, an eminent parliamentary general, was born in 1597. He was descended,
, an eminent parliamentary general, was born in 1597. He was descended, as well as the preceding poet, from the ancient family of the Wallers of Spendhurst, in the county of Kent; and received at Magdalen-ball and Hart-hall, Oxford, his first education, which he afterwards completed at Paris. He began his military career in the service of the confederate princes against the emperor, in which he acquired the reputation of a good soldier, and upon his return home, was distinguished with the honour of knighthood. He was three times married; first to Jane, daughter and heiress of sir Richard Reynell, of Ford in Devonshire, by whom he had one daughter, Margaret, married to sir Wiliiana Courtenay of Powderham castie, ancestor of the present lord viscount Courtenay; secondly, to the lady Anne Finch, daughter of the first earl of Winchelsea, by whom he had one son, William, who was afterwards an active magistrate for the county of Middlesex, and a strenuous opposer of all the measures of king Charles the Second’s government; and one daughter, Anne, married to sir Philip Harcourt, from whom is descended the present earl of that name. Of the family of Sir William’s third wife, we are not informed.