Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/113

 faction, being weary of Mohun, resolved to employ him in some real service to the cause,' i.e. in the prevention of Hamilton's embassy to France, which it was dreaded would be favourable to the cause of the Pretender.

Mohun was buried in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on 25 Nov. By his will, proved on 6 March 1712-13, he left everything to his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Lawrence, state physician to the queen, on condition of her paying 100l. to 'Elizabeth, my pretended daughter by my first wife' (, Somersetshire Wills, 5th ser. p. 11). The peerage became extinct.

Though perhaps excessively vilified by tory writers (who regarded him, not altogether without reason, as the bully of the whig party), there can hardly be two opinions as to Mohun's character. Hearne, mentioning his death, says with probable truth, 'he should have been hanged before. . . divers times.' Macky writes, 'In his youth a scandal to the peerage, he now rectifies as fast as he can his former slips.' By 1705 he certainly manifested a tendency to corpulency, hardly compatible with the wild excesses of his youth. Swift adds to Macky, 'He was little better than a conceited talker in company.' His only would-be apologist, Burnet, says significantly, 'I will add no character of him; I am sorry I cannot say so much good of him as I could wish, and I had too much kindness for him to say any evil without necessity' (Own Time, ii. 130). The fatal duel with Hamilton, coming so soon after that of Sir Cholmondeley Dering, evoked much unfavourable comment, and a Bill was introduced into the Commons for the prevention of duelling, but was lost on a second reading. The duel also forms an incident in Thackeray's 'Esmond,' in which novel a Lord ' Harry ' Mohun, who has little in common with the historical character, figures as villain.

A portrait was painted for the Kit-Cat Club, of which Mohun was a member, by Kneller and engraved by Cooper.  MOHUN, JOHN (1270?–1330), baron, lord of Dunster in Somerset, son of John de Mohun, the grandson of Reginald de Mohun [q.v.] and Eleanor Fitzpiers, was about nine years old at his father's death in 1279, and was a ward of Edward I (, p. 16). He received many summonses to perform military service as in 1297 to serve in Flanders, in 1299 to join the muster at Carlisle, which was afterwards put off and held at York on 12 Nov., and again in 1300 to serve against the Scots. At the parliament held at Lincoln in January 1301 he joined in the letter of the barons to the pope, and is therein described as 'dominus de Dunsterre' (Fœdera, i. ii. 926). He was summoned to the muster at Berwick on 24 June, and again to the muster to be held at Berwick on 25 May 1303. He was at Perth early in 1304, for he dined there with the Prince of Wales on Candlemas day. He was a conservator of the peace for the county of Somerset in 1307, and in 1308 and 1309 was summoned to do service against the Scots. In 1311 he held a commission as one of the king's justices. He joined the party of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, and was concerned in the execution of Gaveston, for which he received a pardon in 1313 (ib. . i. 231). Summonses were sent to him to serve against the Scots in 1315, 1316, and