12 Facts About Thurloe

John Thurloe was an English politician who served as secretary to the council of state in Protectorate England and spymaster for Oliver Cromwell.

Thurloe was from Great Milton in Oxfordshire and of Lincoln's Inn,.

Thurloe was first in the service of Oliver St John, solicitor–general to King Charles I and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.

Thurloe remained on the sidelines during the English Civil War but after the accession of Oliver Cromwell, became part of his government.

Thurloe's service broke the Sealed Knot, a secret society of Royalists and uncovered various other plots against the Protectorate.

Related searches

Thurloe supported the idea that Cromwell should adopt a royal title.

In 1657 Thurloe became a member of Cromwell's second council, as well as governor of the London Charterhouse school, and in 1658 he became chancellor of the University of Glasgow.

Thurloe retired from public life but served as a behind-the-scenes authority on foreign affairs and wrote informative papers for Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, but he did not become part of any new government.

Thurloe's correspondence is kept in the Bodleian Library, Oxford and in the British Museum.

Thurloe owned several manors including Whittlesey St Mary's and Whittlesey St Andrew's and an estate at Astwood in Buckinghamshire worth £400 per annum.

Thurloe held the rectory of Whittlesey St Mary's, in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire.

Thurloe purchased the Wisbech Castle estate, sold off some of the land, cleared the remains of the bishop's palace and built and furnished a mansion just before the Restoration of the Monarchy, after which it was restored to the Bishop of Ely.