Walter Moyle

Walter Moyle (1672–1721) was an English politician and political writer, an advocate of classical republicanism. Life He was born at Bake in St Germans, Cornwall, on 3 November 1672, the third, but eldest surviving son of Sir Walter Moyle, who died in September 1701, by his wife Thomasine, daughter of Sir William Morice. Walter Moyle the Elder had been High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1671, and was the son of John Moyle, the friend of Sir John Eliot. After having been grounded in classical learning, probably at Liskeard grammar school, he matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 18 March 1689, and a set of verses by him was inserted in the university collection of poems for William III and Mary II, 1689; but he left Oxford without taking a degree. About 1708 he contributed towards the erection of new buildings at Exeter College opposite the front gate and stretching eastwards, and his second son was a fellow of the college. On 26 January 1691 he was specially admitted at the Middle Temple, and took up the study of constitutional law and history. At first Moyle frequented Maynwaring's coffee-house in Fleet Street and the Grecian near the Temple, but to be nearer the realms of fashion he removed to Covent Garden, and became a regular companion of the wits at Will's. Moyle sat in parliament for Saltash from 1695 to 1698. He was a zealous Whig, with a keen desire to encourage British trade, and a strong antipathy to ecclesiastical establishments.