About the time of his father’s death, in 1633, he was made one of the Gentlemen of his Majesty’s Privy Chamber, notwithstanding which he frequently retired to Oxford, to enjoy the conversation of learned and ingenious men.  In 1639 he was engaged in an expedition against the Scots, and though he received some disappointment in a command of a troop of horse, of which he had a promise, he went a volunteer with the earl of Essex[2].

In 1640 he was chosen a Member of the House of Commons, for Newport in the Isle of Wight, in the Parliament which began at Westminster the 13th of April in the same year, and from the debates, says Clarendon, which were managed with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, ’he contracted such a reverence for Parliaments, that he thought it absolutely impossible they ever could produce mischief or inconvenience to the nation, or that the kingdom could be tolerably happy in the intermission of them, and from the unhappy, and unseasonable dissolution of the Parliament he harboured some prejudice to the court.’

In 1641, John, lord Finch, Keeper of the Great Seal, was impeached by lord Falkland, in the name of the House of Commons, and his lordship, says Clarendon, ’managed that prosecution with great vigour and sharpness, as also against the earl of Strafford, contrary to his natural gentleness of temper, but in both these cases he was misled by the authority of those whom he believed understood the laws perfectly, of which he himself was utterly ignorant[3].’

He had contracted an aversion towards Archbishop Laud, and some other bishops, which inclined him to concur in the first bill to take away the votes of the bishops in the House of Lords.  The reason of his prejudice against Laud was, the extraordinary passion and impatience of contradiction discoverable in that proud prelate; who could not command his temper, even at the Council Table when his Majesty was present, but seemed to lord it over all the rest, not by the force of argument, but an assumed superiority to which he had no right.  This nettled lord Falkland, and made him exert his spirit to humble and oppose the supercilious churchman.  This conduct of his lordship’s, gave Mr. Hampden occasion to court him to his party, who was justly placed by the brilliance of his powers, at the head of the opposition; but after a longer study of the laws of the realm, and conversation with the celebrated Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, he changed his opinion, and espoused an interest quite opposite to Hampden’s.

After much importunity, he at last accepted the Seals of his Majesty, and served in that employment with unshaken integrity, being above corruption of any kind.