JENNYNS (JENNINGS), Sir John (1596-1642), of Holywell House, St Albans, Herts. and Churchill, Som.

A pedigree of the family drawn up in 1639 traced the Jennyns line back six generations before Sir John. It also showed that they were remotely related to such grand families as the Mildmays, the Cecils, the Brockets, the Fanes and the Devereux.20Add. 61452. By Sir John’s own marriage, they were more closely related to the Spencers of Althorp, creating a link between the two families that would be renewed three generations later by the marriage from which Sir John’s direct descendants, the Spencer-Churchills, would descend.

The Jennyns family had become associated with Hertfordshire in 1571 when this MP’s grandfather, Ralph Jennyns, inherited Holywell House at St Albans and the manor of Sandridge, a couple of miles outside the town, from a relative by marriage.21VCH Herts. ii. 433. But it had not been until 1628 when Sir John himself had been able to take advantage of their local standing to get elected as the MP for St Albans. His election owed much to the fact that he had refused to pay the Forced Loan.22CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 9. From 1636 he similarly tried to avoid payment of Ship Money, going so far as to move from St Albans to London to avoid contributing to the town’s quota.23CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 282; 1636-7, p. 288; 1637-8, p. 94. His defence, submitted in September 1638, was that he had been asked to pay £4 on lands that were worth only £44 a year, that he had paid what had been demanded from him elsewhere, that he had no ‘trade of gains, office or stock of monies’ but that he did have ‘so great charge of children’.24SP16/398, f. 278. The last of those statements was true, as by now he had at least 14 children still living.25Add. 61452. The town’s mayor countered that Jennyns was being treated no differently than anyone else.26SP16/400, f. 201. Meanwhile, he had been asked to pay 5s for Ship Money on his lands at Puxton in Somerset.27SP16/537, f. 74. In 1639 he failed to respond to the request to contribute to the king’s northern journey, although as the demand was made in Hampshire, his failure to do so may just have been a misunderstanding.28Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 912. Despite these troubles, he had since been re-appointed as a justice of the peace.29CSP Dom. 1639, p. 353.

Re-elected for St Albans in 1640, together with Thomas Coningsby*, he is not recorded as having taken any part in the Short Parliament. Later that year, on 14 August, the privy council issued a summons against him and he appeared before them five days later.30PC Regs. xi, pp. 693, 696. Summoned again a week later, he was imprisoned in the Fleet for five days from 4 September.31PC Regs. xi, pp. 701, 713, 724; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 634; 1640-1, p. 32. His offence was that he had failed to arrest disorderly soldiers who had been attacking altar rails in some of the Hertfordshire churches.32CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 12. He was not so slow to act after being released. Hearings organised by him at Hertford on 19 September took evidence about the attacks on ten churches in the south of the county.33CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 140.

Jennyns was re-elected at St Albans in November 1640. During the opening weeks of the Long Parliament he was named to the committee of privileges (6 Nov.) and the committee on the Bossiney election (14 Nov.).34CJ ii. 21a, 20a. On 21 November he was one of the many MPs who each offered security of £1,000 to underwrite the £100,000 to be raised to pay the two armies in the north of England.35Procs. LP i. 229, 232, 235. But on 4 December he was again committed to the Fleet.36CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 297; CJ ii. 79b. The exact reason is not known, but, as this was at the instigation of Coningsby, this was his rival’s revenge for his defeat in the recent parliamentary election. Jennyns was released only after the attorney-general, Sir John Bankes†, persuaded him to enter into a bond for £500 for his good behaviour.37Procs. LP ii. 381. This must have occurred before 29 January 1641, as he was then included on the committee on the bill concerning the clerkship of the markets.38CJ ii. 75a. The issue of his recent imprisonment was raised in the Commons, most likely by Jennyns himself, on 6 February. The main concern was that the warrant issued by the privy council to commit him had failed to give a reason, which had prevented the court of king’s bench issuing a writ of habeas corpus.39Procs. LP ii. 380-1. The Commons had already created a committee to investigate the powers of the privy council, particularly when acting as the court of star chamber. Jennyns’s case was therefore now referred to that committee.40CJ ii. 79b-80a. The following month a bill was introduced which, as well as abolishing star chamber, addressed the specific abuse Jennyns had encountered and this was enacted into law in July 1641.41SR v. 110-12. In so far as his case had helped encourage his colleagues to legislate on this point, this was perhaps his most substantial contribution as an MP.

His other committee appointments included those on abuses by those running the postal services (10 Feb. 1641), the arrest of Members after the dissolution in 1629 (23 Feb), the bill to reform elections (30 Mar.) and the bill against popish recusants (8 May).42CJ ii. 82a, 91a, 114a, 139a. He took the Protestation on 3 May.43CJ ii. 133b. That July he was named to the committees on the bills against gunpowder imports (21 July) and on the trained bands (24 July).44CJ ii. 219b, 223a. Thereafter his activity seems to have tailed off, although that August he was added to the committee concerning Sir William Bryer.45CJ ii. 263a. That he was named to the committee appointed on 25 January 1642 to investigate the printing of the Hertfordshire petition may not mean much, as only one of the Hertfordshire MPs was not included by name on it.46CJ ii. 393a. The ‘Mr Jenings’ who spoke against the usury bill in March 1641 and who was named to the committee on the bullion trade in February 1642 was probably Robert Jenner*.47CJ ii. 422b.

Jennyns was buried in St Margaret’s, Westminster, on 27 July 1642.48Mems. of St Margaret’s, Westminster, ed. Burke, 601. A new writ was authorized on 5 August.49D’Ewes (N), 486n; Procs. LP ii. 752n; CJ ii. 704a. In his will he remembered the poor of St Albans and Sandridge, leaving bequests to them totalling £19 10s. He also left £2 to the poor of Churchill, Somerset. His lands at Beanacre in Wiltshire and some of those at Sandridge were to be sold to settle his debts and to provide a £500 legacy for his youngest son, Robert.50PROB11/190/164. Jennyns was succeeded in his seat at St Albans by his eldest son, Richard*.