Arthur Duck

Arthur Duck (1580 – 16 December 1648), Doctor of Civil Law (LL.D.), of Chiswick, Middlesex, was a lawyer and Member of Parliament, born at Heavitree, near Exeter, Devon.

Origins

He was born at Heavitree in 1580, the younger son of Richard Duck of Heavitree, by his wife a certain Joanna. His elder brother was the lawyer Nicholas Duck (1570-1628).

Career

He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford (B.A., 1599) and Hart Hall, Oxford (M.A., 1602), and was elected a fellow of All Souls in 1604. In 1612 he was made a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.), and in 1614 was admitted as an Advocate of Doctor's Commons. As a jurist he was a pupil of John Budden.

He was Member of Parliament for Minehead, Somerset, in the Parliament of 1624–5, and again in the Short Parliament of 1640.

Duck was associated with the future Archbishop Laud for some years – an opinion of his that a statute drafted by Laud for Wadham College, Oxford, was not ultra vires is mentioned in the Calendar of State Papers in 1625–6, and he became Chancellor of the Diocese of London at about the time Laud was translated to the bishopric in 1628; by 1633 he is recorded as pleading a case for Laud before the King and Council on appeal from the Dean of Arches, and in the same year he was placed on the Ecclesiastical Commission. He subsequently also became Chancellor of Bath and Wells in 1635, and held numerous other ecclesiastical and administrative posts.