FIENNES, Nathaniel II (d. ?1673), of Bromby, Lincs.

Like his uncle James Fiennes* and his father before him, Nathaniel II owed his parliamentary seat to the family interest in a borough which lay close to his paternal grandfather’s castle at Broughton. Unlike them, this Fiennes was completely overshadowed by his formidable relatives, who included his maternal grandfather John Eliot†, hero of opposition in 1620s parliaments; not only his career, but also his life, remain obscure.

It is probable that Fiennes passed his youth in Lincolnshire, where his mother was buried, and at family residences in London, including Arundel House. His entry to Lincoln College (rather than New College, the traditional family destination) may reflect this, but may also have been connected to the fact that among the fellows was William Sprigge, son of the Fiennes’ Oxfordshire steward and brother of their client, the Independent minister and author Joshua Sprigge. An experimental philosopher, William was in high favour with the protectorate and in 1659 published anonymously a plea for far-reaching political, religious, educational and legal reform.7Al. Ox.; ‘William Sprigg’, Oxford DNB. Fiennes’s special admittance to Gray’s Inn (another departure from tradition, Nathaniel I having recently been made a bencher at Lincoln’s Inn) was at the request of John Barksdale, whose namesake had performed the same service (also at Lincoln’s Inn) for James Fiennes.8G. Inn Admiss. 274; W.R. Prest, The Rise of Barristers (1986), 343.

By the time Fiennes was elected for Banbury, his grandfather, William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, had been long in retirement and his uncle James was yet to return to public life, but Nathaniel I’s position as Speaker of the Other House, buttressed as he made a lengthy opening speech to both houses, ought to have pushed Nathaniel II to the fore. As it was, the son of the man who apparently arrived forcefully on the scene from nowhere in 1640 made no recorded contribution to Commons’ proceedings in 1659. There is no evidence to indicate whether this silence proceeded from political inclination or personal character and aptitudes.

Fiennes’ life after the Restoration is similarly a blank. He witnessed his father’s will on 5 October 1669, and on the latter’s death inherited his Lincolnshire properties, the Newton Tony estate being devised to his stepmother and her daughters.9PROB11/334/450. He seems to have married Elizabeth Williams either in May 1671 or August 1672, probably at Frodingham, but he died before the end of 1673.10Lincs. RO, 2PG/12/3/7; E367/2755. He thus precedeceased his uncle James, the only family member to sit in Restoration parliaments, who died in March 1674, and it was Nathaniel II’s younger brother William (d. 1698) who became 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele.11CP. His widow remarried in October 1674.12Mar. Lics. Fac. Office, 131.