THYNNE, John (1608-81), of Church Stretton, Salop.

John Thynne of Church Stretton was a grandson of John Thynne† the builder of Longleat in Wiltshire, and Sir James Thynne* of Longleat was his cousin.13Vis. Salop, 1623, 461. The family had held land in Shropshire since the middle ages, but the manor of Stretton had only come into their possession by marriage in the late sixteenth century.14VCH Salop, x. 89, 92. John Thynne entered Lincoln’s Inn only in 1630, at the relatively advanced age of 22, but it is not known whether he pursued a legal career thereafter.15LI Admiss. i. 211. He was presumably resident in Shropshire when he voted in the county election on 29 October 1640.16Eg. Ch. 5755. His activity during the first civil war is unknown, yet on 14 December 1646 he was elected as recruiter MP for the Cornish borough of Saltash.17C219/43/58. Thynne’s only known connection with the Cornish gentry was through his aunt, who had married Charles Roscarrock of Roscarrock; and it is more likely that his election was on the interest of the powerful Buller family, which was intent on returning moderate Presbyterians to the various seats under its control.18Vis. Salop, 1623, 461; Vivian, Vis. Cornw. 401.

Thynne’s activity in Parliament seems to fit with that profile. He took the Covenant on 1 February 1647, and became increasingly involved in parliamentary business as the Presbyterians reasserted their influence in the spring and early summer of that year.19CJ v. 69a. He was named to committees to restrain malignant ministers (22 Mar.), to reorganise the militia of the City of London (2 Apr.) and to prepare instructions for the commissioners attending the king about the Newcastle Propositions (14 Apr.).20CJ v. 119b, 132b, 142b. On 11 May he was appointed to the committee on the conciliatory ordinance to settle lands worth £5,000 a year on Sir Thomas Fairfax*, and on 10 June he was on the committee to investigate and exclude royalist MPs that ‘have been in actual war against the Parliament’.21CJ v. 167a, 205a. The Commons’ resolution to allow Thynne ‘to go into the country’, passed on 8 July, enabled him to disassociate himself from the ‘forcing of the Houses’ and the crisis that led to the New Model’s march on London in August, but his scanty attendance during the next 12 months strongly suggests that he was no friend of the Independent interest that now dominated Parliament.22CJ v. 237a. He was absent, without excuse, at the call of the House on 9 October 1647, and he was named to only two more committees, in March and August 1648.23CJ v. 330a, 505b, 692a. Thynne was secluded at Pride’s Purge on 6 December 1648, and this marked the end of his political career.24A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649), 28 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5), Thomas Thynne recte John. He played no part in the commonwealth and protectorate, and although he was readmitted to the House of Commons in February 1660, and made a brief appearance at Westminster, he was inactive during the period before the Restoration, with his only public appointments being to the militia commissions in Shropshire and Surrey in March 1660.25CJ vii. 854a; A. and O. His inclusion on the commission of the peace for Surrey in March 1679 was his only public appointment during the reign of Charles II.26C231/8, p. 4.

Thynne’s retirement from politics allowed him to concentrate on building up an extensive landed interest in Surrey. He may have acquired some lands in the county through his marriage to a daughter of Sir Henry Mainwaring, who was seated at Chertsey. At some point before August 1648 Thynne had also acquired the house and lands of Inworth, in Egham parish, by foreclosing a loan of £30 that he had previously made to a royalist, John Denham. Thynne paid for the Denham’s composition, claiming that the property was worth a mere £3 a year, and the estate was discharged; but in August 1650 the Committee for Advance of Money grew suspicious, and ordered Thynne to prove his title to the lands and to justify why the profits should not be paid to the state.27CCAM 872; CCC 1790. Thynne was apparently able to satisfy the committee and retain Inworth, and in later years he extended his property interests in Surrey, as leaseholder of the royal manor of Egham. It is unclear when Thynne first came into possession of Egham. The estate had been granted to Henrietta Maria before the civil wars, and in 1649 it was sold off, first to Thomas Richardson and then to John Blackwell.28VCH Surr. iii. 421. The manor returned to the crown in 1660, and was granted to Thynne by Henrietta Maria soon afterwards, with the lease being confirmed by Catherine of Braganza, who held it after the Queen Mother’s death.29CSP Dom. 1673-5, p. 285; VCH Surr. iii. 421. During the 1670s the family were in favour at the royal court – perhaps as a result of the appointment of Thynne’s son as gentleman of the privy chamber – and when the king mistakenly granted Sir Richard Powle a reversionary interest in the manor of Egham in June 1673 the decision was soon reversed, and the Thynne lease was confirmed for a further 40 years in June 1674.30CSP Dom. 1673-5, pp. 176, 285.

Thynne wrote his own will in March 1681, ‘being sick in body but of disposing mind and memory’, and he died a few days later. He left his Shropshire lands and Westminster property to his daughter Arabella, who was also given full possession of goods and chattels ‘in satisfaction of a debt justly due from me to her’, with the rest of the estate passing to his son and heir, John Thynne†, who sat as MP for Hindon in the Parliament in the same year.31PROB11/371/465; HP Commons 1660-1690.