# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Maynard, John (1592-1658)

1904 Errata appended.
​MAYNARD, Sir JOHN (1592–1658), courtier, presbyterian, and royalist, second son of Sir Henry Maynard of Estaines Parva, Essex, by Susan, second daughter of Thomas Pierson, gentleman-usher of the Star-chamber, was born in 1592. He entered the Inner Temple in 1610, but does not appear to have been called to the bar. Except that he was 'extremely purblind,' he would have been, says Chamberlain, 'a proper man,' and danced the admired of all beholders in the court masque on Twelfth Night, 161 8-19. In July 1622 he was present at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, of which he wrote an account to Buckingham (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. p. 107). For Buckingham he composed a masque, performed on 19 Nov. 1623 at York House in the presence of Mendoza, who resented its congratulatory allusions to the return of the prince from Spain. It was again performed in August 1624 at Burley-on-the-IIill, but with no great approbation (Nichols, Progresses of James I, iii. 521, 941; Court and Times of James I, ii. 472).
Maynard entered the House of Commons in January 1623-4 as member for Chippenham, for which borough he also sat in the first parliament of Charles I, at whose coronation he was created a knight of the Bath, and appointed servant of the privy chamber (2 Feb. 1624-5). In Charles's second parliament he represented Colne. He was a partisan of Buckingham, by whom he appears to have been retained as a sort of political pamphleteer. In Buckingham's interest, but without his privity, he published before 1627-8 a 'Discourse' representing him as hostile to Arminianism, and on occasion of the discovery of the Jesuits' College at Clerkenwell (March 1627-8) forged a letter purporting to be from an English Jesuit to the father rector at Brussels, in which the duke was made to appear as the 'furious enemy of the Society of Jesus. The letter was accepted as genuine by all but Buckingham, who detected Maynard's hand, and censured him for some indiscreet allusions to Dulbier's horse. In June 1637 Maynard excited a brawl at a bowling-green by striking Jack Craven with his fist for making default in payment of a debt, and thrashing Lord Powis for interposing. The quarrel was with much ado made up by the lord chamberlain (Documents relating to the Proceedings against William Prynne, Camden Soc., p. 80).
On the rupture with the king in June 1642, Maynard adhered to the parliament, and was active in raising troops in Surrey. A contemporary tract (The Lawes Subversion, &c., 1648) states that he 'lent 2,100l. upon the first propositions,' i.e. in July 1642; and that 'when the army was new moulded (1645), and Sir Thomas Fairfax elected general, he lent 1,000l. and procured 3,000l. more by his influence upon his friends towards that 8,000l. which necessity then required.' These statements, however, are not confirmed by the 'Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for the Advance of Money.'
​Maynard did not enter the Long parliament until 1647, when he was returned for Lostwithiel, 20 Jan. At heart a royalist, he became conspicuous as a leader of the presbyterian party in the struggle with the army, and was accordingly included in the eleven members charged with disaffection by Fairfax on 16 June 1647. After the outbreak of mob violence, by which, on 26 July, the recent militia ordinance was rescinded, and the command of the London trained bands restored to the lord mayor and corporation, he was readmitted to the House of Commons and placed on the committee of safety [cf. Gayee, Sir John, d. 1649, and Glynne, Sir John, 1603-1666]. When the army gained the ascendency," he was charged with unlawfully levying an armed force within the city, was arrested by a general warrant under the speaker's hand, and committed to the Tower (8 Sept.) during pleasure of parliament. An impeachment of high treason followed on 1 Feb. 1647-8. Maynard replied by a letter to the speaker, 4 Feb., in which he refused to make any defence, and claimed to be tried by a jury, citing Magna Charta and the Petition of Right. This claim he reiterated at the bar of the House of Lords on the following day, refusing to kneel or in any way recognise the jurisdiction of the house. He was accordingly fined 500l. and remanded to the Tower. Thence he issued several protests against the claim of the House of Lords to jurisdiction over commoners, and on 19 Feb., being again brought to the bar of the House of Lords, he repeated his former tactics, and was again remanded. He remained in the Tower until 3 June, when he was set at liberty, and resumed his seat in the commons. On 27 June he spoke in support of the 'city petition' for a 'personal treaty Avith his Majesty.' On 27 July he pleaded the cause of John Lilburne [q.v.] in an able speech which procured his release.
Maynard had estates at Walthamstow, Tooting, Bradford, Yorkshire, and Isleham, Cambridgeshire. His town house was 'The Portcullis,' Russell Street, Covent Garden. In 1649 he argued at length in the exchequer chamber before the committee on the scheme for draining the Bedford level, which he opposed as encroaching upon proprietary rights. He also laid (3 July 1653) a petition against the scheme before the commissioners charged with supervising its execution. The petition, with a schedule of exceptions to the act of parliament (1649, c. 29) authorising the work, was published, and elicited 'An Answer to a printed Paper dispersed by Sir John Maynard, entituled the Humble Petition of the Owners and Commoners of the towne of Isleham,' &c., London, 1653. 4to.
Maynard died on 29 July 1658, and was buried in the churchyard of Tooting Graveney. By his wife, Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Middleton of Stansted Mountfitchet, lord mayor of London (who survived him), he had issue a son, John, who was knighted 7 June 1660, and died 14 May 1664.
There are extant by Maynard : 1. 'The Copy of a Letter addressed to the Father Rector at Brussels, found among some Jesuites taken at London about the third yeere of his Majesty's Raigne. Wherein is manifested that the Jesuites from time to time have been the only Incendiaries and Contrivers of the Miseries and Distractions of this Kingdom,' London, 1643, 4to. Other versions are in Prynne's 'Hidden Works of Darkness,' London, 1646, fol.; Rushworth's 'Historical Collections,' i. 474-6 ; and 'Camden Society's Miscellany,' ii. and iv. Supplement, note ad Jin. 2. 'The 'Humble Plea and Protest of Sir John Maynard (a late Member of the hon. House of Commons) to the Speaker of the House of Peeres,' London, February 1647-8, fol. 3. 'England's Champion : or the Just Man's Fortitude manifested in that gallant resolution of Sir John Maynard (late Member of the House of Commons). Being the Copie of his Letter and Protest sent into the Lords, 14 Feb. 1647,' London, 1648 fol. 4. 'A Speech spoken by an hon. Knight in the House of Commons, upon the delivery of the City Petition, being Tuesday, the 27th of June 1648,' London, 1648, 4to. 5. 'A Speech spoken in the hon. House of Commons, by Sir John Maynard, &c. Wherein he hath stated the Case of Lieut.-col. John Lilburne,' &c., London, 1648, 4to ; reprinted in 'Parliamentary History,' iii. 959 et seq. 6. 'The Picklock of the old Fenne Project,' London, 1650, 4to (the substance of Maynard's argument in the exchequer chamber against the draining of the Bedford level).
[Baker's Northamptonshire, ii. 190; Visitations of Essex (Harl.Soc.).ii. 679; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. iv. 296 ; Morant's Essex, ii. 432; Collins's Peerage (Brydges), vi. 284 ; Manning and Bray's Surrey, iii. 489 ; Inner Temple Books ; Commons' Debates in 1625 (Camden Soc.), p. 108 ; Returns of Members of Parliament (Official); Nicolas's Hist. Brit. Knighthood, vol. iii., Chron. List, xvi ; Metcalfe's Book of Knights, p. 186 ; Burke's Extinct Baronetage ; Le Neve's Pedigrees of Knights (Harl. Sec.), p. 73; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1623-5 pp. 115, 330, 1628-9 p. 186, 1637 p. 237, 1641-3 p. 505, 1644-5, 1653-1654; Cal. Comm. Advance of Money, Dom. 1642-56, pt, ii. p. 834 ; Cobbett's State Trials,
iv. 858 et seq.; Comm. Journ. i. 684; Lords' Journ. x. 5, 12-13; Hamilton Papers (Camden Soc.), p. 153; Parl. Hist. iii. 678 n., 777, 839, 843; Whitelocke's Mem. pp. 253, 258-60, 290, 292; Rushworth's Hist. Coll. vi. 570, 612, 652-3, vii. 800-4, 856, 986, 1130; Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. App. p. 67, 7th Rep. App. p. 687, 8th Rep. App. pt. i. p. 637; Bell's Mem. Civil War (Fairfax Corr.), ii. 365 et seq.; Howldin's 'The Lawes Subversion,' London, 1648, pp. 8 et seq.; 'The Royal Quarrell, or England's Lawes and Liberties Vindicated and Maintained, &c. By Sirraucho' (J. Harris), London, 1648; 'The Grande Designe: or a Discovery of that Forme of Slavery, entended and in part brought upon the free People of England by a powerful Party in Parliament,' &c., London, 1647, 4to; Maseres's Select Tracts, i. 257, 289; Walker's Hist, of Independency, 1648, p. 61; The Kingdome's Weekly Intelligencer, No. 214; Mercur. Brit. No. 1; Lvsons's Environs of London, 'Surrey,' p. 500; G-ardiner's Hist, of England, vi. 238 n.; and Hist of the Great Civil War, iii. 191, 293.]
J. M. R.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.197 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 155 | i | 7-6 f.e. | Maynard, Sir John (1592-1658): for Estaines Parva read Little Easton |
| | ii | 24 | for Colne read Calne |