MAYNARD, Sir John (c.1592-1658), of Tooting Graveney, Surr. and Gt. Isleham, Cambs.

Maynard was the son of a wealthy Essex landowner who had acquired lands in other parts of the country, including the properties in Hertfordshire and Surrey that passed to his son on his death in 1610. As a young man, Maynard had been a courtier. He was made a gentleman of the privy chamber in 1621 and Knight of the Bath in 1626, and he acted as henchman to George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, in the Parliaments of 1624 and 1625. He was again a key supporter of Buckingham in the 1628 Parliament, although relations between the two men had cooled in the weeks before the duke’s assassination in August 1628, as it was suspected that Maynard was the author of a forged letter which had proved politically embarrassing to his patron.37HP Commons 1604-29. In the decade after Buckingham’s death, Maynard played little part in politics, and he seems to have devoted most of his time to becoming rich. In the 1620s he had married a daughter of Sir Thomas Myddelton, and thus acquired further land interests in Somerset, Worcestershire and Yorkshire; in April 1636 he bought lands in Mitcham in Surrey from Sir Henry Burton; and in 1637 he purchased from Edward Peyton† a substantial new estate at Great Isleham in Cambridgeshire, which would become his principal residence in the 1640s.38Coventry Docquets, 693; VCH Cambs. x. 430, 456.

Despite his former royal ties – and the fact that he remained a gentleman of the king’s bedchamber – Maynard sided with Parliament at the outbreak of civil war in 1642.39LC3/1, unfol. His activities in the early months of the war are uncertain, although he lent £700 to Parliament in the autumn of 1642.40Oxford DNB. In April 1643 he became commissioner for the sequestration of delinquents’ estates – a role that he fulfilled with some enthusiasm – and from the summer he was an active member of various Surrey commissions, including, in November, that for the defence of the county, as part of a wider association across the south east.41CJ iii. 33a, 119a; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 178. In December he was busy enforcing orders for the raising of men and supplies for Sir William Waller’s* army, which had met with opposition in some parts of the county.42A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 505. In June 1644 he was appointed to the Surrey commission for raising further troops for Waller, and in July he was added to the Surrey commission for the peace.43C231/6, p. 4. Maynard was already a divisive figure in Surrey politics, however. On 29 August 1643 the Commons ordered an investigation into allegations by Maynard that Sir John Evelyn I* and others were implicated in the plan of Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, to defect to the king.44CJ iii. 222a.

In the same period, Maynard used his influence to ensure the appointment of his kinsman Colonel Samuel Jones* as governor of Farnham Castle. This riled Sir Richard Onslow* and others, who hoped to disband the Farnham garrison and increase the power of the deputy lieutenants as a counter-balance to the new committees and commissions.45Oxford DNB. Matters came to a head on 21 September 1644, when Maynard delivered to the Commons a petition by some of the Surrey gentlemen, asking that Jones be continued as governor of Farnham.46Harl. 166, f. 123v. This provoked a furious response from Onslow and his friends, who denounced the petition as ‘seditious’, and on 18 October the Commons voted that the petition had been a breach of privilege, and that the authors should be discovered.47CJ iii. 637b; Harl. 166, ff. 124v, 150. As Sir Simonds D’Ewes* noted, ‘it was shrewdly suspected that Sir John Maynard was the man’.48Harl. 166, f. 150. Maynard was not prepared to accept defeat, however, and by January 1645 the Committee of Both Kingdoms was forced to intervene in the row, summoning Maynard to give further information, and requiring evidence for his accusations that some of his opponents had plotted to betray Farnham Castle to the royalists.49CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 225, 227, 231, 240, 253, 272, 285, 297, 303, 309. Although Maynard was appointed to local commissions to help raise the New Model army and to administer the new assessments in February 1645, he was excluded from the new county committee, established in April, which was controlled by Onslow and his allies.50A. and O.; Oxford DNB. By this time Samuel Jones had been ousted as governor of Farnham, despite being defended in the Commons by Maynard’s kinsman, Edward Bayntun*.51Vide supra. ‘Samuel Jones’.

Immediately after his failure in Surrey, Maynard was drawn into the Savile affair, and on 13 June 1645 a committee for both Houses interviewed Maynard as part of their wider investigation into allegations that Denzil Holles* and Bulstrode Whitelocke* had been in contact with the king.52HMC 6th Rep. 67. Perhaps in the course of his two examinations before the investigating committee, Maynard alleged that leading Independents, including the earl of Northumberland, Oliver St John* and Oliver Cromwell*, had also been holding talks with the king to secure peace on their own terms, including measures to bring in the toleration of ‘all manner of religions’.53Oxford DNB. Maynard was already known as an opponent of the Independents, if not as a supporter of the Presbyterians, but as yet his involvement in politics remained sporadic. This was perhaps the result of his decision to turn his back on Surrey and instead build up his position in Cambridgeshire. He had been a deputy lieutenant in the county since the spring of 1644; during the mid-1640s he consolidated his hold over the old Peyton lands by buying up the remaining reversionary interests; and in June 1646 he appeared before the drainage committee to oppose new schemes, presumably because they would affect his own profits at Isleham, which were dependent on cattle grazing the fens during the summer months.54CJ iii. 449a; VCH Cambs. x. 430, 440; K. Lindley, Fenland Riots and the English Revolution (1982), 166. It was only in January 1647, when he was elected to the Cornish seat of Lostwithiel, probably on the interest of the Presbyterian peer, John 2nd Baron Robartes, that he again concentrated on politics.

Although ‘sworn … and received into the House’ on 10 February 1647, Maynard does not seem to have played an active role at Westminster until the beginning of April and the consolidation of Presbyterian control of the Commons.55Perfect Occurrences no. 6 (5-12 Feb. 1647), sig. G4 (E.375.17). From the start, he was associated with provocative policies, as on 2 April, when he was named to the committee on the ordinance to reform the London militia and the Presbyterian-dominated committee of both Houses to arrange a loan of £200,000 from the City ‘for the service of England and Ireland’.56CJ v. 132b, 133a. Both measures were intended as snubs to the New Model. On 14 April Maynard was named to a committee to prepare instructions for those going to the king to hasten his response to the Newcastle Propositions; and the following day he was one of the managers of the conference with the Lords on the London militia ordinance.57CJ v. 142b, 143b. During May there were attempts to defuse opposition from the army, perhaps in the hope that the New Model would agree to disband or serve in Ireland, and Maynard was appointed to committees to ensure the settling of lands on Oliver Cromwell (5 May), to allow indemnity for soldiers (7 and 14 May), and to provide relief for wounded soldiers and their widows and orphans (28 May).58CJ v. 162b, 166a, 174a, 190b. As it became increasingly clear that the army would not bow to Parliament’s will, the Presbyterians tried to undermine their opponents while forging closer links with other groups. On 5 June Maynard was named to a committee to receive a message from the Scottish commissioners; and on 8 June he was messenger to the Lords with an ordinance increasing the recreation days allowed to apprentices, scholars and servants in London.59CJ v. 200b, 202b-31; LJ ix. 246b. As if to prove his commitment, on 9 June Maynard took the Covenant; and two days later he was named to a committee to decide how the London militia would suppress any insurrection and defend Parliament.60CJ v. 203b, 207b. This last move was seen as a direct challenge to the New Model, and on 16 June charges were brought by the army against Maynard and ten other Presbyterian MPs, accusing them of ‘betraying the cause of Parliament, endeavouring to break and destroy the army’ and other crimes amounting to high treason.61Ludlow, Mems. i. 152. As yet the army and its allies could not prevent the Eleven Members from sitting in the House, but the political temperature was rising, and on 26 June they were given leave of absence by the Commons, and withdrew voluntarily.62CJ v. 225a.

On 12 July, the Commons debated the charges against the Eleven Members, but no decision was reached, and on 30 July they were readmitted, with Maynard being appointed to the revived ‘committee of safety’, which had been set up to mobilise London against the army.63Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 612, 652-3. Whether, as was later alleged, Maynard fomented the ‘forcing of the Houses’, organised the raising of troops against the New Model, and ordered that arms be issued from the Tower of London cannot be proved, but such activities are entirely consistent with his known views. He certainly signed at least one warrant from the committee of safety in its attempt to make London’s militia forces more combat ready.64CJ v. 295b; Perfect Occurrences no. 31 (30 July-6 Aug. 1647), 207 (E.518.14). In any case, he was now hated by the army. As a military newsletter of early July put it succinctly: ‘Sir John Maynard swears you are all rebels and traitors’.65Clarke Pprs. i. 150. With the march of the New Model on London at the beginning of August, the failure of any organised resistance, and the entry into the capital on 6 August, the Presbyterian hegemony came to a rapid end. Most of the Eleven Members fled to the continent, but Maynard chose to face his accusers.66Juxon Jnl. 169. He appeared before the House on 7 September, but refused to answer any of the charges.67CJ v. 295b. In his statement he remained defiant, telling the Commons that although he had not encouraged Londoners to arm themselves, the City militia had ‘100 brave commanders, the least of which were worth the whole army’.68‘Boys Diary’, 147. This was a brave stand, but it did nothing to counter the charge that he had been bent on starting a new civil war, and on the same day, the House formally disabled Maynard from sitting as an MP, and sent him to the Tower while his impeachment was prepared.69Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 803.

Maynard’s impeachment was reported to the Commons by Miles Corbett* on 28 October, and was passed without delay.70CJ v. 344b. The judgement of the Lords was to prove far more problematic, however. The articles were delivered to the Upper House on 27 January 1648, and they were considered on 1 February, with Maynard being summoned to the bar on 5 February.71CJ v. 445a; LJ x. 13a-14a, 18b, 23b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 986. Even before the hearing there was a feeling that Maynard was to be a scapegoat. It was stated that while the rest of the Eleven Members ‘must be tenderly handled’, Maynard, along with Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, ‘shall pay for all’.72Mercurius Elencticus no. 10 (26 Jan.-2 Feb. 1648), 73 (E.425.7). When he appeared in the Lords, Maynard was unrepentant. He refused to kneel before the Lords, and demanded to be tried by his own peers, whom he defined as the judges of the common law courts of Westminster Hall. He ended with a protest against the ‘arbitrary proceedings’ against him.73LJ x. 23b. As an interim judgement the Lords fined Maynard £500 for contempt, and sent him back to the Tower pending another hearing.74LJ x. 23b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 986-7. Maynard was brought before the bar of the House of Lords for a second time on 19 February. Again he refused to kneel, claiming that such an act would amount to ‘a confession of delinquency, and will destroy his cause’, although he asked pardon for refusing to do so.75LJ x. 64b-65b. This time the peers allowed Maynard to answer the charges without kneeling, and again he took the opportunity to denounce the proceedings and demand to be tried by the common law, adding that an act of attainder could not passed in any case, as the two Houses had only a month before passed the ‘vote of no addresses’ and so could not secure the royal assent.76The Kingdomes Weekly Post no. 8 (16-22 Feb. 1648), 58-9 (E.428.13). Again, no final decision was taken, and he was merely refused bail and sent back to the Tower.77LJ x. 64b-65b. In the next few weeks, Maynard was repeatedly allowed more time to prepare his case, and on 18 April the date of the trial was at last set for 23 May.78LJ x. 89b, 157a, 161a, 192b, 207b; CJ v. 536a. Playing for time proved to be the best tactic in the fluid politics of the late spring and early summer of 1648, as by early June the Presbyterians had reasserted themselves in both Houses, leading on 3 June to a resolution in the Commons that proceedings against Maynard should be stopped, seconded three days later by a Lords’ order rescinding the impeachment and allowing his release from the Tower.79CJ vi. 584a; LJ x. 307b. On 8 June the order disabling him from the Commons was also revoked.80CJ v. 589b.

As well as trying to delay proceedings, Maynard and his friends had made good use of pamphlets to whip up public outrage at his treatment at the hands of the Lords. On 7 February the ‘votes and orders’ of the peers were published, along with Maynard’s plea that he be ‘tried by his equals, and [he] pleaded Magna Carta and the Petition of Right’.81Severall Votes and Orders of the House of Peeres Against Sir John Maynard (1648), 2 (E.425.20). This was duly repeated by the newsbooks.82The Kingdomes Weekly Post no. 6 (2-9 Feb. 1648), 46 (E.426.13). On 9 February, there appeared The Royal Quarrell – a defence of Maynard written by John Harris.83[J. Harris], The Royall Quarrell (1648, E.426.11). Harris’s pamphlet over-egged an already fairly rich pudding, arguing along Leveller lines that the Lords had not just overstepped their authority, they had set up a ‘tyranny, which would ‘trample upon your laws’ and ‘envassalise the persons of your friends’. ‘Hath not will prevailed against reason’, he asked the reader, ‘and the lust of a prevailing faction been made your law, and are not all these actings become so many precedents, whereby you and all free born people of England shall be made slaves unto futurity?’.84The Royall Quarrell, 1-2. Such a gloss went far beyond what Maynard had actually said, but it was useful in bringing the case to the public’s attention. The second hearing was also well covered, Maynard’s letter of 14 February was printed, and his role as a ‘faithful patriot of his country’ emphasised in the newsbooks.85England’s Champion (1648, 669.f.11.125); Kingdomes Weekly Post no. 8, 58-9; The Kingdomes Weekly Account no. 8 (16-30 [sic] Feb. 1648), 55 (E.429.16). This was followed by yet another pamphlet in support of Maynard, The Lawes Subversion, by John Wildman*, the Leveller, published on 6 March.86[J. Wildman], The Lawes Subversion (1648, E.431.2). Wildman reprinted Maynard’s letters and statements with an extensive commentary, arguing that the whole affair was like ‘the empoisoned arrow shot through the principal wall of England’s liberty; here is equity, law and justice dethroned, and absolute will, or blind lust, challenging the proper imperial seat of England’.87The Lawes Subversion, 9. The impact of such publications is difficult to calculate, but it is probable that the impeachment was hampered by knowledge that conviction would provoke yet more criticism, and possibly public disorder.

On his return to the Commons in June 1648, Maynard did not immediately become involved in politics. Instead, he was keen to sort out an outstanding financial matter: the revoking of a penalty incurred when, as a result of his imprisonment, he had not fulfilled all the requirements for a purchase of an estate in Huntingdon from the trustees for the sale of bishops’ lands.88CJ v. 609b, 628a. This was perfected by order of the Lords on 27 June.89LJ x. 348a, 350b, 371a. On the same day, Maynard spoke in the Commons of the need to find peace, as ‘all are weary of war, and desire a personal treaty with his majesty’, and arguing that faction – whether ‘the royal Presbyterians’ or the ‘royal Independents’ – should be avoided: ‘Let us lay aside all faction, and let us unite amongst ourselves, and forget and forgive personal animosities’.90A Speech Spoken by an Honorable Knight (June 1648), 4-6. Maynard apparently played little part in preparations to oppose the Scottish invasion led by James Hamilton, 1st duke of Hamilton, but on 20 July he was named to a committee to investigate who had encouraged the Scots to enter England.91CJ v. 640b. In the same month there were rumours that Maynard was now a crypto-royalist, and these were interpreted by one newsbook as an indication of the rigidity of his Presbyterianism.

Sir John Maynard had like to have been made a martyr again, being charged by Mun [Edmund] Prideaux* with writing letters into Scotland: which he indeed confessed, but not to invite them, but only to bemoan the pitiful tossings and tumblings of the Kirk, and maintain the old correspond [sic] of knavery betwixt the children of the Covenant.92Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 17 (18-25 July 1648), sig. R2v (E.454.4).

The extent of Maynard’s Scottish sympathies is hard to gauge, and his appointment, on 29 August, to the committee to consider the fate of the Scottish prisoners captured after the battle of Preston, was not necessarily a sign of brotherly affection.93CJ v. 692a. Maynard’s Presbyterianism is not in doubt, however. On 6 October he was one of those deputed to write a letter to General Sir Thomas Fairfax* asking for explanations of his treatment of senior royalists captured after the siege of Colchester; on 9 October he was named to the committee to raise £5,000 to maintain a horse guard to defend Parliament; and on 1 November he was appointed to go to the Lords with a vote on the king’s answer to propositions concerning the treatment of royalists and the future of the religious settlement.94CJ vi. 45b, 47a, 67a; LJ x. 572b. As in the spring and summer of 1647, Maynard was determined to reduce the power of the military, and on 25 November 1648 he was named to a committee to consider which castles and other strongholds should be slighted and abandoned.95CJ vi. 87a. When the New Model army purged Parliament on 6 December, Maynard was inevitably among those to be secluded.96A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62).

Although Maynard’s career during 1647 and 1648 was that of the archetypal Presbyterian, a curious by-product of his persecution in the winter of 1647-8 was his association with those whose political views were radically different from his own, but who shared his animosity towards the Independents and the army. Chief among these was John Lilburne, the Leveller. The two were in contact by the beginning of November 1647, when Maynard asked the lieutenant of the Tower to tell him whether Lilburne was to attend the committee considering his case.97HMC 6th Rep. 207. In his letter to the Lords of 4 February, Maynard followed Lilburne by asserting his right as a ‘freeborn’ Englishman, repeating the phrase when before the House the next day, and it is telling that the main defences of Maynard that appeared in February and March were written by Lilburne’s allies John Harris and John Wildman.98Severall Votes and Orders, 2; The Royall Quarrell, 7, 9; The Lawes Subversion. Contemporaries drew direct parallels between Maynard’s behaviour at the bar of the House and that of Lilburne earlier, as if he ‘thought meet to play Lilburne, and bait the prerogative creatures by appealing from them as incompetent judges’.99Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 21 (1-8 Feb. 1648), sig. X4v (E.426.6). In the same month another observer wrote sarcastically that ‘if Sir John Maynard should have controlled the Lords, and the Levellers ruled Sir John, we should have had a kingdom well governed’.100Kingdomes Weekly Account no. 8, 55. When he was restored to the Commons, Maynard did not forget Lilburne, and on 27 July he spoke in his favour, arguing that his jailing had been ‘illegal’, and that it was ‘every Englishman’s birthright’ to be tried according to the law.101OPH xvii. 349. On 1 August Maynard was appointed the manager of a committee to consider how to recompense Lilburne for his losses while in prison.102CJ v. 657a. As Lilburne wrote later, his petition to the Commons had been presented by ‘my true friend, and faithful courageous fellow-sufferer, Sir John Maynard’, and he commended him for having ‘improved the utmost of his interest, and thereby became principally instrumental both in your House and in the House of Lords for my liberty’.103J. Lilburne, The Legall Fundamentall Liberties of the People of England Reveived, asserted and Vindicated (1649), 19 (E.560.14).

Maynard’s stance in 1647-8 also attracted the approval of royalists. A Scottish royalist reported in February 1648 that ‘Sir John Maynard made the Lords merry; denied their right of judicature; refused to kneel; but in a compliment (as he said), he bowed as low as a bishop to the altar’.104R. Ashton, Counter-revolution: the second civil war and its origins, 1646-8 (Yale, 1994), 114. Sir Edward Hyde*, writing much later, also celebrated Maynard’s stand against the Lords, and added that he ‘told them plainly that by this resolution of making no more addresses to the king they did as far as in them lay dissolve Parliament’.105Clarendon, Hist. iv. 284. Such glosses (and additions) should not suggest that Maynard was a crypto-royalist, any more than the approval of Lilburne made him a Leveller, and historians need to treat some accounts of Maynard’s actions and words with caution. The obvious example is the ‘speech in answer to Mr [Henry] Marten*, who railed against the king, Lords and Commons’, which likened Marten to Cataline, and argued for reformed monarchy. This speech was apparently delivered in the Commons in January 1648, and George Thomason noted on his transcript that it was ‘said to be Sir John Maynard’s’, even though Maynard was in the Tower at this time.106‘A Speech in answer to Mr Marten’ (E.422.32); cf. Ashton, Counter-revolution, 116.

Pride’s Purge in December 1648 brought Maynard’s national career to an abrupt end, and after the regicide he returned to sorting his complicated financial affairs. In August 1649 he told his agent in Yorkshire, in a letter mainly concerned with his land holdings there, that he had decided to submit to the Rump’s authority, as Parliament had undertaken to ‘maintain the law of the land’, but his lack of enthusiasm was palpable.107HMC 8th Rep. i. 637. In September 1649 he was summoned to the Committee for Advance of Money to pay £1,500 he still owed the Peyton family for the purchase of Isleham, which was claimed by the state because of the sequestration of their estate.108CCAM 1123. It was the future of Isleham that brought Maynard back into local politics, in response to the new scheme to drain the Lindsey Level in Lincolnshire and the Great Level in Cambridgeshire. His opposition to such projects had a long history. He had appeared before the drainage committee in June 1646; on 11 May 1647, after entering the Commons, he had been added to the committee for the fens; and (according to one source) he was ‘present at most of the debates touching the said draining’ thereafter.109Lindley, Fenland Riots, 166; CJ v. 166b; An Answer to a Printed Paper dispersed by Sir John Maynard (1653), 3. According to John Harris, Maynard’s opposition to fen drainage was already notorious well before 1647, with Cromwell supposedly targeting him because he was ‘my old enemy, [who] opposed me and Mr Solicitor St John in the project of draining the fens … and therefore now I have an opportunity to quit scores with him’.110The Royal Quarrell, 6. Following the passing of the drainage act in 1649, Maynard led local protests. He may have been behind two petitions to parliament against drainage of the Lindsey Level in 1650, and his pamphlet, The Picklock of the Old Fenne Project, published in February of the same year, attacked the undertakers as corrupt and self-serving former royalists.111Lindley, Fenland Riots, 161-3. In the latter he denounced the undertakers as ‘courtiers, sharers, sharks and strangers’ who had acted merely upon the ‘king’s prerogative … to make new works for private ends, contrary to the great Charter [Magna Carta]’. This, he continued, went against the rights of the present landowners, and was ‘the height of arbitrary government, and tyranny itself’.112J. Maynard, The Picklock of the Old Fenne Project (1650), 9-10 (E.594.4).

The ferocity of Maynard’s attack may have contributed to the delay in implementing the new scheme, and although the parliamentary committee reported on the Lindsey Level in March 1652, little had been achieved by the following year.113Lindley, Fenland Riots, 163. In 1653 there was a new petition, ‘dispersed by Sir John Maynard’ from his home parish of Isleham, denouncing the drainage act, and in July of that year Maynard attended a meeting of the commissioners, and threatened to petition Parliament for redress.114Answer to a Printed Paper, 9. The result was a stand-off, but by the end of August the Adventurers’ Company delay in considering Maynard’s petition was in danger of back-firing, as it gave the protesters hope that the project might be re-examined and perhaps revoked, and allowed the ‘Sir John’s party’ to gather still more recruits.115CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 116, 120-1. Interestingly, the threat of direct action by Maynard’s friends led one local to complain to John Thurloe* that ‘we are in the same danger of him that the state is of Lilburne’.116CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 120. Maynard’s defiance in the summer of 1653 did little long-term good to his cause, and in the next few years half the Isleham fens were drained.117VCH Cambs. x. 440.

After the fen dispute, Maynard played no further part in public life, and he may already have been ill when he drafted his will in the spring of 1655. In it he made only small bequests as his estates had already been settled on the marriage of his only son, (Sir) John, in 1652.118PROB11/280/226; VCH Cambs. x. 430. Maynard died in July 1658, and was buried at Tooting.119Lysons, Environs, i. 497-501.