Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 37.djvu/173

 designation to be given to the ‘other’ house argued strongly for the revival of the old name (4 Feb. 1657–8). Burnet states, and it is extremely probable, that he was also in favour of the revival of monarchy. On 1 May 1658 he was appointed Protector's serjeant, in which capacity he followed the Protector's bier on the ensuing 23 Nov. On the accession of Richard Cromwell he was made solicitor-general, and in parliament, where he sat for Newtown, Isle of Wight, lent the whole weight of his authority as a constitutional lawyer to prop up the Protector's tottering government. On Richard's abdication and the resuscitation of the Rump, Maynard took no part in parliamentary business until 21 Feb. 1659–60, when he was placed on the committee for drafting the bill to constitute the new council of state. He reported the bill the same day, and was himself voted a member of the council on the 23rd. He sat for Beeralston, Devonshire, in the Convention parliament, was one of the first serjeants called at the Restoration (22 June 1660), and soon afterwards (9 Nov.) was advanced to the rank of king's serjeant and knighted (16 Nov.). With his brother-serjeant, Sir John Glynne [q. v.], he rode in the coronation procession, on 23 April 1661, behind the attorney and solicitor-general, much to the disgust of Pepys, who regarded him as a turncoat.

As king's serjeant, Maynard appeared for the crown at some of the state trials with which the new reign was inaugurated, among others that of Sir Henry Vane [q. v.] in Trinity term 1662. He represented Beeralston in the Pensionary parliament, 1661–79, and sat for Plymouth during the rest of Charles II's reign. He was the principal manager of the abortive impeachment of Lord Mordaunt [q. v.] in 1666–7, and constituted himself counsel for the defence in the proceedings against Lord Clarendon [see ] in the following October. He appeared for the House of Lords in the king's bench on the return to Lord Shaftesbury's habeas corpus on 29 June 1677, and sustained its sufficiency on the ground that, though a general warrant for commitment to prison would be invalid if issued by any court but the House of Lords, the king's bench had no jurisdiction to declare it so when issued by that house. In 1678 he made a spirited but ineffectual attempt to secure the conviction of Lord Cornwallis for the brutal murder of a boy in St. James's Park. The severe censure which Lord Campbell passed upon him for his conduct of this case is based upon an entire misapprehension of the facts (see, State Trials, vi. 1290 et seq., and , Lives of the Chancellors, iv. 20).

In the debate on Danby's impeachment (December 1678) Maynard showed a regrettable disposition to strain the Treason Act (25 Edward III) to his disadvantage, maintaining that its scope might be enlarged by retrospective legislation, which caused Swift to denounce him, in a note to Burnet's ‘Own Time’ (fol.), i. 441, as ‘a knave or a fool for all his law.’ On constitutional questions he steered as a rule a wary and somewhat ambiguous course, professing equal solicitude for the royal prerogative and the power and privileges of parliament, acknowledging the existence of a dispensing power, without either defining its limits or admitting that it had none (10 Feb. 1672–3), at one time resisting the king's attempts to adjourn parliament by message from the speaker's chair (February 1677–8), and at another counselling acquiescence in his arbitrary rejection of a duly elected speaker (10–11 March 1678–1679). [See .]

Maynard opened the case against Edward Coleman [q. v.] on 27 Nov. 1678, and took part in most of the prosecutions arising out of the supposed popish plot, including the impeachment of Lord Stafford, in December 1680. Lord Campbell's interesting story of his slipping away to circuit without leave during the debate on the Exclusion Bill in the preceding November, ‘upon which his son was instructed to inform him that if he did not return forthwith he should be sent for in custody, he being treated thus tenderly in respect of his having been long the father of the House,’ is a sheer fabrication (see Commons' Journal, ix. 646–68).

Maynard favoured the impeachment of Edward Fitzharris [q. v.], declared its rejection by the House of Lords a breach of privilege (26 March 1681), and took part in the subsequent prosecution in the king's bench. In the action for false imprisonment during his mayoralty brought by Sir William Pritchard against ex-sheriff Papillon on 6 Nov. 1684, an incident in the attack made by the court upon the liberties of the city, Maynard conducted the defence with eminent skill and zeal, though a Jeffreys-ridden jury found a verdict for the plaintiff with 10,000l. damages. Summoned to give evidence on behalf of Oates on his trial for perjury in May 1685, and questioned concerning the impeachment of Lord Stafford, Maynard pleaded total inability to swear to his memory in regard to that matter, and was dismissed by Jeffreys with a sneer at his supposed failing powers.

During the reign of James II Maynard represented Beeralston in parliament. He