WALLER, WILLIAM [SSNE 6986]
- Surname
- WALLER
- First name
- WILLIAM
- Title/rank
- COLONEL SIR
- Nationality
- ENGLISH
- Region
- MIDDLESEX
Text source
Sir William Waller was a Middlesex justice who was active against Roman Catholics during the Popish Plot, 1678-1679. He served as an MP in 1679 and 1680, though was removed from the Commission of peace in April 1680. Waller fled to the Dutch Republic in 1682 and was made a burgess of Amsterdam. However, he soon shifted his continental base. By December 1683, news reached Andrew Russell [SSNE 143] in Rotterdam that Waller had been made governor of Bremen and given command of a regiment of guards. Thereafter Waller promised to send for a minister to preach to the Britons in the town. He asked his friend Adam Freer [SSNE 6987] to seek Englishmen and Scotsmen who felt insecure in Holland to remove themselves to Bremen. There he had secured guarantees that any who came would have freedom in the city. He pointed out it was a cheap place to live and had a college with 13-14 professors. As well as Adam Freer, Waller's friends in the town included Mr Dyke who, Freer noted was in good health, and Major George Low [SSNE 7140]. Low was a correspondent of Russell and was an officer in the town and therefore under Waller's command. The DNB notes that Lord Preston, "English Ambassador" in Paris also recorded that Waller was Governor of Bremen and that exiles gathered around him. The DNB continues that Bremen "became the nest of all the persons accused of the last conspiracy i.e. the Rye House Plot. 'They style Waller, by way of commendation, a second Cromwell' adds Peston". He returned to England with William of Orange in November 1688, but received no appointment from him. While in Bremen, Waller wrote the anti-Catholic tract, 'The Tragical History of Jetzer'.National Archives of Scotland, RH15/106/494, Adam Freer to Andrew Russell, 14 December 1683 (Old Style); Steve Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Brill, Leiden, 2006), pp.111-112.
Service record
- THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, AMSTERDAM
- Arrived 1682-01-01
- Capacity REFUGEE, BURGESS, purpose REFUGEE, MISC, CIVIC
- BREMEN, GERMANY, BREMEN
- Arrived 1683-12-01, as COLONEL
- Departed 1688-10-31, as COLONEL
- Capacity GOVERNOR AND OFFICER, purpose MILITARY