 On constitutional questions he steered as 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.