Vice Admiral Sir John Mennes (with variant spellings, 1 March 1599 – 18 February 1671) was an English naval officer, who went on to be Comptroller of the Navy. He was also considered a wit. His comic and satirical verses, written in correspondence with James Smith, were published in 1656. He figures prominently in the Diary of Samuel Pepys, who reported directly to Mennes at the Navy Office and thought him an incompetent civil servant, but a delightful social companion. Career Mennes was the third son of Andrew Mennes of Sandwich, Kent and Jane Blechnden. Educated at his local grammar school in Sandwich, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Mennes went to sea and in 1620 saw action off Dominica, fighting Spanish warships. In 1628 he was given command of and later of , HMS Red Lion, , , and . In August 1641 he took Queen Henrietta Maria to safety in Hellevoetsluis in the Netherlands and was knighted by King Charles I for doing so. In July 1642 he refused to accept the parliamentary takeover of the fleet. In 1643, once the King had lost the Navy, Mennes transferred to the Army and became a general of artillery and in 1644 he became Governor of North Wales. In 1645 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief at the Downs until 1649. In 1650 he left England to join the exiled Court abroad. Mennes and Pepys In November 1661, after the Restoration of the monarchy, Mennes was appointed Vice Admiral and Commander in Chief in the Narrow Seas, Captain of and commander of the fleet taking the Earl of Peterborough to occupy English Tangier. This appears to have been his last active commission. Before the voyage he had been appointed Comptroller of the Navy. Samuel Pepys as Clerk of the Acts reported directly to Mennes, whom he described as "ill at ease" in this role, which in fairness to Mennes was described as "impossibly burdensome". When Pepys was exasperated by Mennes's incompetence, as he all too frequently was, he would refer to him in his Diary as a "coxcomb", "dolt", "dotard" and "old fool". Outside office hours, however, Pepys admitted that Mennes's skills as a poet and mimic made him the best of company. He describes a memorable evening when Mennes and John Evelyn engaged in a mimicry contest; Mennes with generosity admitted that Evelyn was the winner. Pepys's kindest judgement on him (when