FIENNES, JOHN (fl. 1657), parliamentarian, was the third son of William, first viscount Saye and Sele [q. v.] At the outbreak of the civil war he commanded a troop of horse in the army of the Earl of Essex (Peacock, Army Lists, p. 55, 2nd ed.) He took part with his brother Nathaniel in the unsuccessful attack on Worcester in September 1642, and in February 1643 was sent with him to garrison Bristol (A Full Declaration concerning the March of the Forces under Colonel Fiennes, 1643, p. 1). He was present at the surrender of that city in the following June, defended his brother's conduct in capitulating, and assaulted one of the witnesses against him for impugning it (Prynne, A True Relation of Colonel Fiennes, his Trial, Depositions, p. 12). Some time during the summer of 1643 he obtained a commission as colonel of a regiment of horse, and is henceforth prominent in the civil war in the district round Oxford. He besieged Banbury from 27 Aug. 1644 to 25 Oct. of the same year, when the siege was raised by the Earl of Northampton and Colonel Gage (Sanderson, Charles I, pp. 729, 730; Mercurius Aulicus, 20, 25 Oct. 1644). In April 1645 Fiennes was for a time under the command of Cromwell, who specially commends him in a letter to the committee of both kingdoms, 28 April 1645: ‘His diligence is great, and this I must testify, that I find no man more ready to all services than himself. … I find him a gentleman of that fidelity to you and so conscientious that he would all his troop were as religious and civil as any, and makes it a great part of his care to get them so’ (Carlyle, Cromwell, Appendix, No. 7). At the battle of Naseby he fought on the right wing, under the command of Cromwell, and was entrusted with the duty of conducting the royalist prisoners to London (Rushworth, vi. 32). He was elected M.P. for Morpeth in 1645. In 1657 Fiennes was summoned by Cromwell to his House of Lords. A republican pamphleteer describes him as ‘such a one as they call a sectary, but no great stickler,’ and adds that he was entirely under the influence of his brother Nathaniel (Harleian Miscellany, iii. 486). He survived the Restoration, and escaped all penalties for his political conduct. Fiennes married Susannah, daughter of Thomas Hobbs of Amwell Magna in Hertfordshire. Lawrence, his son by her, became in 1710 fifth Viscount Saye and Sele (Collins, Peerage, ed. Brydges, vii. 22, 24, 32). Fiennes's wife died at Bath 22 July 1715, aged 58, and was buried at Broughton.
[Authorities above mentioned; also Noble's House of Cromwell, i. 402.]
FIENNES, NATHANIEL (1608?–1669), parliamentarian, second son of William, first viscount Saye and Sele, was born about 1608 at Broughton in Oxfordshire, and educated at Winchester and at New College, Oxford. As founder's kin he was admitted perpetual fellow of New College on entering in 1624, and continued there about five years, but never took a degree (Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, iii. 877). He then travelled, and, according to Clarendon, ‘spent his time abroad in Geneva and amongst the cantons of Switzerland, where he improved his disinclination to the church, with which milk he had been nursed’ (Rebellion, ed. Macray, iii. 33). He returned home in 1639 through Scotland, in order to establish communication between the discontented in England and the covenanters (Clarendon, Rebellion, i. 166 n.) In the parliament called in April 1640, and again in the Long parliament, Fiennes sat as member for Banbury. From the opening of the latter he became prominent in its debates, especially in those on ecclesiastical subjects. On 14 Dec. 1640 he made a long speech against the illegal canons recently imposed by convocation, and on 8 Feb. 1641, on the question of the reception of the London petition, he made a speech against episcopacy, which became famous (Rushworth, iv. 105, 174). He argued in favour of the complete abolition of episcopacy on the ground that the arbitrary power exercised by the bishops was a danger alike to the political constitution of the realm and the religious welfare of the people. His speech was so well received that he was added the next day to the committee appointed for the consideration of church affairs. Fiennes was again conspicuous in the investigation of the army plot, and presented, 8 June 1641, the report of the committee concerning it (Old Parliamentary History, ix. 333; Diurnal Occurrences, 1641, p. 153). At the close of the first session Fiennes was appointed one of the commissioners to attend the king in his visit to Scotland (20 Aug. 1641), and his nomination as one of the committee of safety (4 July 1642) is a further sign of the high position which he had attained in the parliamentary party. He commanded a troop of horse in the army of the Earl of Essex, and was one of the first to take the field. He was engaged in the unsuccessful attempt to prevent the Earl of Northampton from carrying off the guns sent by Lord Brooke to Banbury (6–8 Aug. 1642), and took part with Hampden in the relief of Coventry, 23 Aug. (The Proceedings at Banbury since the Ordnance went down, 4to, 1642; Old Parliamentary History, xi. 397). He shared in the action before Worcester
