BAKER, SIR RICHARD

born c. 1568 died Feb. 18, 1645, London, Eng. British writer and author of A Chronicle of the Kings of England. Baker was educated at Hart Hall, Oxford, studied law in London, and traveled abroad. A member of Parliament in 1593 and 1597, he was knighted in 1603 and was high sheriff of Oxfordshire from 1620 to 1621. Encumbered by the debts of his wife's family, Baker was reported a crown debtor in 1625 and his property was seized. He was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison about 1635 and remained there, devoting himself to literary work, until his death. The best known of his works, which included translations from Cato (1636), Meditations on the Lord's Prayer (1637), and a series of meditations on the Psalms (1639), was his A Chronicle of the Kings of England (1643). This, though of small historical value, was once popular and was often referred to by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in their essays written some 70 years later.