Blake, Sir Valentine (c.1608–1652?), 3rd baronet and politician, was the eldest of the four sons of Thomas Blake (qv) of Menlo and Galway and his wife, Juliane, daughter of Geoffrey Browne of Galway. He was heir to substantial property in counties Mayo, Galway and Clare, largely accumulated by his grandfather, also Sir Valentine Blake (qv). Admitted to the Middle Temple 19 July 1628, he was knighted 3 October 1629, and appears to have sat in the 1634–5 parliament, either as MP for Tuam or for Galway county. He was a member of Galway town council by 1638 and an alderman by 1641. In 1642 he succeeded as 3rd baronet.
Blake was elected MP for Galway borough in 1640, but was expelled from the commons on 22 June 1642 for association with the recent insurrection. Certainly he was prominent in town and county as they lurched towards the confederate cause in 1642, promoting a civic oath of union in March 1642, and helping to assemble forces against Galway fort (which was at odds with the town) in April 1643. He served as mayor from 29 September 1643 to 29 September 1644, and remained active in the confederate cause, attending at least one confederate general assembly, and serving on the Connacht provincial council by 1647. He was later described as a supporter of the Ormond treaties of 1646 and 1649, and as acting as commissary of musters for Connacht. On 8 June 1648 he secured Mayor Browne's acceptance of the divisive confederate truce with Inchiquin (qv); shortly afterwards he and Sir Richard Blake (qv) were captured by soldiers of Owen Roe O'Neill (qv), but they were only briefly detained. By 1651 he was among the leading Galway figures who pledged support to negotiations to secure Charles, duke of Lorraine, as ‘Protector’ of Ireland, despite the opposition of Lord Deputy Clanricarde (qv). He signed the articles of 5 April 1652 for Galway's surrender to Cromwellian forces, and acted as a hostage for the accord.
Though the family lands were confiscated in the 1650s, they were progressively and substantially restored from the 1660s, and his descendants flourished as Connacht landowners. He probably died in 1652, and his will was proved in April 1654; he was buried in the Loretto chapel in St Francis's abbey, Galway. A portrait was in family possession early in the twentieth century, and was reproduced in Blake's Blake family records 1600–1700. He married Eleanor, third daughter of Sir Henry Lynch; they had four sons and three daughters.