he was appointed principal of St. Alban Hall. In 1621 and 1624, through the influence of his cousin Edward, eleventh baron Zouche [q. v.], he had been elected M.P. for Hythe.
Henceforth Zouche seems to have divided his attention between his academical engagements and his practice in London. He took a leading part in the Laudian codification of the statutes of the university (1629–1633). He acted for many years as ‘assessor’ of the vice-chancellor's court, and in 1632 became chancellor of the diocese. At the same time he was making for himself such a position at Doctors' Commons as resulted in his appointment, on the death of Sir Henry Marten in 1641, to be judge of the high court of admiralty. In the civil war the sympathies of Zouche were on the side of the king. His departure for Oxford in 1643, without payment of a parliamentary assessment, was followed by the levy of a distress upon the furniture in his London chambers. In 1646 he was one of those who negotiated, on behalf of the royalist forces in Oxford, the articles for the surrender of the city to Fairfax, signed 22 June, under which he and the other malignants there were permitted within six months to compound for their estates, without taking the covenant, and to go to London for that purpose. He petitioned accordingly, and in November of the same year was allowed to compound for interests in land at Harvill, near Uxbridge, at Ascott in Oxfordshire, and in Knightrider Street and Doctors' Commons in the city of London, at one tenth of their value, viz. 333l. In 1647 he was busy in drafting, together with Dr. Robert Sanderson [q. v.], the ‘Reasons’ of the university of Oxford for disagreeing with the solemn league and covenant and the negative oath; but in the following year he seems to have in some sort submitted to the parliamentary visitors for the reformation of the university (though his name does not occur in their register), so as not only to have retained his academical preferments as long as he lived, but also to have induced the visitors to restore his son Richard to a demyship of which they had deprived him. Zouche was, however, not allowed to retain the judgeship of the admiralty, which was in 1649 conferred upon Dr. Exton, but was sufficiently in favour with Cromwell to be placed by him upon the special commission of oyer and terminer, consisting of three judges, three civilians, and three laymen, for the trial of Don Pantaleone Sa, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, for murder committed in a brawl at the Exchange. Sa was condemned on 4 July 1654, and executed, and Zouche some years later wrote a book to defend the judgment in which he had taken part. In opposition to the now accepted view, he holds that the diplomatic privilege allowed to an ambassador does not extend to a member of his suite.
Zouche seems to have passed the remainder of the commonwealth time chiefly at Oxford, and to have been looked upon with some suspicion by both political parties. On the one hand, he was defeated in 1657 for the keepership of the archives by Dr. John Wallis (1616–1703) [q. v.], who had gone about saying of him ‘that he was a malignant and talked against Oliver.’ On the other hand, as having submitted to the visitors of 1648, he was an unacceptable member of the new commission which was sent down in 1660 to undo the work of its predecessors, by restoring the deprived professors and fellows to their former positions. No attention was, however, paid to complaints on this score, and Zouche and his colleagues completed in ten weeks the work which had been entrusted to them. On 4 Feb. 1661 Zouche was replaced in the judgeship of the admiralty, but enjoyed the post for less than a month. He died at his house in Doctors' Commons on 1 March 1661, and was buried at Fulham, near the grave of his daughter, Catherine Powell. Sarah Zouche long survived her husband, and dying in 1683, at the lodgings of her son-in-law, the provost of Oriel, was buried under a memorial tablet in the church of St. Peter's in the East at Oxford.
Richard and Sarah Zouche had six children—two sons and four daughters—of whom Anne married Robert Say, provost of Oriel, and, dying in 1687, was honoured by a monument at St. Mary's; and Sarah married Dr. Lydall, warden of Merton, and, dying in 1712, was buried with an inscription in the college chapel. She alone of all Zouche's children left issue. One of her daughters, Frances Lydall, married Dr. W. Walker, fellow of Oriel, whose descendant, the Rev. R. Zouche Walker, late fellow of Magdalen College, is the owner of a beautiful portrait of Zouche by Cornelius Jansen, representing him as a man of about thirty-five, in ruff and doublet, with refined features and pointed beard. An etching of this picture is prefixed to the reprint of ‘The Dove.’
Zouche made a very favourable impression upon his contemporaries. Bishop Sanderson said to a friend: ‘The learned civilian, Doctor Zouche (who lately died), had writ “Elementa Jurisprudentiæ,” which was a book he could also say without book; and that no wise man could read it too often, or com-
