suc. fa. 28 Mar. 1641 as 2nd Bar. MOHUN.
First sat 25 May 1641; first sat after 1660, 9 June 1660; last sat 31 Jan. 1665
b. 25 May 1620, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of John Mohun†, later Bar. Mohun, and Cordelia, wid. of Sir Roger Aston, da. of Sir John Stanhope and Catherine Trentham. educ. unknown. m. bef. 1648, Catherine (d. bef. 22 Apr. 1692), da. of ? Welles, of Brambridge (Bambridge, Brember), Twyford, Hants. 3s (1 d.v.p.), 4da.1 suc. cos. in estates Apr. 1646.2 bur. 12 May 1665; will 30 Apr. pr. 28 July 1665–22 July 1667.3
Recorder Lostwithiel, 1661–d., Okehampton ?by 1661–d.4
Col. of ft. 1642–3.
Associated with: Okehampton, Devon; Boconnoc, Cornw.5
Mohun was a member of a cadet branch of the Mohuns of Dunster, who claimed descent from one of the companions of William the Conqueror and included among their ancestors one of the original 25 knights of the garter.6 His father had been raised to the peerage in 1628, largely through the patronage of George Villiers†, duke of Buckingham.7 Casual violence seems to have been habitual for the Mohuns. In 1637, Mohun’s older brother, John, was committed to the Fleet following an assault on Richard Lumley, Baron Lumley [I], on Ludgate Hill.8 Both Mohun’s son and grandson were later to die in politically motivated duels. John’s death in 1639 (the same year as that of Mohun’s grandfather, Sir Reginald Mohun‡) left Mohun heir both to the barony and to the majority of the family estates. Given the family’s prominence in the borough, it is possible that he was the Mr Mohun involved in a disputed return at Grampound for the first Parliament of 1640, though this may have been his cousin Reginald Mohun‡ or another of his kinsmen.
Mohun’s father had been a prominent supporter of the king in the West Country in the years immediately preceding the Civil War. Following his succession to the peerage Mohun espoused the royalist cause too (though apparently after some initial hesitation). In August 1642 the House ordered his arrest after he put into execution the king’s commission of array in Cornwall. His younger brother, Charles, later lost his life in the king’s service at Dartmouth. Although Mohun resigned his colonelcy in 1643, following the king’s defeat he appears to have continued to agitate on behalf of the royalists. He was released from the House’s restraint on bail of £2,000 in 1646 but in June 1655 he was accused along with several others of involvement in a plot against Cromwell. Mohun subsequently ‘submitted to the Protectorate’ in 1656 and, according to John Thurloe, the then secretary of state, renounced the king.9
At the Restoration, Mohun attempted to re-establish the family’s local influence in Okehampton for the elections to the Convention. The result was a double return but Mohun’s candidate, Robert Reynolds, was ultimately unsuccessful and the local candidates, Edward Wise‡ and Josias Calmady‡, took both seats. There is no indication that Mohun made any effort to make his presence felt in his native Cornwall, even though he commanded significant interest at Lostwithiel.10 He took his seat in the House on 9 June. A few days later, he was challenged about his submission to the Protectorate as a result of an investigation by the committee for privileges ordered on 13 June but was able to play down the incident and to convince the House that he had not taken the oath of abjuration.11 With the Lords thus satisfied, he proceeded to attend 55 per cent of all sitting days prior to the summer adjournment. He was named to some 15 committees, including those considering the act to confirm the privileges of Parliament and the fundamental laws of England, the bill to confirm judicial proceedings and the poll-money bill. He was also appointed to report from the committee to prepare heads for a conference with the Commons to press for the return of deeds and evidences belonging to peers.12
Like many former royalists Mohun appears to have been eager to secure redress for his experiences during the Interregnum. He also seems to have been one of a small cadre of peers determined to stiffen the terms of the Indemnity bill.13 On 12 July the House took into consideration a petition submitted by Mohun that his privilege had been breached as a result of him being sued by common process in the 1650s. On 7 Aug. Henry Pierrepont, marquess of Dorchester, reported from the privileges committee in Mohun’s favour, and on 16 Aug. it was resolved that Mohun ought to be paid damages by his opponents, Kegwin and Dandy. The vote prompted three peers to enter their dissents, among them Mohun’s Cornish rival, John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes (later earl of Radnor). After a series of delays, consideration of the level of damages to be awarded was deferred to the beginning of December.
Mohun reported from the committee for the bill for naturalizing the countess of Derby on 29 Aug. and the following day he also reported from that considering the bill for Robert Sutton, Baron Lexinton. The same day Mohun entered a solitary dissent against the resolution to pay £2,150 15s. 10d. to Francis Willoughby, 4th (CP 5th) Baron Willoughby of Parham. Willoughby had been one of the three peers objecting to payment of damages to Mohun so this appears to have been little more than a tit-for-tat response. On 1 Sept. Mohun reported from the committee appointed to frame an agreement between the aldermen and inhabitants of Exeter, something in which he may have had local interest.
Following the adjournment, Mohun took his seat on 16 Nov. 1660, after which he was present on 67 per cent of all sitting days. On 19 Nov. the House considered further instances of Mohun’s privilege being infringed over cases brought against him in common pleas by one Stepkin and by Edmund Fettiplace. The Lords resolved that Mohun should not be required to answer the suits unless he chose to waive his privilege. On 22 Nov. Mohun once more registered a solitary dissent at the resolution to throw out the bill for vacating information relating to compositions for adhering to the former king. Despite his earlier successes in defending his privilege, on 1 Dec. his case with Kegwin and Dandy was revived in the House as a result of the passage of the Act of Indemnity. The Lords’ former order for Mohun to be granted damages was overturned but he was able to secure a concession that the former proceedings would not prejudice any subsequent appeal to the common law courts.
Following the dissolution, Mohun was again active in the elections for the new Parliament. He almost certainly espoused his kinsman Sir Thomas Hele‡ at Okehampton and probably supported the candidacy of Sir Chichester Wrey‡ at Lostwithiel, where he had recently been elected recorder. Another kinsman, Charles Roscarrock‡, was returned for Camelford, though Mohun was unlikely to have had any hand in this: the two men had been on opposite sides of the legal suit in the 1650s arising from the distribution of Mohun’s grandfather’s estate.
Mohun failed to take his seat at the opening of the new Parliament and it was not until November 1661 that he finally returned to the House. In his absence the Lords took into consideration two more privilege cases in which he was involved. On 13 May 1661 the House was informed that one of Mohun’s servants, Joseph Bastard, had been arrested contrary to privilege, but following debate it was resolved to defer discussion until Mohun resumed his place because there was some dispute as to whether or not Bastard was indeed in Mohun’s employment. On 17 May a chancery case involving lands in Bloomsbury was brought to the Lords attention as it was contested that Mohun had an interest in the property. Although the House ordered a stay on the case, following subsequent debate the order was overturned on 6 June, after it was established that Mohun was only a trustee and his privilege was not concerned in the matter.
Having at last taken his seat on 20 Nov. Mohun was thereafter present on just under 60 per cent of all sitting days during which he was named to almost 30 committees, among them the committee delegated on 8 Apr. to draw up a clause in which it was left ‘to the king to make such provision for those of the clergy as his Majesty shall think fit’, who were to be deprived of their livings under the terms of the Act of Uniformity. On 25 Feb. 1662 Mohun joined Antony Ashley Cooper, Baron Ashley (later earl of Shaftesbury), and several other peers in speaking out angrily in a session of the committee for privileges against the precedence claimed by William Brouncker‡, 2nd Viscount Brouncker [I], at the funeral of the queen of Bohemia in violation of the rights of the English peerage.14 On 2 May he chaired sessions of the committees considering the advowsons bill and leather bill. The former was ordered to be reported to the House the following day but on 6 May Mohun was once more in the chair of the committee considering the measure. He continued to preside over this committee and the committee for the leather bill over the next few days, reporting to the House from the former again on 9 May and from the latter on the 15th. On 13 May he also chaired a session of the committee considering the problem of stoppages in the streets, but that was adjourned without further discussion.15 The following day he reported the effect of a conference with the Commons concerning the distribution of funds to indigent officers who had served in the royalist army; this was one of a clutch of conferences from which Mohun reported in the course of the session.16
Mohun returned to the House for the ensuing session of February 1663, during which he was present on 79 per cent of all sitting days and was named to 20 committees, among them committees on bills to repeal the acts of the Long Parliament, for highways, the poor, and for the encouragement of trade. In March he and the lord privy seal (Robartes) were appointed to address the king in the matter of evidences concerning advowsons and other papers which had been taken from royalist peers during the Interregnum. These had been delivered to the king by the clerk of the Commons, and Mohun and Robartes were deputed to request that the king release the papers to the clerk of the House of Lords.
On 8 May Mohun presided over a session of the committee for Briscoe’s bill, reporting the committee’s findings to the House three days later. The following month he was added to a board of referees appointed by the Lords to arbitrate in the case of George Nevill, 11th Baron Abergaveny, and Elizabeth, dowager Baroness Abergaveny. Later in June he reported to the Lords from the committee for privileges in the matter of the conspiracy against Charles Gerard, Baron Gerard of Brandon (later earl of Macclesfield).17 On 8 July he chaired sessions of the committees for the trade bill and the bill for John Paulet, 5th marquess of Winchester, but after that date he retired from the remainder of the session and was consequently absent during the attempted impeachment of the lord chancellor, Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, by George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol.18
Mohun took his seat in the ensuing session on 21 Mar. 1664, after which he was present for 92 per cent of sittings of the House. He was named to 13 committees, including the committee for the bill to continue the regulation of the press, and was delegated to inform the king that Parliament had decided to pass the bill repealing the Triennial Act.19 On 21 Apr. he chaired a session of the committee considering the Falmouth church bill, which he had previously presented to the House.20 He was also appointed one of the managers of a series of conferences concerning foreign trade and the conventicles bill, and was one of the Lords deputed to draft and examine provisos within the latter.
Mohun’s attendance declined in the following session of November 1664. Having taken his seat on 24 Nov. he was present on just 53 per cent of sitting days. On the opening day he was among the Lords appointed to present the House’s thanks to the king for making preparations against the Dutch and to the City of London for their financial support of the king. He proceeded to be named to four committees in the course of the session in addition to the sessional committees for privileges and petitions. He was alone in recording a protest on 29 Nov. against an amendment to a chancery decision relating to a case involving his Cornish neighbour, Robert Robartes (son of the 2nd Baron Robartes), his wife and son. Mohun argued that the merits of the case had not been heard at the bar of the House and as a result the ‘will of the dead may be overthrown, infants decreed out of legal estate, and provision made by the testator to pay honest debts defeated and avoided’.
Absent from the House after the close of January 1665, presumably because of declining health, Mohun died in or about early May 1665 and was buried at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. On the last day of April, ‘weak in body’, he composed a new will in which he appointed his wife and three sisters co-executrices with full power to manage his estates during his heir’s minority and for one year after the new baron came of age. Mohun devised the vast majority of his holdings to his heir on condition that he would raise £2,000 a piece to his younger siblings on their attaining the age of 21. In 1668 his widow (a Catholic) gave an undertaking to bring up their children in the Protestant faith.21 Mohun was succeeded by his son, Charles Mohun, as 3rd Baron Mohun.
A.C./R.D.E.E.- 1 PA, HL/PO/JO/10/3/187/50.
- 2 HP Commons, 1640–60, draft biography of Reginald Mohun by P. Little.
- 3 TNA, PROB 11/317.
- 4 E.H. Young, Parochial Histories of Devonshire No. 1: Okehampton, 67.
- 5 W. Dugdale, Baronage of England (1675), ii. 461.
- 6 H.C. Maxwell Lyte, History of Dunster and of the Families of Mohun and Luttrell, i. 1–3; VCH Som. ii. 81–82, 115–18; vi. 14–17; vii. 18–42; Eg. 3724; Dugdale, Baronage, ii. 461–2; E. Ashmole, Institution, Laws and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1672), p. 643.
- 7 CSP Dom. 1628–9, pp. 66–67.
- 8 CSP Dom. 1637, p. 311; Dugdale, Baronage, ii. 461–2.
- 9 CSP Dom. 1655, p. 220; HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 170; Thurlow State Papers, iv. 494.
- 10 HP Commons, 1660–90, i. 170, 202.
- 11 LJ, xi, 59, 61.
- 12 LJ, xi, 82, 86, 97.
- 13 Swatland, 238.
- 14 Chatsworth, Cork mss, Burlington Diary, 25 Feb. 1662.
- 15 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, pp. 272–3, 279–80, 282–3, 288–90.
- 16 LJ, xi. 459, 461, 465.
- 17 LJ, xi. 493, 495, 538, 541, 544.
- 18 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, p. 416.
- 19 Verney, ms mic. M636/19, Sir N. Hobart to Sir R. Verney, 1 and 3 Apr. 1664.
- 20 PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, p. 446.
- 21 HMC Le Fleming, 60.