Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/22



in that capacity was busily occupied for some weeks in unravelling a plot to deliver the city into the hands of the king which had recently come to the knowledge of parliament, and the principal agents in which, Tompkins and Chaloner [q. v.], were executed on 5 July (, Hist. Coll. v. 322-326). He subscribed the solemn league and covenant on 22 Sept. (ib. p. 480). In the following November he did good service by a speech deprecating the consideration of the question whether presbyterianism was jure divino, which had been forced on the consideration of the House of Commons by the assembly of divines. Glynne spoke for an hour, 'during which,' says Whitelocke, who followed him, 'the house filled apace.' In the end the question was shelved (, Mem. pp. 110-11). Clarendon (Rebellion, v. 89) says that he was opposed to the self-denying ordinance, but it does not appear that he spoke on the question. On 14 March 1645 he was appointed prothonotary and clerk of the crown for the counties of Flint, Denbigh, and Montgomery (Comm. Journ. iv. 474). He became in 1647 very suspicious of the army, and was one of a junto of eleven members who were most active in attempting to disband it. In order to destroy their influence, Fairfax, on 15 June, presented to the House of Commons a 'remonstrance,' praying that the house might be speedily purged of delinquents, which he followed up on the 24th by charging the eleven with designing 'the abuse and dishonour of the parliament, the insufferable injury of the army,' and so forth. Much debate followed, but the house on 12 July passed a resolution which excluded the eleven members. Soon afterwards much offence was occasioned in the city of London by an ordinance vesting the command of the city militia in a new committee, and on 26 July a rabble of apprentices and 'rude boys' entered the house and compelled the rescission of the ordinance. The house adjourned in confusion till the 30th, and on its reassembling the speaker did not attend. Pelham of Lincoln's Inn was chosen speaker for the occasion, the eleven were readmitted, and a committee of safety was appointed, of which Glynne and others of the eleven were members. This gave rise to a suspicion that the tumult of the 20th was the work of the eleven, and on 4 Sept. Glynne was charged with having been accessory to it, and ordered to attend at the bar of the house. He attended the next day, and made 'a large defence in a very well composed and devised speech,' which occasioned a prolonged debate. On the 7th, however, the house voted his expulsion, and committed him to the Tower. A resolution to impeach him of high crimes and misdemeanors was passed on the 16th. No active steps, however, were taken to carry this into effect. On 29 Jan. the house requested the Earl of Pembroke to deprive him of his office of steward of Westminster; but it is not clear whether this was actually; done. On 23 May 1648 he was released, and all proceedings in the impeachment were stayed. On 7 June he was readmitted on the petition of the electors of Westminster to the House of Commons; in September he was nominated one of the commissioners to treat with the king in the Isle of Wight; on 12 Oct. he was created serjeant-at-law. When, however, the independent party regained its ascendency, the order readmitting him to the house was rescinded (12 Dec.) (Comm. Journ. v. 305, 570, 588;, Mem. 248, 253, 258, 334; , Hist. Coll. vi. 634, 640, 646, 652, viii. 800; Parl. Hist. iii. 1247; Comm. Journ. v. 294, 450; Hist, MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. App. 6a, 6b, l5b, 22b). This was immediately before Colonel Pride applied his purge, and accounts for the fact that Glynne's name is not to be found in the lists of the secluded and imprisoned members.

An attempt was made in January 1647-8 to compel or induce him to resign his recordership (Comm. Journ. v. 450) in favour of the independent William Steele [q. v.] Glynne, however, stuck tenaciously to his place until July 1649, when he retired, receiving 300l. from the corporation as a small douceur (, Mem. p. 412). In the parliament of 1654 he sat for Carnarvonshire. In June of this year he was engaged as counsel for the Commonwealth in the prosecution of the conspirators against the life of the protector, John Gerard [q. v.], Vowell, and Somerset Fox. About the same time he was appointed serjeant to the Protector, and commissioned as justice of assize for the Oxford circuit. He sat at Exeter in April 1655 with Recorder Steele to try Colonel Penruddock for his part in the late rebellion, and passed sentence upon him as for treason. He was rewarded on 15 June by the place of chief justice of the upper bench, vacant by the retirement of Rolle (, State Papers, iii. 332, iv. 171;, State Trials, v. 767; , Rep. 450; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. 173). In November he was placed on the committee of trade, and also added to that appointed to consider the proposals of Manasseh ben Israel concerning the Jews. He was also a member of the committee for collecting funds for the relief of the persecuted protestants of Piedmont in 