HONEYWOOD, John Lamotte (1647-94), of Markshall, Essex.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Oct. 1679
1681
10 Jan. 1693 - 14 Jan. 1694

Family and Education

bap. 21 May 1647, 5th but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Thomas Honeywood of Markshall by Hester, da. and coh. of John La Motte, Weaver, of London, wid. of John Manning, merchant, of Hackney, Mdx. educ. Christ’s, Camb. 1665; I. Temple 1668.  m. Elizabeth, da. and h. of Sir William Wiseman, 1st Bt., of Rivenhall, Essex, s.p. suc. bro. 1672.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Essex 1673-80, Kent 1679-80, Essex and Kent 1689-90; lt.-col. of militia ft. Essex by 1676-80, j.p. Apr. 1688-d., sheriff 1689-90.2

Gent. of the privy chamber 1689-d.3

Biography

Honeywood came from a cadet branch of the Kentish family. His grandfather acquired Markshall in 1605. His father fought for Parliament in both wars, and was appointed to the high court of justice for the trial of Charles I in 1649, but did not attend. He represented Essex under the Protectorate until called to the ‘Other House’, and retired from politics at the Restoration. Honeywood himself, ‘a chip of the old block’, stood unsuccessfully for Maldon at the first general election of 1679, but was returned for the county in August after a fierce contest as an opponent of the Court. In the second Exclusion Parliament he was appointed only to the committees to inquire into abhorring and to consider extending the ban on Irish cattle. He was reelected in 1681 and was nominated to the committee of elections and privileges at Oxford, but made no speeches in either Parliament. According to a newsletter, his nerve broke after the Rye House Plot; ‘the eminent Honeywood has been with the King and the Duke, and was observed to come from them weeping. It is generally believed that he has made some discoveries.’ A Tory pamphlet of the following year represented Titus Oates as saying that ‘there would be no use for him’ in another Parliament, and he did not stand in 1685.4

Honeywood may have been a Whig collaborator, since he was recommended for restoration to the commission of the peace in 1688. He stood unsuccessfully for the county at the general election of 1689, and his petition was rejected. He regained his seat at a by-election in 1693, but hanged himself on 14 Jan. 1694 after several other attempts at suicide, due to domestic differences. His widow, who was ‘miserable to baseness’, married Isaac Rebow. His heir was his cousin Robert, who sat for Essex as a Whig from 1716 to 1727.5

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Gillian Hampson

Notes

  • 1. Morant, Essex, ii. 166-9; Soc. of Genealogists, H. Gwyn, Peds. 79.
  • 2. CSP Dom. 1676-7, p. 115.
  • 3. Carlisle, Privy Chamber, 202.
  • 4. Morant, loc. cit.; Bramston Autobiog. (Cam. Soc. xxxii), 14; CSP Dom. July-Sept. 1683, p. 351; The Essexian Triumviri (1684).
  • 5. Bramston Autobiog. 346, 377; CJ, x. 10, 75-77; Luttrell, iii. 254.