MAINWARING, Sir Henry (1586/7-1653), of Dover Castle, Kent; later of Camberwell, Surr.

As the younger son of a Shropshire gentleman, Mainwaring was obliged to make his own way in the world. Graduating from Brasenose College, Oxford in July 1602, he was admitted to the Inner Temple in November 1604. His whereabouts for the next six and-a-half years are unknown, but given his subsequent career it seems likely that during this time he acquired nautical and military experience. In June 1611 he obtained the reversion to the captaincy of a castle on the Hampshire coast,CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 41. doubtless with the assistance of his elder brother, Sir Arthur, a servant of Prince Henry and lord chancellor Ellesmere. Four months later, lord admiral Nottingham authorized him to suppress the pirates operating in the Bristol Channel.Ibid. 1623-5, p. 546. In 1612 Mainwaring purchased a small ship for £700, as he planned to accompany Sir Thomas Shirley to Persia to fight the Turks, but he was prevented from sailing by the efforts of the Spanish ambassador, who feared that the ships being assembled by Shirley would be used against Spanish interests.Autobiog. of Phineas Pett ed. W.G. Perrin (Navy Recs. Soc. li), 96; Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 8-9. Mainwaring was incensed and, following Shirley’s departure from England, he fitted out another vessel, the Nightingale of Chichester, ostensibly for a trading voyage to West Africa. Despite providing surety for his good conduct, he slipped away without permission,CSP Ire. 1611-14, p. 475; HCA 14/41, nos. 42, 80. and soon began to wreak havoc on Spanish shipping. Operating out of Mamora (modern-day Mehidia), on the west coast of Morocco, he quickly amassed a private fleet of between 30 or 40 ships, and by the summer of 1613 had succeeded in netting around £3,500 worth of goods from ships trading to Spain.Life and Works of Sir Henry Mainwaring, Vol. II ed. G.E. Manwaring (Navy Recs. Soc. lvi), 10-11; APC, 1613-14, pp. 424-6. He took care to avoid damaging the interests of British subjects, however, and in the spring of 1614, on learning that he had seized vessels belonging to an Irish merchant, he made full restitution to the man’s factor.CSP Ire. 1611-14, p. 475; APC, 1613-14, pp. 407, 435-6, 480. The Irish merchant concerned was nevertheless granted a commission by lord admiral Nottingham to suppress pirates: HCA 14/41, no. 55. A few months later he arrived off Newfoundland with eight vessels with the intention of protecting English fishermen there from the incursions of the king of Spain’s Flemish allies, but the Spanish, taking advantage of his absence, promptly seized Mamora. On his return that autumn, Mainwaring was consequently forced to switch his base of operations to Villafranca, which the duke of Savoy, then at war with Spain, had declared to be a free port.Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 20-1, 23-5; ii. 10. Despite losing one of his ships to enemy action in January 1615, Mainwaring so badly mauled a small squadron of Spanish warships in the following June that the Spaniards fled to Lisbon.HMC Downshire, v. 102; CSP Ven. 1613-15, p. 509.

Mainwaring’s victory over the Spanish squadron coincided with the end of Savoy’s brief war with Spain over Montferrat.CSP Ven. 1613-15, p. 488. It also coincided with the opening of informal negotiations between England and Spain for a Spanish Match for Prince Charles.A. Thrush, ‘Personal Rule of James I’, in Pols. Religion and Popularity ed. T. Cogswell et al. 89. Sometime over the summer, James I, under pressure from Spain, sent Mainwaring an ultimatum. Provided Mainwaring returned to England he would be given a free pardon, but if he failed to do so the king would be compelled to dispatch a fleet to the Mediterranean to destroy his squadron. Not wishing to fight his own countrymen, and no longer entirely welcome in Savoy, Mainwaring therefore sailed his ships to north-west Ireland, from where, in November, he opened communication with James through his friends in England.CSP Col. E.I. 1513-1616, p. 441; Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 29-30; ii. 16, 277. Before the end of the year Mainwaring had presented himself to the Privy Council, having allowed his ships to be impounded at Dover.Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 30; APC, 1615-16, pp. 359-60. His formal pardon, however, was not sealed until June 1616.C66/2075/15.

Following his official rehabilitation, Mainwaring was employed by the newly appointed lord warden of the Cinque Ports, Lord Zouche, to commission the construction of a 40-ton pinnace, which was launched in August 1616.Autobiog. of Phineas Pett, 116. He subsequently penned a discourse on the whereabouts, practices and best means to suppress piracy. Presented to the king in 1618, Mainwaring, without a trace of irony, advised the king ‘never to grant any pardon’ to pirates, but ‘to put them all to death, or make slaves of them’, as pirates would only abandon their trade ‘when Your Highness leaves pardoning’.Life and Works of Mainwaring, ii. 42. Towards the end of December 1617, Mainwaring was secretly approached by the Venetian secretary in England, Lionello, who inquired whether he would be willing to serve the Venetian Republic, which had recently uncovered a plot by Spain to seize control of Venice. James had recently granted permission for the Venetians to hire some warships in England, and Mainwaring was asked to scour the Thames to find suitable vessels.Ibid. 263-4. The document from which this is taken is evidently misdated. Mainwaring was delighted at this overture, and identified several likely ships, but it soon transpired that the Venetian ambassador had no authority to appoint a commander for the intended squadron. Consequently, in March 1618 Mainwaring persuaded James, who had appointed him a gentleman of his Bedchamber, to intercede on his behalf. James not only obliged but, after sending the earl of Montgomery (Sir Philip Herbert*) to convey to the ambassador his ‘very earnest commendation’, knighted Mainwaring at Woking.CSP Ven. 1617-19, pp. 123, 178; Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 41; ii. 264. However, the doge and senate, anxious that other sea captains would be unwilling to sail under the command of a former pirate, preferred to bestow command of the ships on Sir Henry Peyton. Undeterred, Mainwaring resolved to embark in a private capacity and to offer his services in person to the Venetians’ captain-general.CSP Ven. 1617-21, p. 196. However, the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, vigorously protested, and since James remained determined to conclude a marriage alliance with Spain, Mainwaring was required to delay his departure until after Gondomar had left England in mid-July.Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 44; ii. 265. In order to disguise his true intentions, he spread the rumour that he had gone to Ireland to resume his career as a buccaneer.The rumour apparently even took in the Venetian ambassador: CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 312.

On reaching Venice, Mainwaring was warmly greeted by the English ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton*, who styled him ‘this redeemed Neptune’.Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton ed. L.P. Smith, ii. 162. Through Wotton, Mainwaring explained to the Venetians that they would be better off employing three purpose-built warships rather than the rag-tag squadron of seven merchantmen that he had scraped together for them. Greatly impressed by this advice, the Venetians instructed Mainwaring to return to England in order to persuade James to lend them three warships of the English Navy. Mainwaring duly set out in January 1619, with 600 crowns in his pocket and the promise of 200 more per month, in the expectation that he would soon be returning, for he left behind his trunk containing his books and mathematical instruments. He reached England two months later and journeyed to Newmarket, where he communicated to James the Venetians’ request. However, although sympathetic, James was unwilling to lend any part of his fleet to a foreign power for, as Archbishop Abbot observed, were the ships to be captured James would be honour-bound to recover them, by force if necessary.Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 57-62, 74-5. Nevertheless, the king was taken with Mainwaring’s idea of sending a fleet to the Mediterranean, ostensibly to deal with the pirates that were still operating out of Algiers, but actually to keep a watchful eye on Spanish naval preparations. Although nothing was done immediately, Mainwaring’s suggestion planted the seeds of the subsequent expedition to Algiers.Ibid. 66.

Following the collapse of his plans to return to Venice at the head of a squadron of warships, Mainwaring found himself at something of a loose end. In April the royal favourite and new lord admiral, George Villiers, marquess (later duke) of Buckingham, approached the Venetian ambassador, Donato, with a request that Mainwaring be found employment by the Republic, but to no avail. By the end of the year Mainwaring was reduced to acting as an interpreter for Buckingham at meetings between the marquess and Donato.CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 538; 1619-21, pp. 81-2. However, in February 1620 the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, Lord Zouche, out of ‘mere pity’ as he later claimed,SP14/155/6. bestowed upon Mainwaring the lieutenancy of Dover Castle. One of Mainwaring’s first duties as lieutenant was to greet the returning Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, whose machinations had so blighted his career. Rather than wait in the town of Dover, Mainwaring went down to the beach to meet Gondomar, who remarked that, in gratitude for this courtesy, he would forgive Mainwaring 12 crowns out of the millions he owed Spain.CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 128.

While lieutenant of Dover Castle, Mainwaring set about writing a dictionary of nautical terms for those ‘whose quality, attendance, indisposition of body (or the like)’ prevented them from attaining a firm knowledge of ‘the parts, qualities and manner of doing things with ships’, for, as he observed, ‘very few gentlemen (though they be called seamen) do fully and wholly understand what belongs to their profession’.Life and Works of Mainwaring, ii. 83. Although not printed until 1644, the Seaman’s Dictionary was circulated in manuscript by its author. Dedication copies were presented to, among others, Zouche, Buckingham, the 1st earl of Denbigh, the 10th earl of Northumberland (Algernon Percy*) and Archbishop Abbot.Ibid. 78-81.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Mainwaring was not chosen to serve on the expedition to Algiers, which left England in October 1620. Following the announcement in November of parliamentary elections, Mainwaring must have expected to learn that he would be the lord warden’s candidate for one of the two seats at Dover. Except in 1601, when sickness had prevented it, the lord warden had nominated the lieutenant ever since 1584. However, when Zouche came to draw up his lists of candidates for the Cinque Ports, Mainwaring’s name was nowhere mentioned.SP14/118/26. Had it not been for the fact that the townsmen of Dover were finding it difficult to provide a candidate for the other seat, Mainwaring would have been left without a place in the forthcoming Parliament. However, in early December the mayor approached Mainwaring, who thereupon notified Zouche that he intended to stand. Rather than express satisfaction at this turn of events, however, Zouche took umbrage at Mainwaring’s casual mention in his letter of Lord Wotton, whereupon Mainwaring was obliged to reassure Zouche, perhaps disingenuously as later events were to reveal, that he was not trying to switch patrons.CSP Dom. 1619-23, pp. 192, 202; SP14/118/20.

Mainwaring played a relatively minor role in the Parliament, although he made nine recorded speeches. He spoke for the first time on 27 Feb. 1621, when he opposed the bill to transfer control of lighthouses to the Trinity House of Deptford, declaring that it would be more suitable to pass control of the lighthouses on the Kent coast over to the lord warden, whose local knowledge was superior to that of Trinity House. To make his point, he drew attention to existing arrangements at Dover for providing pilots, saying that though the members of Trinity House were able seamen, ‘yet when they come to the Downs they have a pilot’ provided by the lord warden.CJ, i. 529b. Eight days later he was appointed to the committees for the standardization of the militia’s arms and for the subsidy bill.Ibid. 543a, 544a. On 12 Mar. he defended the right of the Cinque Ports to remain exempt from payment of subsidies, on the grounds that payment ‘would prejudice the king’.Ibid. 551a.

On receiving news that a Hamburg ship carrying sugar, spices and coin to the value of £4,000 had been wrecked on the Goodwin Sands, Mainwaring obtained leave of the Commons to be absent for a few days. On hurrying down to Deal, however, the serjeant of the Admiralty of the Cinque Ports who, like him, was answerable to the lord warden, refused to allow him to take the goods to Dover without special warrant, to his considerable chagrin.Ibid. 553a; CSP Dom. 1621-3, p. 234. Mainwaring had returned to Westminster by early April. During the Easter recess he attended the grand committee on trade, at which he again defended his constituents’ interests in respect of the lighthouses bill. Speaking on 9 Apr., he pointed out that the Cinque Ports had maintained lighthouses long before Trinity House.CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 243; CD 1621, ii. 285. On 1 May, back in the House, he told the Commons Lord Zouche had told him that the Catholic barrister Edward Floyd, who had insulted the king’s daughter, had previously been ‘questioned for speaking against the Bible’ in the Court of the Marches. As the culprit had spoken against both God and man Mainwaring desired that ‘neither for God or man’s sake he may have mercy’.CJ, i. 601a. Following the assault on Sir Charles Morrison* by Clement Coke* on the Parliament stairs, Mainwaring, speaking on 8 and 9 May, defended Morrison’s conduct, but he admitted that ‘blows do not repair blows’ and declared that Coke had already offered sufficient satisfaction. He was nonetheless among those instructed, on 11 May, to help draft the form of apology to be made by Coke to his victim.CD 1621, ii. 358; iii. 202-3. On 24 May he intervened during the debate on the bill to allow free fishing off the American coast to demand that no fish might be sold by the planters to any foreigners or carried in any vessels but English ones.CD 1621, iv. 368. He played no known part in the resumed session in the autumn. Nevertheless, on 19 Nov. 1622 the corporation of Dover ordered that he be given a hogshead of wine ‘towards his charges, he requiring no allowance’. Add. 29623, f. 58.

In February 1623 Mainwaring applied through (Sir) Robert Naunton* for the post of flag-captain to the earl of Rutland, who had been given command of the fleet to bring Prince Charles and the favourite back from Spain. The king enthusiastically supported this request, and in April Lord Zouche was advised by Secretary Conway (Sir Edward Conway I*) not to refuse Mainwaring leave. However, by then Zouche, having heard reports that Mainwaring seldom lodged in Dover Castle, had recently brawled in the street and was a notorious womaniser, had already written to Mainwaring demanding that he resign the lieutenancy. Mainwaring, on receiving this letter, was appalled, and on 9 Apr. he vigorously protested his innocence. ‘I am sure the world cannot tax me for keeping any women or frequenting their companies’, he declared. Though he had certainly been involved in a brawl, he claimed merely to have been defending himself from an assailant whom he had not provoked. As for not lodging in the castle, it was true that he had recently stayed in town with his old friend Viscount Rochford (Sir Henry Carey II*), but this had been at Rochford’s express invitation and had only been for a couple of nights.Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 97-9; SP14/139/121. Mainwaring pleaded with Zouche to suspend final judgement until after he had given him a full hearing, but the aged lord warden refused to listen, and after receiving an assurance that the king would not interfere, dismissed him from office in early May.CSP Dom. 1619-23, pp. 576, 579.

Following his return to England in the autumn of 1623, Mainwaring put it about that the real reason for his dismissal was that he was considered guilty of ‘effecting the duke of Buckingham’s desires’. This charge, though never made public by Zouche, was clearly justified, for Mainwaring now considered the youthful Buckingham rather than the aged Zouche his real patron. In the copy of his Seaman’s Dictionary that he presented to Buckingham sometime before the latter left for Spain, Mainwaring described Buckingham as ‘my most honoured lord and patron’. By contrast, the dedication in the copy presented to Zouche refers merely to ‘my ever most honoured lord, Edward, Lord Zouche’.Life and Works of Mainwaring, ii. 72, 81. Although Mainwaring knew that by courting Buckingham he had offended Zouche, he nevertheless determined to secure reinstatement, and to that enlisted the aid of both Prince Charles and Buckingham. Charles, having been greatly impressed with Mainwaring’s performance on the return journey from Spain, wrote to Zouche at the beginning of November, while Buckingham promised that he would, if necessary, obtain the signatures of all the gentry of Kent and Dover on his behalf. Zouche, however, remained unmoved, whereupon the prince demanded that he justify his decision to sack Mainwaring in writing. Zouche was subsequently obliged not only to repeat his earlier accusations but also to claim that he had been forced to take action because he feared that Mainwaring would bring disgrace upon his office by allowing himself to be arrested at the suit of his creditors.SP14/155/6. Charles, however, brushed aside Zouche’s paper, declaring that he found Mainwaring to be ‘both a discreet and an able gentleman’.Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 119.

While the prince sought to secure his restoration to office, Mainwaring, in January 1624, endeavoured to increase the pressure on Zouche by offering himself to the corporation for Dover for re-election to Parliament. However, the town’s common council replied that, while grateful for ‘his former kindnesses and pains taken at the last Parliament’, it had decided to return Sir Richard Young and Sir Edward Cecil instead. Mainwaring, though asked ‘not to take it unkindly that he was not now elected’,Add. 29623, f. 63v. was unwilling to let the matter drop, and encouraged the borough’s freemen to petition against the return on the grounds that they were unlawfully excluded from the franchise. He also took to pacing up and down Westminster Hall,SP14/160/92. doubtless with the aim of lobbying members of the committee for privileges and returns, since he was never summoned to appear before the committee in person. As a result of the petition, the Commons declared that the election of Young and Cecil was void on the grounds that the freemen had been unlawfully excluded.SP14/161/32. Mainwaring immediately announced that he would stand ‘for the first place’ in the ensuing by-election, with Sir Thomas Wilsford* as his colleague, for as Sir Richard Young informed Lord Zouche, if he ‘could procure himself to be elected by the generality of voices, it will argue that though your lordship will not respect him, yet the inhabitants there do all love him’.SP14/161/38. Wilsford’s father-in-law, the veteran Kentish politician Sir Edwin Sandys*, actively championed the cause of the two men,SP14/161/51. but was unable to prevent the re-election of Young and Cecil because the mayor of Dover declared that Mainwaring was ineligible, having lost the freedom of the borough (which he had been granted on his earlier election in December 1620) by absence.

By the end of March 1624 Mainwaring, far from having secured his re-election to Parliament and reinstatement to office, had succeeded merely in driving Lord Zouche to fury. On selling the lord wardenship to Buckingham in July, he expressly stipulated that Mainwaring ‘shall have no place or command in the Cinque Ports during the duke of Buckingham’s time, in respect of his ungrateful labouring the Lord Zouche’s disgrace at the Court and Parliament and threatening of revenge of those poor men, who did satisfy truths of his misdemeanours’.SP16/170/16. Consequently, when Mainwaring subsequently sought reappointment, he lost out to Sir John Hippisley*.

On the outbreak of war with Spain in 1625, Mainwaring initially remained on the sidelines of English military activity. This was not altogether surprising, as the commander of the expedition to Cadiz was none other than Sir Edward Cecil, whom Mainwaring had briefly unseated the previous year. In June 1626 Mainwaring was listed as a candidate for command of one of the king’s ships in the expedition that was to be led by Lord Willoughby, but either he was not offered a commission or declined to serve.SP16/30/64-5. A few months later it was rumoured that Mainwaring had succeeded in blowing up an old ship with a vessel that he had built ‘artificially made to go underwater’. News of his success is said to have reached the ears of Buckingham, who demanded to see Mainwaring’s new submarine for himself.Harl. 383, f. 39v. We are grateful for this ref. to Tom Cogswell. Whether there is any truth in this story is unclear, but the Dutchman Cornelius Drebble was certainly experimenting with submarines in England at this time. In December 1626, following the failure of Willoughby’s expedition, Mainwaring was at last found a role, being appointed to a special commission of inquiry into the Navy. He continued to attend meetings of this commission until it fizzled out in May 1627, by which time he was helping to ready the fleet being prepared to relieve La Rochelle.SP16/45, ff. 93, 102; CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 139, 141-2. On 20 June he accompanied the king to inspect the troops stationed on the Isle of Wight, but though the expedition set sail six days later Mainwaring remained in England.

Over the summer of 1627 Buckingham’s forces on the Ile de Ré began to run short of supplies, and in September the king sent Mainwaring to Plymouth to take charge of the transports that were being prepared to relieve the duke.Royalist’s Notebk. ed. F. Bamford, 20; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 347. Mainwaring discharged this duty so well that in October Viscount Wilmot (Sir Charles Wilmot*) reported that ‘his knowledge and skill hath greatly advanced the expedition’.Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 178. Mainwaring remained at Plymouth over the winter, where he continued to be heavily engaged in preparing the forces for a second relief expedition, and in March 1628 helped (Sir) James Bagg I* put down a mutiny among the sailors.HMC Cowper, i. 330-1; Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 185-8. Following the failure of this fresh expedition, Mainwaring was transferred to Portsmouth, where he briefly assisted (Sir) John Coke* in preparing for a third expedition to assist the Huguenots.HMC Cowper, i. 343; APC, 1627-8, pp. 429-30; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 140. However, on 1 June he was dispatched to London to consult Buckingham regarding the fleet, Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 193. and, so far as is known, took no further part in the war effort.

Mainwaring had gained nothing by way of wealth or office by his association with Buckingham, and following the assassination of his patron in August 1628 he determined to repair his fortunes by marriage. However, ‘steeped in poverty’, his first choice, a handsome widow with £20,000, preferred Heneage Finch*.Procs. in Kent ed. L.B. Larking (Cam. Soc. viii), p. xxvi. In desperation, in 1630 he eloped with a young woman of 23. Her father, a wealthy Surrey gentleman, refused to pay a dowry unless Mainwaring first settled lands on his new bride worth £100 p.a., a condition that Mainwaring seems not to have met before September 1633.CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 396; C2/Chas.I/G12/64; 2/Chas.I/M74/44; C8/309/103. We are grateful for these last three refs. to Geoffrey Harris. Mainwaring’s wife died a few months after this settlement was reached, and the only child of the marriage, a daughter named Christian, expired six or seven years later.

Mainwaring was one of the experts to whom the Navy turned in 1632-3 for advice on the correct manning levels for its ships.Life and Works of Mainwaring, i. 298-9. His name was near the top of the list of captains considered for appointment to the first Ship Money fleet in 1635,SP16/284/84. but if he was offered a command he turned it down. He nevertheless accepted a captaincy the following year under the young earl of Northumberland, and served in all the remaining Ship Money fleets, rising to the rank of vice-admiral in 1639.

Mainwaring was outlawed for debt in June 1641,C2/Chas.I/M9/64. We are grateful to Geoffrey Harris for this ref. but apparently avoided arrest. Regarded with suspicion by the Long Parliament, in November 1642 he was forced to resign as master of Trinity House,G.G. Harris, Trin. House, Deptford, 33. of which body he had been a member since at least 1627. A royalist in the Civil War, he joined the king at Oxford, where in January 1643 he was awarded an honorary degree. Ordered to transport the prince of Wales to the Isles of Scilly early in 1646, his ship was instead detained to help defend Pendennis against the advancing parliamentarians. He subsequently accompanied the prince to Jersey, where he was said to have been ‘as poor as the rest’, and served with the royalist fleet in 1648. He petitioned to compound in November 1651, when his entire property consisted of ‘a horse and wearing apparel to the value of £8’.Life and Works of Sir Henry Mainwaring, i. 306-7, 327, 337; ii. 277. He was buried, having died intestate, at Camberwell on 15 May 1653.W.H. Blanche, Ye Parish of Camberwell, 177.