Walker, Clement

, author of the “History of Independency,” was born at Clifte in Dorsetshire, and is said to have been educated at Christ’s church, Oxford, in which however, Wood could find no memorial of him. Afterwards

1 Hutton’s Dict. new edit. —Gent. Mag. vol. LXVIII.
| leaving the university without a degree, he retired to an estate he had at Charterhouse near Wells in Somersetshire, where he lived in good repute especially for his loyalty and hatred of the puritans, in both which respects he appears soon after to have changed his mind. Before the civil wars, he had been made usher of the exchequer, but, says Wood, when “the puritans or presbyterians were like to carry all before them, he closed with them,” and was elected member of parliament for the city of Wells in 1640. Afterwards he became a zealous covenanter, and had a considerable share in the violent measures of the times, until the independents began to acquire the superiority, whom he resisted as much as lay in his power, especially in his “History” of that sect, which had a very considerable influence, as he was not only a man of abilities, but had acquired a character for disinterestedness. When the second part of this work was published in 1649, he was discovered to be the author, and imprisoned by Cromwell in the Tower. There having allowance of pen, ink, and paper, he wrote the third part of his history, but was never released. He died in the Tower in Oct. 1651, to the great grief, Wood says, of the presbyterian party. He was interred in Allhallows Barking, near the Tower. Walker wrote several temporary pamphlets, enumerated by Wood, arising out of the circumstances of the times, but none of any consequence, unless what he has incorporated in his “History of Independency,” published in three parts, 1648 1651, 4to, to which a fourth part by T. M. was added in 1660. “It is written,” says Warbnrton, “in a rambling vvay, and with a vindictive presbyterian spirit, full of bitterness but it gives an admirable idea of the character of the times, parties, and persons.” Within the last tweitty years, the price of this work, when complete, has risen from shillings to guineas. 1
1

Ath. Ox. vol. II.—Warburton’s Letters.