Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Drake, Samuel (d.1673)
DRAKE, SAMUEL, D.D. (d. 1673), royalist divine, was a native of Halifax, Yorkshire, and was educated at Pocklington school. He was admitted to St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1637, and obtained his B.A. degree in 1640–1. In 1643 he was admitted a fellow of that college by royal command, and in the following year proceeded M.A. He was subsequently ejected from his fellowship for refusing to take the covenant. He afterwards joined the royalist army, and was a member of the garrison at Pontefract, and present at the battle of Newark. In 1651 the parliament ordered him and several other ministers to be tried by the high court of justice on suspicion of conspiracy, but the result is unknown. At the Restoration he was presented to the living of Pontefract, and in 1661 he petitioned the king to intercede with the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University that he might proceed to the degree of B.D., as he had not been able to keep his name on the college books, and sent certificates to show that he had served with the army, and that his father's estate had been plundered. In November 1661 Charles II complied with his request, and in a letter of Williamson Drake says the vice-chancellor permitted him to proceed D.D. after ‘long bickerings.’ In 1670 he was collated to a prebend of Southwell, which he resigned the following year. He died in 1673, leaving a son, Francis Drake, vicar of Pontefract, who assisted Walker in the compilation of 'The Sufferings of the Clergy,' and whose sons, Samuel and Francis, are separately noticed. Drake wrote: 1. 'A Sermon on Micah vi. 8,' 1670. 2. 'A Sermon on Romans xiii. 6,' 1670. 3. 'Concio ad Clerum,' published 1719.
[Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, p. 150; Southwell Records; Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 511; Calendar of State Papers (Dom.), 1661; Baker's History of St. John's College, Cambridge, p. 535.]