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 February 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). Maynard opened the case against Edward Colman on 27 November 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. Maynard favoured the impeachment of Edward Fitzharris, 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 the ex-sheriff Thomas Papillon on 6 November 1684, an incident in the conflict after the court took on the liberties of the City of London, Maynard conducted the defence with eminent skill and zeal, though a Jeffreys-ridden jury found a verdict for the plaintiff with £10,000 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. The reign of James II During the reign of James II Maynard represented Bere Alston in parliament. He opposed so much of the abortive bill for the preservation of the king's person as proposed to make it high treason to assert by word of mouth the legitimacy of the Duke of Monmouth (June), and likewise the extraordinary supply for the creation of a standing army demanded by the king after the suppression of the