MAYNARD, Charles (c.1598-1665), of Little Easton, Essex; later of Walthamstow, Essex

As a younger son, Maynard received as his patrimony just three houses in St. Swithun’s parish, London, and he lived at Little Easton, his childhood home, until after his marriage in 1633. C142/319/195; PROB 11/115, f. 313; Bp. of London Mar. Lics. 212. He travelled to Madrid in 1620, possibly in the ambassadorial train of Sir Walter Aston, and apparently also toured round southern Spain. Wadsworth, 18.

In January 1621 Maynard’s elder brother John was elected for Chippenham on the interest of their brother-in-law, Sir Edward Bayntun*. Shortly afterwards, John decided against taking this seat, believing that he had also secured a place at St. Albans, Hertfordshire. Accordingly, Bayntun arranged for Maynard’s name to be inserted on the election indenture instead without the formality of a fresh vote. However, it then emerged that John had not been elected at St. Albans after all, and still needed the Chippenham seat. It was now too late to amend the indenture again, so on 2 Mar. an embarrassed Baytun had to reveal his subterfuge to the committee for privileges. While shocked at this blatant fraud, the committee opted to report to the House that Maynard had been returned as a Member by accident, with Chippenham’s bailiff taking the blame. On 12 Mar. the Commons agreed that the offending return should simply be corrected in John’s favour, whereupon Maynard’s brief and inglorious parliamentary career was terminated. ‘Pym 1624’, i. f. 27v; ‘Hawarde 1624’, p. 169; DCO, ‘Prince Charles in Spain’, f. 37; C219/38/306; CJ, i. 684a-b.

In the following year Maynard secured a Court of Wards auditorship in reversion, finally taking up this post in 1634. He had recently married the daughter of a wealthy Flemish immigrant, and with the fruits of office he set up house in 1635 at Walthamstow, where he purchased a manor four years later. Returns of Aliens in London 1598-1625 ed. R.E.G. and E.F. Kirk (Huguenot Soc. x. pt. iii), 184; Morris, 63. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Maynard sided with Parliament, declining to join Charles I at Oxford. The king duly dismissed him from his auditorship in June 1643, but he continued to execute the office in London until the Court of Wards was abolished three years later. Docquets of Letters Patent 1642-6 ed. W.H. Black, 356-7. Nevertheless, he was evidently viewed as a royalist sympathizer. Summoned as a delinquent by the Commons in March 1643 for defaulting on his military obligations, he was assessed at £1,000 by the committee for the advance of money in the following year, and decimated by the Protectorate regime in 1656, when his estate was valued at £200 p.a. He was also sued in 1649 by the attorney-general, Edmund Prideaux†, for retaining paperwork belonging to the defunct Court of Wards, allegedly with a view to personal gain. CJ, iii. 13a; CCAM, 334; CSP Thurloe, iv. 436; C.T. Gatty, Mary Davies and Ebury Manor, i. 86.

At the Restoration Maynard boldly but unsuccessfully reclaimed his auditorship, in the hope of sharing in the compensation awarded by Parliament to former Wards officials. Eg. 2979, f. 30; CJ, viii. 407a. Thereafter, he was appointed only to minor local commissions. Maynard made his will on 12 May 1665, bequeathing sums totalling £2,100 to two of his younger children, the other having already been provided for. PROB 11/323, f. 308. He died in the following November, and was buried at Little Easton. His heir having predeceased him by five months, he was succeeded by his next surviving son, William, who represented Essex in the 1685 Parliament. Clutterbuck, i. 76; Morant, i. 34; HP Commons, 1660-90, iii. 45.