Sir John Maynard KS (1604 – 9 October 1690) was an English lawyer and politician, prominent under the reigns of Charles I, the Commonwealth, Charles II, James II and William III. Origins and education Maynard was born in 1604 at the Abbey House, Tavistock, in Devon, the eldest son and heir of Alexander Maynard of Tavistock (4th son of John Maynard of Sherford in the parish of Brixton in Devon), a barrister of the Middle Temple, by his wife Honora Arscott, daughter of Arthur Arscott of Tetcott in Devon. The senior line of the Maynard family was seated at Sherford in the parish of Brixton in Devon. His name appears in the matriculation register of Exeter College, Oxford, under date 26 April 1621, which clashes unaccountably with the date of his admission to the degree of BA on 25 April 1621, given in the University Register of Degrees. Barrister In 1619 he entered the Middle Temple; he was called to the Bar in November 1626, and was elected a bencher in 1648. A pupil of William Noy, afterwards attorney-general, a Devonian, and born in the law, he rapidly acquired a large practice, both on the Western circuit and at Westminster; he argued a reported case in the King's Bench in 1628 and was appointed Recorder of Plymouth in August 1640. Parliamentarian He represented Totnes in both the Short Parliament of 1640 and the Long Parliament, and from the first took an active part in the business of the house. In December 1640 he was placed on the committee of scrutiny into the conduct of lords-lieutenant of counties, and on that for the discovery of the "prime promoters" of the new "canons ecclesiastical" passed in the recent irregular session of convocation. He was also one of the framers of the articles upon which Strafford was impeached, and one of the principal speakers at the trial. He threw himself with great zeal into the affair, and on the passing of the bill of attainder said joyfully to Sir John Bramston, "Now we have done our work. If we could not have effected this we could have done nothing". A strong Presbyterian, he subscribed and administered to the house the protestation of 3 May 1641 in defence of the Protestant religion, and drafted the bill making subscription thereto obligatory on all subjects. In the committee, which sat at Guildhall after the adjournment of