| Constituency | Dates |
|---|---|
| Cambridge | 1621, 1625, 1626, 1628, 1640 (Apr.) |
?Servant to Robert Cecil†, 1st earl of Salisbury, to 1612
Freeman and alderman, Cambridge, Cambs. 1620 – d.
Treas., Starchmakers’ Co. 1638 – 41.
Meautys’ father, a native of Essex, had taken up residence on the outskirts of St. Albans in Hertfordshire by the time this Member was admitted to the inns of court. Meautys himself must be distinguished from his cousin, a professional soldier knighted in 1611, who spent most of his life in the Dutch service.
Bacon, as high steward of Cambridge, nominated Meautys for election to one of the borough’s seats in 1620. Returned in his absence, Meautys was the first of his family to sit.Procs. 1621, i. 163." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote This expression gave offence, and consequently his demand to be given copies of the petitions against Bacon was rejected as unparliamentary.CD 1621, ii. 252; State Trials ed. T.B. Howell, ii. 1102, 1112; Nicholas, i. 208." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote
Meautys’s own record did not remain unsmirched, for two witnesses claimed to have paid him £1,000.Letters and Life of Francis Bacon ed. J. Spedding, vii. 229." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote Over the next few months Meautys negotiated on Bacon’s behalf with Buckingham for the sale of York House and (less realistically) for a return to Court; and during the recess he acquired for himself the reversion of an easy but profitable post in Star Chamber.Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, vii. 325." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote
In July 1622 Meautys and Sir John Hippisley* acted as go-betweens in an exchange of property between the impoverished 5th earl of Sussex on the one hand and Buckingham on the other. Meautys’ cousin, Frances Shute, had lived for many years as Sussex’s concubine, and the transaction afforded him an opportunity to further his connection with the royal favourite.Servility and Service, 98-100." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote He had to pay £450 to his predecessor Sir Francis Cottington*, which he was to recoup ‘out of the making of a baronet’.Sir Arthur Ingram, 93-95." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote Meautys was also disliked by Bacon’s successor lord keeper Williams, who resented his profits in Chancery, and while Buckingham was in Madrid in 1623 he heard that his ‘poor servant Meautys is much threatened ... and must suffer till you come back’.Procs. 1626, iv. 263." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote Ten days after the opening of the session, on 16 Feb. 1626, Meautys wrote to his cousin Lady Jane Bacon that ‘Parliament falls not as yet upon the main of business, it being but early days with us and many Members absent’. Anticipating the exclusion of Sir Edward Coke*, who had been returned despite being a sheriff at the time, Meautys was hopeful that ‘we shall have a tame House and the king will master his own ends without much ado’.
In the following year Meautys was at last able to offload his baronetcy warrant on Lady Jane Bacon’s spendthrift son, Sir Frederick Cornwallis†, inside knowledge enabling him to secure precedence over Sir Robert Crane* and other Suffolk aspirants to the dignity.
Under Bacon’s revised final will, Gorhambury was conveyed to trustees for Meautys’s use, but he could ill afford to live there. As administrator he purchased the manor of Redbourne for himself and leased Gorhambury to Sir Edward Radcliffe*, Sussex’s cousin and heir.CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 245; F.P. and M.M. Verney, Mems. Verney Fam. i. 153; CCAM, 481." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote He died intestate and was buried on 31 Oct. 1649 in St. Michael’s, the parish church of Gorhambury, at the feet of the monument which he had erected to Bacon.Herts. i. 93, 101." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote A full-length portrait of Meautys remains at Gorhambury. No later member of the family sat in Parliament.