Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/115

 of Grampound, Cornwall, and was among the supporters of the Duke of Buckingham, through whose favour he was recommended in 1620 for the office of vice- warden of the Stannaries. During 1626 and 1627 he was a member of several commissions in the west of England, including one of inquiry into the acts of Sir John Eliot as vice-admiral of Devon. At the general election in 1627-8 Mohun was put forward by the court party for the county of Cornwall in opposition to Eliot and Coryton, but lost the election. Sir James Bagg, the duke's chief agent in the west, thereupon pressed for Mohun's elevation to the peerage, and on 15 April 1628 he was created Baron Mohun of Okehampton, Devonshire. The circumstances of this election came before a special committee, and Eliot obtained the appointment of a committee of the House of Commons to investigate Mohun's conduct as vice-warden of the Stannaries. A formal charge was brought against him, and a conference of the lords and commons followed, but in consequence of the death of Eliot's wife the matter was allowed to drop. In 1634 he charged Bagg with having ' cozened the king of 20,000l.,' and the case came on in the Star-chamber. The king sent a guarded letter to the lords of the council, and after the inquiry had lasted some years, Mohun seems to have been fined 500l.' for undue inquiries into his majesty's debts.' A man of turbulent disposition, he quarrelled with another peer at the christening in 1633 of James, duke of York (, Letters and Despatches, i. 166).

Mohun died on 28 May 1640 (, Visitations of Cornwall, p. 324). His wife was Cordelia, daughter of Sir John Stanhope, and relict of Sir Roger Aston, who was buried at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Middlesex, 2 Oct. 1639. She was sister to Anne Cokayne, mother of Sir Aston Cokayne [q. v.], who in his 'Small Poems of divers sorts,' 1658, included (pp. 80-2) a poetical letter to 'John, lord Mohun, my uncle-in-law,' and some lines (pp. 156-7) on his visit to Mohun's house in Cornwall. Letter xlii. of book i. sect. 5 of James Howell's 'Letters,' dated 30 Aug. 1632, and descriptive of the inquisition, is addressed to Mohun, and Massinger, to whom Sir Aston Cokayne introduced him, dedicated to him, as his 'especial good lord,' the play of the 'Emperor of the East.'  MOHUN, MICHAEL (1620?–1684), actor, was, according to Bellchambers, born about 1625, but 1620 is probably a nearer approximation. Before the civil war he performed under Beeston, at the Cockpit in Drury Lane, where, among other characters, he played Bellamente in Shirley's 'Love's Cruelty,' licensed 14 Nov. 1631, and published 1640. Subsequently he fought on the side of Charles I, attaining the rank of captain, and on the close of the wars went to Flanders, where he acquitted himself with credit, and received the style and pay of major. Upon the Restoration Mohun returned with Charles II, and resumed his original occupation, joining Killigrew's company, with which he acted, 1660-3, at the theatre in Vere Street, Clare Market, erected on the site of Gibbon's Tennis Court. It seems probable that the company also played at the Cockpit in Drury Lane, and at the Red Bull Theatre in St. John Street. Pepys saw Mohun, or Moone, for the first time at the Vere Street Theatre on 20 Nov. 1660 in the ' Beggar's Bush ' of Beaumont and Fletcher, and says that he is declared to be 'the best actor in the world.' Mohun was the original Mopus to the Scruple of Lacy in Wilson's comedy 'Cheats' (1662), and on the opening of the Theatre Royal, on the site now occupied by Drury Lane Theatre, 8 April 1663, with the ' Humourous Lieutenant ' of Beaumont and Fletcher, he was Leontius (, i. 34, 44). He subsequently played Leon in 'Rule a Wife and have a Wife,' and Truewit in Jonson's 'Epicœne, or the Silent Woman,' Face in the 'Alchemist' and Volpone in the 'Fox' followed, and in 1665 he was the original Montezuma in Dryden's 'Indian Emperor, or the Conquest of Mexico.' Melantius in the 'Maid's Tragedy 'became one of his great parts. Rymer praises Hart and Mohun in Amintor and Melantius, saying, 'There we have our Roscius and Æsopus both on the stage together.' Proof of the estimation in which Mohun was held by Charles is supplied in the fact that when the king, finding his court attacked to his face by Lacy in Howard's 'Change of Crownes,' forbade the players acting again, Mohun obtained a reversal of the decision, except so far as that special play was concerned. On 2 March 1667 Mohun was the original Philocles in Dryden's 'Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen;' on 5 Oct. Alberto in Rhodes's 'Flora's Vagaries,' and, 19 Oct., Edward III in Lord Orrery's ' lack Prince.' On 22 June 1668 Mohun was the first Bellamy (to Hart's Wildblood) in Dryden's 'Evening's Love, or the Mock Astrologer.' The same year he played Cethegus in 'Catiline,' and in 1669 was Iago, Ruy 