Terry Foreman on 28 May 2012  •  Link

Sir Thomas Honywood (1586–1666), of Marks Hall in Essex, was a soldier during the English Civil War, later a Member of Parliament.

The eldest son of Robert Honywood and head of a prominent Essex family, he was knighted in 1632. On the outbreak of the Civil War he declared for the parliamentary side, and was one of the Committee for Essex in 1648. In the same year, under the command of Thomas Fairfax, he led the Essex forces at the Siege of Colchester. In 1649, he was one of those named in the commission to try the King, but did not serve on the court. He also led a regiment at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

Sir Thomas was elected to Parliament as member for Essex in the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate, and in 1658 was raised to Cromwell's new Upper House. However, he was distrusted by the hardline Puritans and considered "rather soft in his spirit". He retired from public life after the Restoration.

He married Hester (D.1681) daughter of John Le Mott-Merchant of London. She was the widow of John Manning-Merchant of London (D.1635). His daughter Elizabeth Honywood married Sir John Cotton and his son was John Le Mott Honywood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom…

San Diego Sarah on 22 Apr 2023  •  Link

Sadly only this year has the book of biographies for the Interregnum parliaments been made available in hard copy -- for 700/.s -- $900. So it may not be in my lifetime that Sir Thomas Honywood's bio gets posted here.

But his grandson's, Sir William Honywood, 2nd Bart MP (1654-1748), is available on line:

The opening paragraph says:
"Honeywood’s ancestors were established in Kent by the reign of Henry III, and first sat for Hythe in 1393.
[SIR WILLIAM] "Honeywood’s grandfather [OUR SIR THOMAS] served on the county committee until 1648, but his father [THOMAS' SON, SIR EDWARD HONYWOOD, 1st Bt.] is said to have sent £3,000 to Charles II in exile, for which he received a baronetcy at the Restoration, and [GRANDSON SIR WILLIAM] Honeywood himself entered politics as a court supporter."

Appropriate buttering of both sides of the slice of bread ensured some security from reprisals -- or, in this case, a Baronetcy.
https://www.historyofparliamenton…

For a family so active since 1393, curiously none of them served James I or Charles I.

San Diego Sarah on 14 Aug 2023  •  Link

L&M Companion has a long Honeywood family entry. The part about Sir Thomas:

The sons of Robert Honeywood of Marks Hall, Essex, used Pepys' house in Salisbury Court as their town lodgings.
The family is often mentioned in the Diary of Pepys' contemporary, Rev. Ralph Josselin, Vicar of Earl's Colne, Essex.
The eldest, a particular friend of Josselin's, was Sir Thomas (1586-1666), a leading Parliamentarian in his day (MP for Essex in 1654 and 1656 and a member of Cromwell's Upper House), but distrusted by hard-line Puritans as "a knight of the old stamp" ... "rather soft in his spirit".
He retired from public life in 1660.
His daughter mentioned by Pepys was Elizabeth (D. 1702) who, in 1658, married Sir John Cotton MP for Huntingdon, grandson of the antiquarian Sir Robert Bruce Cotton. ...

Now over to
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
married (2) 20 Oct. 1658, Elizabeth, da. of Sir Thomas Honeywood of Markshall, Essex, and heir to her bro. John Lamott Honeywood, 1 surviving son and 2 daughters. ...
Shortly after his second marriage, he is said to have attempted suicide. Returned for Huntingdon at the general election of 1661, he was a moderately active Member of the Cavalier Parliament, ...
Cotton’s recorded speeches were plentifully adorned with classical tags. According to Evelyn, Cotton was only ‘a pretended great Grecian, but had by no means the parts or genius of his grandfather’; but Cotton’s letters suggest that this verdict was too harsh. ...
Sir Richard Wiseman described him as ‘a very good man, and rarely misseth in his vote, and then by mistake only. Some person (trusty) should always sit near him.’ On the other hand the author of "A Seasonable Argument" called him ‘a madman who cut his own throat, and now cuts his country’s by his vote’, and Shaftesbury marked him ‘thrice vile’. ...
He seems to have been unaffected by the Popish Plot agitation, except when the Lords nervously desired him to remove his coals and faggots from their cellars. ...
He took no part in the Revolution, but accepted the new regime: ‘as for the public affairs’, he wrote in 1693, ‘I desire wholly to acquiesce in God’s providence’. His ascetic life earned for him a healthy and cheerful old age, occupied by learned correspondence, the composition of Latin verse, and the writing of an autobiography which does not seem to have survived.
He died on 12 Sept. 1702, aged 81, and was buried at Conington. In accordance with his desires, the Cottonian Library was sold to the nation for £4,500. His grandson was elected for Huntingdon in 1705 and for the county in 1710 as a Tory."

No mention of what happened to Elizabeth.

@@@

Elizabeth doesn't come up when I search our Encyclopedia for "Honywood" (Pepys' spelling), so I presume L&M thought the August 13, 1660 mention was to her, but we know she was married by then.
One of the few times we find L&M probably incorrect.