John Maynard (the lawyer)
1604–1690
Serjeant-at-Law; long-lived legal eminence; prosecutor of Strafford and Laud.
Biography
Of Exeter College Oxford and the Middle Temple, then Serjeant-at-Law and one of the longest-serving English lawyers of the century. Maynard the lawyer (distinct from John Maynard of Mayfield, the Sussex minister) was a lay assessor at the Assembly, prosecuted Strafford and Laud, and survived through Restoration and Glorious Revolution to die in 1690 aged eighty-seven. He was made King's Serjeant at the Restoration and continued to argue major cases into his ninth decade. His most famous remark — to William III on being told that his memory must be much decayed — was: 'Sir, I have forgot more than ever I knew.' Lord Macaulay called him 'the most learned lawyer of his age.'
Lay Assessor — House of Commons
Parliament seated lay assessors alongside the divines to represent its interest and keep it informed of the Assembly's progress. The ordinance of 1643 named thirty members of the House of Commons as assessors; they could take part in debate but were not among the voting divines, and their attendance was often occasional as the war and parliamentary business pressed on them.