A younger son of Thomas Freke or Freeke, he was born at Hannington Hall, Wiltshire; his mother was Cicely, daughter of Robert Hussey of Stourpaine, Dorset.
Somerford Keynes), Wiltshire, and early in 1677, having attained the age of fourteen, he became a gentleman commoner of Wadham College, Oxford.
[3][4] He became a reader of 'Arian books' but he continued to attend the services of the Church of England as a silent worshipper, holding schism to be a sin, and believing his conduct to be directed by divine guidance.
His first volume of essays (1687), 'per Gulielmum Liberam Clavem, i.e. FreeK,' is an attempt to moderate between 'our present differences in church and state.'
A second volume of essays (1693) had a plan for a 'Lapis Errantium; or the Stray-Office: For all manner of things lost, found or mislaid within the weekly bills of mortality of the city of London.’ He gives tables of rates to regulate the reward payable to the finder and the fee to the office for safe custody.
The Commons on 13 December 1693, and the Lords on 3 January 1694, voted the pamphlet an infamous libel, and ordered it to be burned by the hangman in Old Palace Yard, Westminster.
On 19 May he was condemned to pay a fine of £500, to make a recantation in the four courts of Westminster Hall, and to find security for good behaviour during three years.
[3] Freke spent the latter part of his life (apparently from 1696) at Hinton St Mary, Dorset, where he acted (from about 1720) as justice of the peace.