MYNN, Nicholas (by 1537-72 or later), of Little Walsingham, Norf.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1537, 2nd s. of John Mynn (d.1542/43), of Woodcote, Surr. m. Elizabeth, da. of Robert Drury II, wid. of Thomas Grey (d.1566) of Merton, Norf., 3s. 3da.2

Offices Held

Servant of 4th Duke of Norfolk by 1558-72.3

Biography

Nicholas Mynn was a servant of the 4th Duke of Norfolk: so much could be deduced from the list of boroughs for which he was returned, all of which were wholly or partially under the duke’s patronage. He is best known as the lawyer whom Norfolk sent to Rome in the spring of 1558 to procure a dispensation for the duke to marry his cousin Margaret Audley; the dispensation had not been issued when Queen Mary died, whereupon the marriage took place and was followed by an Act of Elizabeth’s first Parliament ratifying it. Mynn’s presence in that Parliament was doubtless of advantage to his master’s cause: as a Member of the previous one he can have attended only the first session, being still abroad when the second was held in November.4

Nothing has been discovered about Mynn’s career before his mission to Rome, nor of the legal training which qualified him for that task, unless he was the ‘Mr. Mynne’ who in 1566 pleaded a special admission for his discharge from office at the Inner Temple. He was to survive his master’s execution in 1572, but of his subsequent career and death nothing has come to light.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: R. J.W. Swales

Notes

  • 1. C193/32/2. His surname is misprinted as Wynne in OR.
  • 2. Presumed to be of age at election. Vis. Norf. (Norf. Arch.), ii. 218, 219; Vis. Rutland (Harl. Soc. iii), 5; Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. lxiii), 18, 54; A. Campling, Fam. Drury, 50, 114.
  • 3. N. Williams, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, 34-35; Arundel castle ms G1/7.
  • 4. Williams, 34-35, 77; CSP For. 1553-8, p. 389.
  • 5. Cal. I.T. Recs. i. 241, 463.