John Maynard (politician)

Sir John Maynard
Maynard's portrait.
Born	1602 prob.
Died	1690 Gunnersbury Park
Resting place	Ealing Church
Residence	Gunnersbury Park
Nationality	English
Education	Exeter College, Oxford
Occupation	lawyer and politician
Known for	Revising the Year Books
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Henley Jane Selhurst Margaret Prujean born Gorges Mary Upton
Children	one son and four daughters
Parent(s)	Alexander and Honora Maynard

Sir John Maynard KS (1602 – 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.

Maynard was born in 1602 at the Abbey House, Tavistock, in Devon, the eldest son and heir of Alexander Maynard of (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.

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.