suc. fa. 6 Feb. 1699 as 3rd Bar. MAYNARD.
First sat 18 Jan. 1700; last sat 13 Apr. 1716
MP Essex 1663–79.
b. 1642, s. of William Maynard, 2nd Bar. Maynard and Dorothy Banastre. educ. travelled abroad (France, Italy, Germany and Holland) 1660–3.1 m. 9 Nov 1665, Elizabeth Grey (d. 1714), da. of Henry Grey†, 10th earl of Kent, and Amabel Benn, 8s. (2 d.v.p.), at least 3da. d. 3 Mar. 1718; will 6–21 Dec. 1705, pr. Apr. 1718.2
Associated with: Little Easton, Essex.
Likeness: portrait bust, part of monument at St Mary, Little Easton, Essex.
In addition to inheriting the family estates in Essex and East Anglia, Banastre Maynard acquired properties in Lancashire from his maternal grandfather, Sir Robert Banastre. As the heir to a relatively recent barony his social status was substantially lower than that of his wife, who took care to ensure that she would continue to enjoy the status and precedence of an earl’s daughter.3 He was on good terms with his brother-in-law, Anthony Grey, 11th earl of Kent, who appointed him as one of the trustees for his daughter Amabel.4 Maynard was elected to represent Essex in March 1663 without a contest, which was probably fortunate since he did not return to England until the autumn of that year; his tutor while travelling was Charles Henchman – probably the younger son of Humphrey Henchman of London.5 Maynard sat in the Commons until the dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament and was tipped to stand again in 1688 as a candidate on whom the Dissenters could rely, although his father was by that date a firm Anglican who intervened in the election to the Convention in March 1689 on behalf of the Church party.6
Maynard was an inactive member of the Commons and proved to be similarly inactive in the Lords. He delayed taking his seat until almost a year after his father’s death. Between 1700 and the end of 1702 he attended on less than one third of sitting days. Thereafter he hardly attended at all, managing a total of 10 sitting days in 16 years, with the result that his political affiliations are extremely difficult to establish. An examination of his proxy network during Anne’s reign leaves one no wiser. In the 1704–5 session and again in the spring of 1707 his proxy was held by his wife’s nephew, Henry Grey, 12th earl (later marquess and ultimately duke) of Kent; in December 1711 by Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun; and in the spring of 1714 by James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormond.
In February 1700 Maynard voted against the bill for continuing the East India Company as a corporation. In January 1703, Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham, counted him as a supporter of the bill to prevent occasional conformity. In fact he was said to have voted against the bill on 16 Jan. 1703, although he is not listed as having attended the House on this date and there is no record of the registration of a proxy. In November of that year, Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, twice listed him as a supporter of the bill, and it seems likely that Maynard’s three attendances that year (on 24, 26 and 29 Nov.) did relate to the controversy over occasional conformity. In December 1703 he is recorded as having voted for the bill by proxy, but no register of proxies survives for that session and it is not possible to identify the holder. Maynard was listed as a supporter of the Tack in November 1704, but there is no record that he attended to vote; instead on 18 Nov. he registered a proxy with his wife’s nephew, Kent. In or about April 1705 he was said to be a supporter of the Hanoverian succession. He covered the 1707 session (the last of the English Parliament) with another proxy to Kent. In 1708 he was described as a Whig. In 1710 his failure to attend and vote at the trial of Dr Sacheverell was explained by illness.7
Despite the fact that Maynard had not attended the House for three years, in October 1710 Robert Harley, later earl of Oxford, considered him certain to oppose the ministry. A year later he recorded Maynard as a supporter and included him (albeit with a query) in the list of peers to be canvassed before the ‘No Peace without Spain’ motion, but Maynard had already registered a proxy (on 7 Dec. 1711) with Mohun, who was a Whig. In February 1713, Oxford included Maynard in a list of peers to be canvassed before the forthcoming session, and in March Jonathan Swift considered him to be a supporter of the ministry. In June 1713 he was forecast as a supporter of the French commercial treaty, but he did not attend and once again there is no record of a proxy. In May 1714 Nottingham listed him as a supporter of the Schism bill, but yet again he did not attend and his proxy, which had been registered to Ormond on 17 Mar. 1714, was vacated by his presence in the House on 19 March. After the Hanoverian succession Maynard’s politics seems to have been less equivocal. His son-in-law, Sir William Lowther‡, his younger brother, Thomas Maynard‡, and his nephew, Robert Wroth‡, were all considered to be supporters of the administration after 1715. Support for the ministry is also indicated by the recipients of his proxies after the Hanoverian succession: Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, from 14 Apr. 1716, and Kent on 2 Apr. and 27 Nov. 1717.
Maynard died in 1718 at Little Easton, Essex, and was succeeded by his son Henry Maynard†, 4th Baron Maynard. His will made in December 1705 bequeathed his robes and coronet to his then eldest son, William, directed that he be ‘privately and decently buried … but not in a vain pompous manner’ and provided generously for the poor.
R.P.