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 1655 became one of the keepers of the great seal (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1654, p. 119;, iv. 206, ed. 1853). His appointment was approved by parliament on 10 Oct. 1656 (Old Parliamentary History, xxi. 41). He sat as member for Oxford county in 1654, and for the university in 1656, and was summoned to Cromwell's House of Lords in January 1658 (ib. xxi. 12, 167). Fiennes was one of the committee appointed to argue Cromwell into the acceptance of the crown (ib. xxi. 65, 83, 103), and made several speeches for that object. At the opening of the second session of Cromwell's last parliament (20 Jan. 1658), and on 2 Jan. 1659, at the opening of Richard Cromwell's parliament, Fiennes, as chief of the commissioners of the great seal, and mouthpiece of the government, delivered important addresses. They are marked by deep religious feeling and special insistence on the religious features of Cromwell's domestic and foreign policy (ib. xxi. 175, 269). It was evidently sympathy with this aspect of the protectorate which made Fiennes so staunch a Cromwellian, and this is a sufficient defence against the charge of time-serving which Foss and Noble bring against him. Fiennes appears to have been one of those who counselled Richard Cromwell to dissolve parliament, and to him the Protector's commission for that purpose was addressed (22 April 1659;, iv. 343; BURTON, Diary, iv. 482). The restored Long parliament appointed new commissioners of the great seal (, iv. 346, 351), and the public career of Fiennes came thus to an end. He seems to have taken no part either in forwarding or hindering the Restoration, and escaped unnoticed at the king's return. He died at Newton Tony in Wiltshire, in the sixty-second year of his age, on 16 Dec. 1669, and was buried in the church there (, Modern Wilts., ‘Ambresbury,’ p. 105). He married, first, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir John Eliot (she was born in 1616), by whom he had a son, William, who became third Viscount Saye and Sele in 1674; secondly, Frances, daughter of Richard Whitehead of Tuderley, Hampshire, who died 17 Oct. 1691, aged 70, by whom he had three daughters (, Peerage, ed. Brydges, vii. 22, 24).

In addition to the speeches and pamphlets above mentioned Fiennes was the author of 1. ‘Speech concerning the proffer of the City of London to disburse 60,000l. towards the suppression of the Rebellion in Ireland,’ 1641. 2. ‘Unparalleled Reasons for Abolishing Episcopacy,’ 4to, 1642; this is a reprint of his speech of 8 Feb. 1641 against episcopacy. 3. Walker attributes to Fiennes the compilation of Sprigge's ‘Anglia Rediviva,’ but gives no proof (History of Independency, i. 32). 4. Wood attributes to Fiennes ‘Monarchy Asserted,’ 1660. An account of the conferences of Cromwell and the committee which urged him to accept the crown, reprinted in the ‘Somers Tracts,’ ed. Scott, vi. 346. A portrait is in the possession of Lord Saye at Broughton Castle, and is engraved in vol. ii. of Lord Nugent's ‘Memorials of Hampden.

[Lives of Fiennes appear in Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, iii. 877; Noble's House of Cromwell, i. 371; Foss's Judges of England. Pedigrees of the family of Fiennes are to be found in Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, vol. vii., and Lipscombe's Hist. of Buckinghamshire, ii. 470. For the events connected with the government of Bristol by Fiennes, see Seyer's Memoirs of Bristol, especially the catalogue of pamphlets in ii. 296–9. His character is elaborately sketched by Sanford in his Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, p. 391. A pamphlet entitled ‘The Scots' Design discovered,’ 1654, contains a vindication of his military career, and was probably written by his father.] 

FIENNES or FIENES, THOMAS, ninth (1517–1541), was son of Sir Thomas Fienes, by Joan Sutton, daughter of Edward and sister of John, lord Dudley. Sir Thomas died in the lifetime of his father, Thomas, eighth baron Dacre of the South. The eighth baron married Anne, daughter of Sir Humphrey Bourchier, and granddaughter of John, lord Berners; was engaged in repressing Perkin Warbeck's insurrection 1496–1497, and after much public service died in 1534. He succeeded his grandfather in 1534–5, aged about 18. With the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Mountjoy he headed the cavalcade of knights and esquires who met Anne of Cleves [q. v.] on Rainham Down on New Year's eve 1539–40 (, Chron. iii. 811). On the night of 30 April 1541 Lord Dacre and a party of youths left his castle of Hurstmonceux for a poaching frolic in the park of Mr. Nicholas Pelham at Laughton. On their way thither the company got divided. One party, not that, it would appear, to which Lord Dacre belonged, fell in with some persons, perhaps some of Pelham's servants, one of whom was mortally wounded in a scuffle. The whole company was indicted on the charge of murder. The innocence of the other party was so clear that the privy council hesitated long before ordering a prosecution, and then probably under pressure from the king (, Hist. of England, iv. 120). Henry, now nearing his worst, ‘cruelly, royally vindictive’ (, Lectures, pp. 200–1), was resolved