Roger Twysden

Sir Roger Twysden, 2nd Baronet (21 August 1597 – 27 June 1672), of Roydon Hall near East Peckham in Kent, was an English historian and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1625 and 1640.

[1] His father was a courtier and scholar who shared in some of the voyages against Spain in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and was well known at the court of King James I, becoming one of the first baronets.

[2] For some years, he remained on his estate at Roydon Hall, East Peckham, largely engaged in building and planting, but also in studying antiquities and the law of the constitution.

The attainder of Lord Strafford frightened him as a tyrannical use of power, and he became a typical example of the men who formed the strength of the king's party in the English Civil War.

After the execution of the King, he returned to Kent, but his respect for legality would not let him rest, and he was soon in trouble again for another demonstration known as "The Instruction to Mr Augustine Skinner."

He was now subjected to all the vexations inflicted on Royalist partisans of good property: sequestrations of his rents, fines for "malignancy," and confinement in the Tower of London, where he consoled himself with his books.

At last, he reached a settlement in 1650 and went home, where he lived quietly till the Restoration, when he resumed his position as magistrate and was made Deputy Lieutenant of the county.

Twysden's claim to notice rests on three works: The Scriptores Decem were ten chroniclers, namely: Simeon Monachus Dunelmensis, Johannes Prior Hagustaldensis, Ricardus Prior Hagustaldensis, Ailredus Abbas Rievallensis, Radulphus de Diceto Londoniensis, Johannes Brompton Jornallensis, Gervasius Monachus Dorobornensis, Thomas Stubbs Dominicanus, Gulielmus Thorn Cantuariensis, Henricus Knighton Leicestrensis.

Her father was a political figure of some importance, but his career was hampered by his wife's open adherence to the Roman Catholic faith, and his own chronic money troubles: by some reports he was almost penniless at his death in 1649.