Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mainwaring, Thomas

1445990Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 35 — Mainwaring, Thomas1893Gordon Goodwin

MAINWARING, Sir THOMAS (1623–1689), author of the ‘Defence of Amicia,’ born on 7 April 1623, was eldest surviving son of Philip Mainwaring of Peover and Baddeley, Cheshire, by Ellen, daughter of Edward Mynshull of Stoke, near Nantwich, in the same county (Wotton, Baronetage, ed. 1771, ii. 116–17). He entered Brasenose College, Oxford, as a commoner on 20 April 1637, but did not graduate, and was admitted a student of Gray's Inn on 2 Feb. 1640 (Admission Register, ed. Foster). Upon the outbreak of the civil war, Mainwaring cast in his lot with the parliamentary party, and took the covenant and the engagement oath. He does not seem to have held a military command, but he served the office of high sheriff of Cheshire in 1657. In 1660 he was elected to the Convention parliament as one of the members for Cheshire. He ultimately gained favour at court, and was created a baronet on 22 Nov. 1660. Mainwaring died at Peover on 28 June 1689. By his marriage, on 26 May 1642, to Mary (d. 1670), daughter of Sir Henry Delves, bart., of Dodington, Cheshire, he had six sons and six daughters. The baronetcy became extinct on the death of the fourth baronet, Sir Henry, the first baronet's great-grandson, in 1797; but the title was revived in 1804 in favour of Henry Mainwaring, son of Thomas Wetenhall, a stepbrother of the fourth baronet.

Mainwaring's relative, Sir Peter Leycester [q. v.], in his ‘Historical Antiquities’ (1673), stated that, in his opinion, their common ancestor Amicia, wife of Ralph Mainwaring, was not the lawful daughter of Earl Hugh of Cyveliog [see Hugh, d. 1181]. Thereupon Mainwaring published ‘A Defence of Amicia,’ 12mo, London, 1673, and thus began a controversy which lasted five years. Mainwaring was considered by competent authorities to have proved Amicia's legitimacy. His other writings on the subject are: 1. ‘A Reply to an Answer of the Defence of Amicia,’ 12mo, London, 1673. 2. ‘An Answer to Sir Peter Leycester's Addenda,’ 12mo, London, 1673–4. 3. ‘An Answer to Two Books,’ 12mo, London, 1675. 4. ‘An Admonition to the Reader of sir P. Leycester's Books,’ 12mo, London, 1676. 5. ‘A Reply to sir Peter Leicester's Answer to sir Thomas Mainwaring's Admonition,’ printed for the first time by W. B. Turnbull, 12mo, Manchester, 1854, from the transcript by William Cole, contained in the fortieth volume of his collections in the British Museum, Additional MS. 5841, ff. 125–140. 6. ‘The Legitimacy of Amicia … clearly proved,’ 12mo, London, 1679. The entire series of the tracts written by Mainwaring and Leycester were reprinted by the Chetham Society from the collection at Peover under the editorship of William Beamont (3 pts. 1869). A portrait of Mainwaring, engraved from a painting at Peover, forms the frontispiece to the second part.

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss); Ormerod's Cheshire; Turnbull's Prefatory Remarks to Mainwaring's Reply (privately printed), 1854; Beamont's Introduction (Chetham Soc.) as above; Bailey's Sir Peter Leycester, 1878.]

G. G.