CHURCHILL (Sir Winston), the father of the great duke of Marlborough, was descended from an ancient and honourable family in Dorsetshire. He was born at Wotton Glanville in that county in 1610; and educated at St John's college at Oxford. He engaged in the cause of his unfortunate sovereign Cha. I. for which he suffered severely in his fortune; and having married, while young, Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir John Drake of Ashe in Devonshire, she was forced to seek a refuge in her father's house, when Mr Churchill's misfortunes left him none that he could call his own; and there most of his children were born. After the restoration, he was elected a burgess to serve in parliament for the borough of Weymouth; and, in 1669, his majesty was pleased to confer on him the honour of knighthood. The next year he was made one of the commissioners of claims in Ireland; and upon his return from thence, was constituted one of the clerks comptrollers of the green-cloth: but writing a kind of political essay upon the History of England, which gave great offence to the parliament, he was, in 1678, dismissed from his post. He was, however, soon restored to it again; and lived to see his eldest surviving son raised to the peerage, and the rest of his children in a fair way to promotion. He died in 1688.