Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of 1621-83
English politician

Born in Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, he served with the Royalists in the Civil War, and then joined the Parliamentarians, becoming a member of Cromwell's Council of State. He was always suspected of Royalist sympathies, however, and in 1659 he was tried and imprisoned. He was one of 12 commissioners sent to France to invite Charles II home. In 1661 he was created Baron Ashley, and from then until his elevation as the Earl of Shaftesbury in 1672 was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was subsequently made Lord Chancellor but dismissed by Charles a year later. He was a leading member of the movement to exclude the Roman Catholic Duke of York (James II) from the throne, exploiting for his own purposes the fictitious 'Popish Plot' allegedly uncovered by Titus Oates. He was subsequently tried for treason but acquitted, and moved to Amsterdam, where he died. He was satirized as 'Achitobel' in John Dryden's Absolom and Achitobel (1651). Although he was a man of great deviousness, his instincts were basically liberal, as is revealed by his association with John Locke in securing the amendment of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1679.

Bibliography: K H D Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury (1968)