Arthur Mainwaring
{{Short description|English politician}}
{{Other people}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2022}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2013}}
{{lead too short|date= August 2021}}
Sir Arthur Mainwaring (c. 1580 – 1648) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1624 to 1626.
Life
Mainwaring was the eldest son of Sir George Mainwaring of Ightfield, Shropshire and Ann More, daughter of William More.[http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/mainwaring-sir-arthur-1580-1648 Mainwaring, Arthur (1580–1648), History of Parliament]
He was awarded BA from Brasenose College, Oxford on 7 July 1598 and MA on 15 June 1601.[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=119370 'Alumni Oxonienses, 1500-1714: Mab-Marygold', Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714 (1891), pp. 956-982. Date accessed: 5 May 2012] He began a rise to prominence working for Sir Thomas Egerton, in whose household he was steward from 1602 to 1617.{{cite book|author1=Louis A. Knafla|author2=Sir Thomas Egerton|title=Law and Politics in Jacobean England: The Tracts of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQw9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA33|year=1977|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-21191-8|page=33}} John Payne Collier published records by Mainwaring relating to a performance of Othello for Queen Elizabeth at this period; these were later recognised as forgeries, however.{{cite book|author1=Arthur Freeman|author2=Janet Ing Freeman|title=John Payne Collier: Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OS_vuq56wZwC&pg=PA1118|year=2004|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-13330-1|pages=1118–9}} A genuine connection with William Shakespeare was an attempt led by Mainwaring in 1614 to enclose lands at Welcombe near Stratford-upon-Avon, defeated by local resistance.{{cite book|first=Kate|last=Pogue|title=Shakespeare's Friends|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Oy29eyCMNycC&pg=PA33|date=1 January 2006|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-275-98956-9|pages=33–4}} He was described as of Cheshire when he was knighted at the London Charterhouse on 11 May 1603.[https://archive.org/stream/knightsofengland02shawuoft#page/n115/mode/2up Knights of England]
Mainwaring also and concurrently became a courtier, carver in the household of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales from 1604. He was appointed Clerk of the Pipe at the Exchequer from 1610 to 1616.
His financial position was improved when he became heir to Francis Wolley who died in 1609, despite litigation from family members. He became notorious as the lover of Anne Turner, hanged in 1615 for her part in the murder case of Sir Thomas Overbury.{{cite book|first=Alastair|last=Bellany|title=The Politics of Court Scandal in Early Modern England: News Culture and the Overbury Affair, 1603-1660|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A8I8TI0N9LAC&pg=PA184|date=29 January 2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-03543-9|page=184}} The relationship, seemingly tolerated by Anne's husband Dr. George Turner who died in 1610, led to children but no marriage.{{cite book |author=A. L. Rowse |author-link=A. L. Rowse |title=Simon Forman: Sex and Society in Shakespeare's Age |year=1974 |publisher=Purnell Book Services |pages=256–7}} Arthur Wilson claimed that she bought powders from Simon Forman to try to bring him to wed her.{{cite book |first=Anne |last=Somerset |title=Unnatural Murder: Poison at the Court of James I |year=2003 |publisher=Phoenix |isbn=0-75380-198-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/unnaturalmurderp0000some/page/95 95–6] |url=https://archive.org/details/unnaturalmurderp0000some/page/95 }}
In 1624, Mainwaring was elected member of parliament for Huntingdon for the Happy Parliament. He was re-elected MP for Huntingdon in 1625 and 1626.{{Cite Notitia Parliamentaria|part=2|page=187-218}} From 1628 to around 1642 he served as Lieutenant of Windsor Forest. In 1641 the forest was the scene of disorder and poaching of the deer, and he recommended firm action around Egham, which was however thwarted by local sympathies.{{cite book|first=John|last=Gurney|title=Brave Community: The Digger Movement in the English Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LxRWDm6tY64C&pg=PA36|date=15 July 2007|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-6102-8|page=36}} He had objected at the beginning of the reign of Charles I to the East India Company's gunpowder mills on the edge of Windsor Forest;Edward Arthur Brayley Hodgetts and Tom Gregorie Tullock, The Rise and Progress of the British Explosives Industry (1909) pp. 240–1; [https://archive.org/stream/riseprogressofbr00interich#page/240/mode/2up archive.org.] later, in 1635, he was himself in the gunpowder business with Andrew Pitcairn.Hodgetts and Tullock, pp. 276–7; [https://archive.org/stream/riseprogressofbr00interich#page/276/mode/2up archive.org.]
References
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{{succession box
| title=Member of Parliament for Huntingdon
| before= Sir Henry St John
| before2= Sir Miles Sandys, 1st Baronet
| with= Sir Henry St John 1624–1625
| with2= John Goldsborough
| years=1624–1626
| after= Oliver Cromwell
| after2= James Montagu
}}
{{s-end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mainwaring, Arthur}}
Category:English MPs 1624–1625