Family and Education

bap. 10 Dec. 1640, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of Sir Humphrey Monoux, 1st Bt., of Wootton by Mary, da. of Sir Thomas Wodehouse, 2nd Bt., of Kimberley, Norf. educ. G. Inn 1660. m. 10 July 1666 (with £5,000), Alice (bur. Jan. 1720), da. of Sir Thomas Cotton, 2nd Bt.^†, of Conington, Hunts., 3s. (2 d.v.p.) 3da. suc. fa. Feb. 1676.1

Offices Held

Capt. of militia ft. Beds. c.1665, maj. by 1672; dep. lt. Beds. ?1672-9, commr. for assessment, Beds. 1673-80, Bedford 1679-80.2

Biography

Wootton was acquired in 1514 by George Monoux^†, a wealthy Draper, who sat for London in the Reformation Parliament. Monoux’s father, a ship-money sheriff, supported Parliament in the Civil War, serving on the county committee until 1648, but was created a baronet soon after the Restoration.3

Monoux was approved as a deputy lieutenant shortly before the general election of February 1679, in which he and Lord Russell ( Hon. William Russell) defeated the lord lieutenant’s son, Thomas Bruce. His name was conspicuously absent from the revised list of the following month, and Shaftesbury marked him ‘honest’. In the first Exclusion Parliament he was appointed only to the committee of elections and privileges, and made no recorded speeches, but he disappointed Shaftesbury by voting against exclusion. He must have changed his views by the autumn, when he signed the letter asking Russell, the leader of the exclusionists, to stand again. They were returned, probably without a contest, to the second and third Exclusion Parliaments, though Monoux was totally inactive both in committee and debate. He contested the county again in 1685 when he came bottom of the poll. Monoux died a few months later on 31 July and was buried at Wootton. His widow married Oliver Nicholas. His heir, Sir Philip Monoux^†, sat for the county as a Whig from 1705 till his death two years later.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: Leonard Naylor / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

• 1. St. Margaret’s, Westminster (Harl. Reg. lxiv), 177; Beds. RO, F 624-5; Beds. Par. Reg. xliii (Wootton), 13, 14, 15, 67, 68.
• 2. SP29/143/107; CSP Dom. 1672-3, p. 122; Add. 1660-85, p. 361.
• 3. Vis. Beds. (Harl. Soc. xix), 123-4; VCH Beds. iii. 329.
• 4. CSP Dom. 1679-80, pp. 70, 321; J. Russell, Lord William Russell (1820), ii. 242-3; Prot. Intell. 18 Feb. 1681; Beds. RO, CH 15/1; Beds. Par. Reg. xliii. 69.