Lancaster. In 1624 he was admitted to Gray's Inn, and later in the year appointed to the Privy Council. He had the reversion from Charles I. of the Mastership of the Rolls, but did not live to succeed to it, dying on 9 June, 1630. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. Whilst in the Temple he shared a chamber with James (afterwards Sir James) Whitelock (q.v.) "until he went to Ireland … withe Lord Mountjoy" (q.v.) (Liber Famelicus, p. 61).
Admitted 28 January, 1631-2.
Fourth son of John May of Rawmeere, co. Suffolk, and nephew of Sir Humphrey May (q.v.) During his studentship he was one of the performers in Davenant's Masque of The Triumphs of Prince d'Amour before the Elector Palatine in 1635. He was called to the Bar 24 May, 1639; but it was not till after the Restoration that he acquired distinction in his profession. He then became Recorder and Member for Chichester (1673), and received the honour of knighthood in 1681. Two years later he was made Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer.
Admitted 20 January, 1834.
He is entered on the Register as "Thomas Erskine May, of Catherine Street, Westminster, Gent." He was educated at Bedford Grammar School, and was called to the Bar 4 May, 1838. For some years he acted as Librarian to the House of Commons, and in 1844 published a Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings, and Usages of Parliament, which has long been the accepted authority on the subject. In 1860 he was created C.B., and six years later K.C.B. In 1871 he became Clerk to the House, a position he held nearly up to his death. He served on the Commission for the Digest of Law, and was President of the Statute Law Revision Committee. In 1873 he was called to the Bench of his Inn, honoris causâ, and in 1880 was appointed Reader. In 1885 he became a Privy Councillor, and in the following year was raised to the Peerage as Lord Farnborough. He enjoyed this dignity, however, only a few days, dying at Westminster 17 May the same year (1886).
Besides his work on Parliament; he published in 1877 a treatise entitled Democracy in Europe, and also a Constitutional History of England, and contributed many important articles to Magazine and Encyclopaedic Literature.
Admitted 21 June, 1619.
Son and heir of Alexander Maynard, Barrister-at-Law, of the Middle Temple, of Abbey House, Tavistock, where he was born in 1602. He was admitted from New Inn and called to the Bar 24 Nov. 1626, and became a Bencher of the Inn 24 Nov. 1648. He rapidly acquired a large practice on the Western Circuit, and was made Recorder of Plymouth in 1640. He was returned for Totnes in the same year, and was one of the managers of the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford and of Laud, and a member of the Assembly of Divines. In 1653 he was called to the rank of Serjeant-at-Law, and was made by patent Cromwell's Serjeant. At the Restoration he made his peace with the Government, and was made King's Serjeant and knighted. In 1680 he was one of the Commissioners for the trial of Viscount Strafford, and was afterwards a member of the convention which brought about the Revolution. In 1689,
