Family and Education

bap. 15 Dec. 1639, 3rd s. of John Maynard I, and bro. of John Maynard II. educ. M. Temple 1663. m. 25 May 1663, (1) (with £5,000), Mary, da. of Sir Edward Mosley, 1st Bt., of Rolleston, Staffs., 3da.; (2) lic. 5 June 1680, Elizabeth, da. of William Strode I of Newnham, Devon, s.p.1

Offices Held

Commr. for recusants, Devon 1675, assessment, Bucks. 1679-80.

Biography

Maynard was never called to the bar, coming ‘much short of his father’s intellectual parts’. He was elected to the Cavalier Parliament for the family borough of Bere Alston in 1665, but it was almost a year before he could take his seat. On 22 Oct. 1666 the House sent for the under sheriff of Devon in custody ‘to answer his abuse in refusing to make return of the writ’. He was probably more prominent as a parliamentarian than Banastre Maynard, though his bill concerning his first wife’s estate was opened by his father on his behalf. He twice complained of assaults in the street, and may have been moderately active in committee. He was appointed by full name to only five committees, including the committee of elections and privileges in two sessions, but he may have served on not far short of 150 in all. In 1669 Sir Thomas Osborne listed him among the Members who usually voted for supply; but the Opposition did not regard him as a government supporter, perhaps because ‘Mr Maynard’ had acted as teller against allowing counsel to Sir George Carteret and for suspending him from the House. His other tellership in the same year, however, was against pursuing the complaint of (Sir) John Morton about the courtier Henry Brouncker. ‘Mr Maynard’ was the first Member named to consider a petition against the imposition on wines (28 Nov. 1670). No speeches are recorded from him, but he probably served on the committees to prepare a general test (21 Jan. 1674), and to hinder Papists from stitting in Parliament (23 Oct. 1765). His name appeared on the working lists, but Sir Richard Wiseman commented that ‘he seldom or never goes right’. In 1677 he was probably appointed to the committees for recalling British subjects from French service and preventing the growth of Popery. Shaftesbury marked him ‘doubly worthy’; but he never stood again after the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament, his father preferring to nominate more eminent figures for the borough. He died in his father’s lifetime on 25 Oct. 1689 and was buried at Ealing. His surviving daughters, who had married Sir Henry Hobart and the and Earl of Stamford, became coheirs to their grandfather’s great wealth.2

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: J. S. Crossette / John. P. Ferris / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

• 1. VCH Bucks. iv. 318; Cases in Chancery 1660-97, i. 253; Vivian, Vis. Devon, 561, 719; J. Booker, Didsbury, 74; St. Botolph Bishopsgate Par. Reg. i. 490.
• 2. Plymouth City Lib., John Prince, Devon Worthies; Bulstrode Pprs. 126; R. Morrice, Entering Bk. 2, p. 644; CJ, ix. 105, 106, 109, 120, 174, 472, 476.