's College, Cambridge.^[1] He inherited the Baronetcy of Pakenham, Suffolk from his father, the Parliamentarian politician William, in 1654. He was removed from the Commission of the Peace for Suffolk in 1670 for opposing the Conventicle Act 1664. He contested the Sudbury constituency in 1679, but lost. He subsequently represented Suffolk in both the second and third Exclusion Parliaments as an exclusionist. Although he moved away from his father's Puritan beliefs, Spring was still anxious about the increasing Catholicisation of the Church of England over his lifetime. On 14 February 1681, after he and Sir Samuel Barnardiston had been unanimously elected, an address was presented to them from the free-holders, thanking them for "your zeal for the Protestant religion, your loyalty to his Majesty’s person and government, and your endeavours for the preservation of our laws, rights and liberties" and urging them to continue their support of exclusion. He served as High Sheriff of Suffolk in 1674.

He first married Mary, daughter of Dudley North, 4th Baron North (no issue) and married secondly Sarah, daughter of Sir Robert Cordell, 1st Baronet of Melford Hall, Suffolk^[2] and together they had three children:

1. Sir Thomas Spring, 3rd Baronet, married Merolina, daughter of Thomas Jermyn, 2nd Baron Jermyn
2. Sir John Spring, 5th Baronet, married Elizabeth Nightingale
3. Sarah Spring, married John Macky.

Spring was one of the earliest Whig MPs, being strongly in favour of excluding the Roman Catholic James, Duke of York from the inheriting the throne.

Ancestry

References

• Leigh Rayment's list of baronets
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs