suc. fa. 17 Dec. 1640 (a minor) as 2nd Bar. MAYNARD
First sat before 1660, 10 July 1644; first sat after 1660, 25 Apr. 1660; last sat 3 May 1695
b. 1623, o. surv. s. of William Maynard†, Bar. Maynard and Anne Everard. educ. unknown. m. (1) c.1641, Dorothy (d.1649), da. of Sir Robert Banastre, 2s. ?2da. (1 d.v.p.); (2) bef. 6 June 1661,1 Margaret (d.1682), da. and coh. of William Murray, earl of Dysart [S], 1s. d.v.p., 1da. d. 6 Feb 1699;2 will 31 May 1698, pr. 22 May 1699.3
PC 1672-9; comptroller of the household 1672-87.
Jt. ld. lt., Cambs. 1640-88; custos rot. Essex Sept. 1673, Feb. 1685.
Capt. regt. of horse 1666.
Associated with: Little Easton, Essex.
The Maynard family fortune was founded by the 2nd baron’s grandfather, Henry Maynard‡, who served at the court of Elizabeth I. Henry Maynard’s son, also named William Maynard, was a Member of the Commons during the reign of James I; he received an Irish peerage in 1620 and an English one in 1628. The 1st Baron and his brother Sir John Maynard‡ (not to be confused with the judge of the same name) were both associated with the Presbyterians, as was the 2nd Baron Maynard. Through his mother the 2nd Baron was related to the fiercely Protestant families of Barnardiston and Armine which included Sir Thomas Barnardiston‡, Sir Samuel Barnardiston‡ and Thomas Crew, later 2nd Baron Crew.
Maynard was initially supportive of the parliamentarian cause. He came of age after the decisive split of 1642 and chose to attend the House of Lords at Westminster. Opposition to the army led to a charge of treason in 1647, but the prosecution was dropped and by the end of 1648 he was one of only 28 peers that the Commons deemed eligible to sit in the House of Lords. In January 1649 he was a member of the majority group in the Lords which voted against the ordinance for the trial of the king, thus helping to precipitate the final abolition of the House. Thereafter he was associated with the royalists. He was imprisoned by Cromwell in 1654 and was involved in the organization of a rising in 1659.4 Yet he remained sufficiently close to the parliamentarians to be invited to the first sitting of the House of Lords on 25 Apr. 1660, and on 27 Apr. was named as one of the managers of the conference on ways and means to make up the breaches and distractions of the kingdom. Together with Charles Rich, 4th earl of Warwick, he took command of a militia regiment of foot in Essex.5
Maynard’s landholdings were concentrated in Essex and East Anglia. His parliamentary influence after the Restoration was exerted in favour of the court; his son, Banastre Maynard, later 3rd Baron Maynard, represented Essex in the Commons from 1663 to 1679, and his cousin, Sir William Maynard‡, sat for the county in 1685. According to Sir John Bramston‡, who wrote with approval of Maynard’s ‘good correspondencie’ with the gentlemen of Essex, he was well esteemed in the county.6 At the return of the king, Maynard’s troop of ‘richly habited’ gentlemen assembled ready to greet him should he choose to land on the Essex coast, and Maynard was one of the peers who accompanied the king on his entrance to the City.7
Maynard was present on just under 59 per cent of sitting days during the Convention. On 23 July 1660 he dissented to the resolution to omit Matthew Tomlinson’s name from the warrant to apprehend the regicides. On 24 Aug. he presented a petition concerning sequestrated lands. As a Protestant and a parliamentary sympathizer, Maynard’s own lands had escaped seizure, but he was anxious to recover lands once owned by his father-in-law, Sir Robert Banastre, and now claimed by Maynard’s son and heir, Banastre Maynard.8 His second wife, Anne Murray, and her sisters, had their own claims for compensation from the crown, ‘None have suffered more than they by the late times, being twice plundered, sequestered, and forced to purchase their land at an unreasonable rate.’9
During the first session of the Cavalier Parliament (1661-2) Maynard was present for 51 per cent of sitting days. On 19 May 1662 his signature to a protest concerning the rejection of by the Commons of amendments to the highways bill amounted to unequivocal support for the Lords’ right to alter money bills. Maynard’s attendance during the 1663 session remained at 51 per cent. A brief absence between 7 and 12 Mar. was covered by a proxy to Horatio Townshend, Baron (later Viscount) Townshend. In 1663 Maynard was listed as an opponent of the attempt of George Digby*, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon. His dissent on 25 July 1663 to the passage of the amendment to the Act of Uniformity to the effect that the declaration and subscription solely related to practice and obedience to the act, suggests that he had moved firmly into mainstream Anglicanism.
Over the next several sessions Maynard’s attendance dropped: to 33 per cent in 1664; 22 per cent in 1664-5; 29 per cent in 1666-7. He failed to attend the brief session of October 1665 at all. In April 1666, when Parliament was not sitting, he was summoned as one of the triers of Thomas Parker, 15th Baron Morley, who was accused of murder. He found Morley not guilty. The contentious 1667-8 session saw him present for 33 per cent of sitting days. Perhaps significantly, he was absent for the first three weeks of November 1667. His return to the chamber on 20 Nov. coincided with the division on whether Clarendon could be committed on a general charge. There is no evidence to show which way he cast his vote, but he did not sign the protest at the House’s decision not to commit Clarendon.
During the 1669 session Maynard was present for just under 53 per cent of sitting days; this dropped to just over 45 per cent in the following (1670-1) session, but he left no mark of his parliamentary activities. A stray reference to his presence at the house of Henry Bennet, Baron Arlington, together with his sister in law, Elizabeth Tollemache, suo jure countess of Dysart [S], may be indicative of his factional alliances at court.10 Lady Dysart’s marriage in 1672 to John Maitland, then earl (but soon to be duke) of Lauderdale [S], brought Maynard into a valuable political network. In 1672 through Lauderdale’s influence, he was appointed comptroller of the household, a post which not only brought him close to the centre of power but which also meant that he was trusted with huge sums of money; his accounts show that he was handling some £58,000 a year.11
His new responsibilities may explain his increased attendance in the House. During the first session of 1673 his attendance rose to 69 percent; he was present on each of the four days of the second session of that year and missed only one day of the 1674 session. He was even present for the prorogation day of 10 Nov. 1674. On 13 Jan. 1674 he voluntarily took the oath of allegiance, as prescribed under the statute of James I. His high level of attendance continued in both sessions of 1675; he was present on 90 per cent of the sitting days in the first session and missed only one day of the second. Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later marquess of Carmarthen and duke of Leeds), now considered him to be a supporter of the non-resisting test, and it was perhaps as something of an incentive to support the court that in February 1675 the king and James, duke of York, both asked the brethren of Trinity House to grant Maynard a reversionary lease of the ballast office.12 So firmly was he now attached to the court interest that shortly before the opening of the second 1675 session, when secretary Williamson wrote to James Howard, 3rd earl of Suffolk, at Newmarket asking him to send a proxy for use by the government, he named Maynard as the likely recipient. Suffolk replied that he and Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, had already sent their proxies to Maynard, and this is confirmed by the House of Lords proxy books.13 Both proxies were vacated within a fortnight – when the race meeting was over. In November 1675 Maynard was one of those called to the House by Danby to support the crown by voting against the address requesting a dissolution. It was reported that he and Lauderdale had been playing at cards that afternoon and arrived in the House in the nick of time to save the government.14 Between 1675 and 1677 he also had personal reasons for attending the House, since he was trying to secure a private bill to alter his son’s marriage settlement. His first bill went through the House in May 1675, but was then lost, probably because it was too late in the session to receive attention in the Commons. A second bill met a similar fate in November 1675. His third bill began its passage through the House in February 1676 and received the royal assent in May 1677. In June 1676 in the court of the lord high steward, he was one of only six peers to find Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, guilty of manslaughter.15 A rare surviving letter corroborates his firm adherence to the Anglican Church, suggests a somewhat fawning attitude to Danby, and provides almost the only glimpse of his political attitudes. He told Danby that it was essential for the king to continue,
firm to the resolutions he now has, of encouraging loyalty and obedience in his subjects … but when we are fixed to no steady principles; and that none or very few are rewarded but for flying in the king's face it’s no wonder to have it grown so much in fashion; but when people see that that is not the way to preferment, they will grow wiser and follow those ways that will bring them to it.16
The long 1677-8 session saw Maynard present for all but four sitting days. Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, listed him as triply vile. Between 12 Feb. and 9 Apr. 1677 he again held Suffolk’s proxy. He also held that of Lauderdale (now created earl of Guilford in the English peerage) from 29 Jan. and that of Edward Conway, 3rd Viscount (later earl of) Conway, from 9 April. Both were vacated at the end of the session on 13 May. On 4 Apr. he voted Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke, not guilty in his trial for murder. His high attendance continued in the May to July session of which he missed only one day, and in the autumn 1678 session of which he missed just three. In November 1678 he voted against the declaration against transubstantiation being under same penalty as the oaths, and in December he voted in favour of the Lords amendment (concerning the payment of money into the exchequer) to the bill for disbanding the army. Throughout the winter and spring of 1678-9 he was consistently marked as a supporter of Danby, voted against his committal and against the bill of attainder.
During the brief first Exclusion Parliament he attended on all bar one of the brief six-day session and again all bar one of the full 61-day session. From 19 Mar. to 7 Apr. 1679 he again held Suffolk’s proxy. On 10 May he voted against the appointment of a committee of both Houses to consider the method of proceeding against impeached lords; on 14 May he entered a dissent to the passing of the bill for the regulation of trials of peers; and on 27 May, he probably voted for the right of the bishops to stay in the House during capital cases. He was present at the opening of the second Exclusion Parliament on 17 Oct. 1679 and for the prorogation days on 26 Jan., 15 Mar. and 17 May 1680. He then attended for all but one day of the ensuing session.
In March 1679 he was one of the witnesses to the king’s declaration that he had never been married to the mother of James Scott, duke of Monmouth.17 At the remodelling of the Privy Council in April he was left out, but he was more concerned to discover in October that he had also been left out of the commission for taking the oaths of members of the Commons.18 That month he deputized for the lord chamberlain at the opening of Parliament.19 On 15 Nov. 1680 he voted to reject the Exclusion bill at its first reading and also opposed the appointment of a committee to consider the state of the nation. The following month he found Stafford guilty.
Maynard’s association with Danby was such that in December 1680, he wrote to warn his patron of a rumoured grant that had the potential to damage Danby’s daughter, the widowed Lady Plymouth.20 On 19 Jan. 1681 Danby sought to use Maynard to lobby Banastre Maynard’s brother-in-law, Anthony Grey, 11th earl of Kent, in his favour. Early in March as part of his preparations for the Oxford Parliament, he instructed his son ‘to speak to my Lord Maynard to see if he can make earl Kent for my bail or to be present.’21 Maynard loyally attended and, unsurprisingly, was expected to vote in favour of bailing Danby. That Maynard was more than a fair weather friend to Danby was shown by events after the dissolution of Charles II’s last Parliament. Appointed as a member of the court of delegates to consider the legality of the Hyde-Emerton marriage, he voted in favour of the case for Danby’s son.22 Early in 1684 he added his name in support of Danby’s petition for release.23 At the accession of James II he was still in favour and was re-appointed comptroller of the household. He attended all but two days of James II’s Parliament in 1685. Kent’s proxy was registered to him on 14 Nov. but as Kent was present the following day it is not clear whether it was actually used.
Maynard soon found himself out of sympathy with the new government. In 1686 he was one of the triers who found Henry Booth, 2nd Baron Delamer (later earl of Warrington), not guilty of treason.24 Despite this show of opposition, there were those who believed that he was about to turn Catholic to please the court.25 Early in 1687 Maynard proved the rumours wrong when he was summoned to an interview with James II. Maynard not only told the king of his opposition to the repeal of the test acts but virtually accused him of planning to pack the House of Lords with Catholics.26 As a result he was dismissed as comptroller of the household.27 Throughout 1687 he was listed as an opponent of the king’s policies, yet for all his fears of Catholicism, he continued to support James during the revolution of 1688. On 7 Dec. 1688 he wrote to assure Richard Grahme‡, Viscount Preston [S], that although he had left London, he had not fled to the prince of Orange but stood ‘ready to obey any summons or commands that the king or your lordship shall lay upon me.’28 Possibly he was anxious to distance himself from the actions of his former son-in-law, John Wroth‡, who had assisted Princess Anne’s escape from London. On 26 Dec. it was reported that he was one of the few peers who had refused to sign the association.29
Maynard was present for just over 82 per cent of the sitting days in the first session of the Convention. In January 1689 he voted in favour of a regency and against declaring the prince and princess of Orange to be king and queen. The following month he opposed the Commons resolution that James II had abdicated. In March 1689 he held the proxy of Richard Boyle, earl of Burlington. In May he opposed reversing the perjury judgments against Titus Oates, following this up in July with support for the adhering to the Lords’ amendments on the subject. On 2 July he entered a dissent to the impeachment of Blair, Vaughan, Mole, Elliot and Gray. From 23 July he held the proxy of Richard Boyle, earl of Burlington and Cork [I]. The second session saw a slight dip in Maynard’s attendance, down to 71 per cent. On 19 Nov. he entered a protest against the clandestine marriages bill, arguing that a marriage once celebrated and consummated could not be nulled. In a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690 Carmarthen (as Danby had become) assessed him as a supporter of the court, albeit one who needed to be spoken to.
At the general election of 1690 together with Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, Charles Montagu, 4th earl of Manchester, and Henry Compton, of London he led the Essex opposition to the election of the Whig Henry Mildmay‡.30 His attendance during the first session of the new Parliament rose significantly; he missed only three days, but then fell back to just under 59 per cent in the second (1690-1) session. During the winter of 1691-2, in a list of questionable accuracy, William George Richard Stanley, 9th earl of Derby, forecast that Maynard would support his bill for the restoration of lands lost during the Interregnum. Maynard’s attendance in the following two sessions (1691-2 and 1692-3) rose slightly to just under 66 per cent, but there is no evidence of his activity other than his dissent on 12 Jan. 1692 to the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk, his opposition to the passage of the place bill (including a dissent on 12 Dec. 1692 to its committal) and his continuing resistance to Norfolk’s attempts to divorce his wife.
Maynard’s attendance revived for the 1693-4 session, rising to 85 per cent. Just what had attracted his attention is unclear. On 22 Dec. 1693 he protested against the resolution to allow the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgman to withdraw their petition in the case of Bridgman v. Holt. On 17 Feb. 1694 he supported Ralph Montagu, earl (later duke) of Montagu, in his attempt to overturn a decree in the notorious Albemarle inheritance case, entering a dissent at the decision to dismiss Montagu’s petition and entering a further dissent on 24 Feb. when Montagu’s request for the production of exhibits in the case was also dismissed.
Maynard did not attend any further sessions of Parliament. When the House attempted to secure the attendance of all its members for the bill of attainder against Sir John Fenwick‡ in 1696, Maynard responded to the request with an account of the sickness he had endured since December 1695 and for which he begged to be excused, his age giving him ‘little hope of improvement.’31 After 1695 his sole recorded parliamentary activity is the giving of his proxy on 30 June 1698 to Arnold Joost van Keppel, earl of Albemarle, possibly for use in the impeachment of John Goudet and other merchants accused of trading with France.
Maynard died in 1699. His will specified that he be buried privately in flannel; he bequeathed his parliament robes and coronet to his son and heir, Banastre Maynard, and endowed a charity to be set up for the benefit of the church and poor of Thaxted.
R.P./S.N.H.- 1 CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 34.
- 2 TNA, C6/364/43, Answer of Banastre, Lord Maynard, 12 Apr. 1701.
- 3 TNA, PROB 11/450.
- 4 Letter Book of John Viscount Mordaunt 1658-60 ed. M. Coate (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. lxix), 18-19, 21-23; CCSP, iv. 209, 227.
- 5 CCSP, iv. 639.
- 6 Bramston Autobiog. 405.
- 7 VCH Essex ii. 239; HMC 5th Rep. 184.
- 8 HMC 7th Rep. 128.
- 9 CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 34.
- 10 NLS, Lauderdale Letters, ms 3136, ff. 124-5.
- 11 Bramston Autobiog. 405; TNA, E101/627/35.
- 12 HMC 8th Rep. i. 256; HMC Hodgkin, 174.
- 13 CSP Dom. 1675-6, pp. 343, 347.
- 14 Verney ms mic. M636/29, W. Fall to Sir R. Verney, 22 Nov. 1675.
- 15 State Trials, vii. 157-8.
- 16 Eg. 3330, ff. 21-22.
- 17 Bodl. Carte 130, f. 291.
- 18 HMC Ormonde, n.s. v. 225.
- 19 Royal Society, ms 70, pp. 10-11.
- 20 Add 28051, f. 94; Beinecke Lib. OSB mss 6, box 2, private instructions, 17 Mar. 1681.
- 21 Add 28042, f. 83.
- 22 Eg. 3384, f. 90.
- 23 Eg. 3358 F, Danby’s petition.
- 24 Tryal of Henry, Baron Delamere (1686).
- 25 Verney ms mic. M636/41, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 3 Nov. 1686.
- 26 Bramston Autobiog. 269.
- 27 Evelyn Diary, iv. 416-17.
- 28 HMC 7th Rep. 420.
- 29 HMC Dartmouth, iii. 143.
- 30 Verney ms mic. M636/44, C. Gardiner to Sir R. Verney, 12 Mar. 1690.
- 31 HMC Lords, n.s. ii. 266.