Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC (22 July 1621 – 21 January 1683), known as Anthony Ashley Cooper from 1621 to 1630, as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 2nd Baronet from 1630 to 1661, and as The Lord Ashley from 1661 to 1672, was a prominent English politician during the Interregnum and the reign of King Charles II.
A founder of the Whig party, he was also the patron of John Locke.
Cooper was born in 1621 having lost his parents by the age of eight was raised by Edward Tooker and other guardians named in his father's will, before attending Exeter College, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn.
He married the daughter of Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry in 1639 and that patronage secured his first seat in the Short Parliament and he soon lost a disputed election to the Long Parliament.
During the English Civil War he fought as a Royalist then as a Parliamentarian from 1644.
During the English Interregnum, he served on the English Council of State under Oliver Cromwell, although he opposed Cromwell's attempt to rule without parliament during the Rule of the Major-Generals.
He also opposed the religious extremism of the Fifth Monarchists during Barebone's Parliament.
Later as a member and patron he opposed the New Model Army's attempts to rule after Richard Cromwell's ousting; encouraged Sir George Monck's march on London, a pivotal march in restoring the monarchy; sat in the Convention Parliament of 1660 which agreed to restore the English monarchy; travelled among its twelve-strong delegation to the Dutch Republic to invite King Charles II to return.
Shortly before his coronation, Charles created Cooper Lord Ashley, so when the Cavalier Parliament assembled in 1661 he moved from the House of Commons to the House of Lords.
He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1661–1672.
During the ministry of the Earl of Clarendon, he opposed the Clarendon Code, preferring Charles II's Declaration of Indulgence (1662), which the King became forced to scrap.
After the fall of Clarendon, he was one of the five among the later-criticised, acronym-based, Cabal Ministry or 'the cabal', serving as Lord Chancellor 1672–1673 — he was created Earl of Shaftesbury in 1672.
During this period, John Locke entered his household.
Ashley took an interest in colonial ventures and was one of the Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina; in 1669, Ashley and Locke collaborated in writing the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina.
By 1673, Ashley was worried that the heir to the throne, James, Duke of York, was secretly a Roman Catholic.
Shaftesbury became a leading opponent of the policies of Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby who favoured strict interpretation of penal laws and compulsory Anglican adherence.
Shaftesbury, who sympathized with Protestant Nonconformists, briefly agreed to work with the possible heir to the throne the Duke of York (James), who opposed enforcing the penal laws against Roman Catholic recusants.
By 1675, however, Shaftesbury was convinced that Danby, assisted by high church bishops, was determined to revert England to an absolute monarchy.
He soon came to see the Duke of York's religion as linked.
Opposed to the growth of "popery and arbitrary government" throughout 1675-1680 Shaftesbury argued in favour of frequent parliaments (spending time in the Tower of London, 1677–1678 for espousing this view) and argued that the nation needed protection from a potential Roman Catholic successor thus in the Exclusion Crisis an outspoken supporter of the Exclusion Bill.
He doubled this with supporting Charles II's remarrying a Protestant princess to produce a legitimate Protestant heir, or legitimizing his illegitimate Protestant son the Duke of Monmouth.
The Whig party was born during this crisis, and Shaftesbury was one of the party's most prominent leaders.
In 1681, during the Tory reaction following the failure of the Exclusion Bill, Shaftesbury was arrested for high treason, a prosecution dropped several months later.
In 1682, after the Tories had gained the ability to pack London juries with their supporters, Shaftesbury, fearing re-arrest and trial, fled abroad, arrived in Amsterdam, fell ill and soon died, in January 1683.
Jamila M'Barek
Jamila Ashley- Cooper, Countess of Shaftesbury( née M' Barek), is the French- born Tunisian widow of Anthony Ashley- Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury, and is imprisoned for having been an accomplice to the murder of her husband by her brother.
Cropley Ashley-Cooper, 6th Earl of Shaftesbury
Cropley Ashley- Cooper, 6th Earl of Shaftesbury Bt( 21 December 1768 – 2 June 1851), styled The Honourable Cropley Ashley- Cooper until 1811, was a British politician.
He was the father of the social reformer Anthony Ashley- Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Lord Ashley
Anthony Ashley- Cooper, Lord Ashley( 4 October 1900 – 8 March 1947), was a British army officer.
He was the eldest son of Anthony Ashley- Cooper, 9th Earl of Shaftesbury and Lady Constance Sibell Grosvenor.
His courtesy title" Lord Ashley", was used as the eldest son of the Earl of Shaftesbury.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2nd Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2nd Earl of Shaftesbury Bt (16 January 1652 – 2 November 1699), known as Lord Ashley from 1672 to 1683, was an English peer and Member of Parliament.
Shaftesbury was the son of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, and Lady Frances Cecil.
He was elected to the House of Commons for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in 1673, a seat he held until 1679.
In 1683 he succeeded his father in the earldom and entered the House of Lords.
Lord Shaftesbury married Lady Dorothy Manners, daughter of John Manners, 8th Earl of Rutland, in 1669.
He died in November 1699, aged 47, and was succeeded in his titles by his son Anthony, who became a noted philosopher and writer.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury Bt (26 February 1671 – 16 February 1713) was an English politician, philosopher and writer.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury( 28 April 1801 – 1 October 1885), styled Lord Ashley from 1811 to 1851 and then Lord Shaftesbury following the death of his father, was a British politician, philanthropist and social reformer.
He was the eldest son of Cropley Ashley- Cooper, 6th Earl of Shaftesbury and his wife Lady Anne Spencer, daughter of George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, and older brother of Henry Ashley, MP.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley- Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury Bt( 22 May 1938 – c. 5 November 2004), styled Lord Ashley between 1947 and 1961, and Earl of Shaftesbury from 1961 until his death, was a British peer from Wimborne St Giles, Dorset, England.
He was the son of Major Anthony Ashley- Cooper, Lord Ashley, and Françoise Soulier.
Ashley- Cooper was the grandson of Anthony Ashley- Cooper, 9th Earl of Shaftesbury.
Ashley- Cooper's father was the heir apparent to the earldom and its subsidiary titles, but he predeceased his father.
His death made his son next in the line of succession.
When his grandfather died in 1961, Ashley- Cooper became the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury, Baron Ashley of Wimborne St Giles and Baron Cooper of Pawlett.
The 10th Earl of Shaftesbury was a wealthy landowner of over in East Dorset, and received honours and awards for his philanthropic and conservationist work, which included planting over a million trees in South West England.
He served as president of the Shaftesbury Society, pursuing the same goals of his second great grandfather, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, who had founded the organization as Ragged Schools in 1840.
He also served as the vice president of Sir David Attenborough's British Butterfly Conservation Society.
In November 2004, the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury went missing while in France, prompting an international police investigation.
His remains were found at the bottom of a remote ravine in the foothills of the French Alps five months after his death.
Investigations revealed that he was murdered by his brother- in- law during an argument regarding a divorce from his wife, Jamila M' Barek, both of whom were convicted of his murder.
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 5th Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley- Cooper, 5th Earl of Shaftesbury DL FRS( 17 September 1761 – 14 May 1811) was a British peer.
Ashley- Cooper was the son of Anthony Ashley- Cooper, 4th Earl of Shaftesbury and Mary Pleydell- Bouverie.
He was educated at Winchester and served as Deputy Lieutenant of Dorset.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1785.
Lord Shaftesbury married Barbara Webb, daughter of Sir John Webb, 5th Baronet and Mary Salvain, of Odstock House, Wiltshire, on 17 July 1786.
His only child, a daughter, was Lady Barbara Ashley- Cooper( 19 October 1788 – 5 June 1844), who married the Baron de Mauley.
Lord Shaftesbury died on 14 May 1811 at age 49 and was buried at St Giles Parish in Wimborne St Giles in Dorset.
On his death, having no male heir, the title passed to his younger brother, the Honourable Cropley Ashley- Cooper.
Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, 12th Earl of Shaftesbury
Nicholas Edmund Anthony Ashley- Cooper, 12th Earl of Shaftesbury,( born 3 June 1979) also known as Nick Ashley- Cooper, is an English peer, landowner and philanthropist.
He succeeded his brother as Earl of Shaftesbury in 2005.
The 12th Earl of Shaftesbury is the godson of Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, and Simon Elliot, brother- in- law of Charles, Prince of Wales.
Shaftesbury's father, Anthony Ashley- Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury, had been murdered in November 2004 by the brother of his third wife, Jamila M'Barek.
Six months later, on 15 May 2005, the 12th earl's brother, Anthony, the 11th Earl, died of a heart attack and the peerage devolved upon Nicholas.
Following his brother's death, Shaftesbury relocated to his family home from New York City and assumed the responsibilities of the earldom.
He also holds the subsidiary titles Baron Ashley and Baron Cooper.
On 11 September 2010, Lord Shaftesbury married Dinah Streifeneder.
Professionally, the Countess of Shaftesbury is a veterinary surgeon.
Since inheriting the titles and estate, they have pursued the restoration of St Giles House.

Question: Where did Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2Nd Earl Of Shaftesbury's father graduate from?
Answer: Exeter College