Thomas Colepeper (Royalist)

Sir Thomas Colepeper (1578 – January 1661) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1614 and 1629.

[1] In 1628 he was elected MP for Tewkesbury and sat until 1629 when King Charles I decided to rule without parliament for eleven years.

They had eleven children, including Sir Cheney Culpeper, Thomas junior, who inherited most of the family estates after their father's quarrel with Cheney, John, Cicely, who married Ralph Freke, and Judith, who was the second wife of her cousin John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper, one of the King's closest advisers.

Colepeper published in 1623 his Tract against the High Rate of Usury, a work already presented to Parliament two years earlier.

In it he argued for a reduction of the highest permitted annual interest rate, from 10%, presenting a case from other countries where the limit was 6%.