Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Meyrick, John (d.1659)
MEYRICK, Sir JOHN (d. 1659), parliamentary general, was the fifth son of Sir Francis Meyrick of Fleet, in the parish of Monkton, Pembrokeshire, by Anne, daughter of Francis Laugharne of St. Brides in the same county. Bishop Rowland Meyrick [q. v.] was his grandfather. Like his father, who died in 1603, and his uncle, Sir Gelly [q. v.], John adopted a military career. His influence with the Devereux family procured him a troop under Robert Devereux, third earl of Essex [q. v.], whom he accompanied to Flanders in 1620; he fought another campaign in the United Provinces in 1624. In 1625 he served in the expedition against Spain, and it was probably on his return that he received the honour of knighthood. In 1630 he had a subordinate command in General Morgan's regiment in the service of Gustavus Adolphus, and was wounded before Maestricht in a sally made by the enemy on 17 Aug. 1632 (Hexham, Journal of the Siege, 1633, p. 40).
He returned to England with the reputation and experience of a professional soldier, cultivated the goodwill of his old patron, Essex, and was on 25 March 1640 elected to the Short parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyme. He was re-elected to the Long parliament on 13 Oct., and on the outbreak of the civil war was assigned a regiment of ten companies, and appointed president of the council of war and serjeant-major-general (adjutant-general) of Essex's army. He confirmed the parliament's selection by making extensive advances of money to the cause, but he probably did the latter an injury by his strong advice to Essex to confine himself to the defensive on 13 Nov. 1642, when the rival forces confronted each other at Turnham Green (Whitelocke, pp. 62–6; cf. Gardiner, Great Civil War, vol. i.) He fought at Edgehill, and when in 1643 his old companion in arms, William Skippon [q. v.], was preferred to the post of sergeant-major-general, Meyrick was made general of the ordnance, in which capacity he did excellent service before Gloucester, and afterwards at Newbury. During the rest of Essex's career he remained in close relations with his commander, and when, after the fiasco at Lostwithiel, Essex, between despair and dread of ridicule, deserted his army and made off in a small boat for Plymouth, Meyrick was his companion (ib. i. 468; Rushworth, v. 701). At Essex's imposing public funeral in September 1646 he bore the gorget on the left side of the pall (The True Mannor and Forme of Proceeding to the Funerall, 1646, p. 17). In 1649 Meyrick, who was ultimately conservative in his views, was placed by Cromwell's orders under temporary arrest during the debate as to whether negotiations should be reopened with the king (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1648–9 passim). Henceforth he appears to have taken no prominent part in public affairs, spending the remainder of his life in Pembrokeshire, where he died in 1659. There is a portrait in black armour at Bush, Pembrokeshire, the seat of his branch of the Meyrick family and the home of his descendants, until the death of Thomas Meyrick in 1837 (Miscellanea Genealog. et Herald. new ser. ii. 415). He is also represented kneeling, on his father's monument in the Priory Church at Monkton.
By his first wife, Alice, daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, Cheshire, he had a son named Essex and two daughters; by his second wife, Jane (d. 1660), widow of Sir Peter Wyche [q. v.], ambassador at Constantinople, and daughter of William Meredith of Wrexham, Denbighshire, he left no issue.
[Burke's Landed Gentry, p. 919; Dwnn's Heraldic Visitation of Counties Carmarthen, Pembroke, and Cardigan, i. 136; Williams's Eminent Welshmen, p. 333; Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion, vii. 26; Whitelocke's Memorials, pp. 116, 232; Gent. Mag. 1825, i. 471; Official Ret. Memb. of Parl. i. 483, 493; Devereux's Lives of the Earls of Essex, ii. 443; List of the Army raised under the command of his Excellency, Robert, earle of Essex, 1642, passim.]