In 1654 he was one of the knights of the shire for Essex, and did good service for Cromwell in assisting to put down the rising of that year. He was paid 500l. by warrant in 1655, probably to compensate him for paying his regiment. In 1656 he was again in parliament, and in 1657 he became a member of Cromwell's upper house. A man of character and the brother-in-law of Sir Henry Vane, Honywood was powerful in Cromwell's court. He was able to get his relative, Sir Robert Honywood of Charing, made a member of the council of state in 1659, and he was himself a very active commissioner in the east of England in that year.
Honywood (according to Pepys) stayed with Pepys's father on 2 June 1660. He was then very old. He died at Cotton House, Westminster, on 26 May 1666, while on a visit to his son-in-law, Sir John Cotton of Connington, the son of the antiquary (see under Cotton, Sir Robert Bruce). His body was buried in the chancel of Marks Hall Church.
Honywood married, 10 May 1634, Hester (d. 1681), daughter of John Lamotte, a merchant of London, widow of John Manning. By her he had seven children, of whom four died young; his daughter Elizabeth (1637–1702), who had married Sir John Cotton, with his sons Thomas (1639–1672), and John Lamotte (d. 1693), survived him. The two sons succeeded to the family estate in succession, and both died without issue. The property thus passed to Robert Honywood of Charing.
[Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 168; Chester's Lond. Mar. Lic. p. 705; Morant's Essex, ii. 167; Berry's Essex Genealogies, p. 72; Hist. MSS. Comm. App. to 7th Rep. pp. 551–66; Whitelocke's Mem. pp. 311, 666; Cromwell's Colchester, i. 106 et seq.; Noble's Regicides, i. 361; Pepys's Diary, i. 104, 361; Burton's Diary, clxxxii; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1649–60.]
HOOD, ALEXANDER (1758–1798), captain in the navy, born 23 April 1758, was second son of Samuel Hood of Kingsland, Dorset, by Anne, daughter of James Berne of Westbury, Wiltshire. His father was a purser in the navy and first cousin of Samuel, viscount Hood [q. v.], and of Alexander Hood, viscount Bridport [q. v.] His elder brother, Arthur, lieutenant in the navy, was lost in the Pomona sloop in 1775. Sir Samuel Hood, bart. (1762–1814) [q. v.], was his younger brother. He entered the navy in 1767 on board the Romney, with his cousin Captain Samuel Hood, and was borne on her books during the next three years. In 1772 he joined the Resolution, with Captain James Cook [q. v.] in his second voyage round the world. In 1776 he went to North America under the patronage of Lord Howe, by whom he was promoted to be lieutenant, 18 July 1777. In March 1780 he was appointed by Arbuthnot to the command of the Ranger cutter, which in the early part of 1781 was sent to the West Indies, where Sir George Rodney gave him the rank of commander 17 May 1781; and on 27 July he was posted to the Barfleur as flag-captain to his cousin Sir Samuel Hood, then in temporary command of the station. As captain of the Barfleur he took part in the action off Cape Henry on 5 Sept. 1781, and again in that at St. Kitts on 25–6 Jan. 1782. A few days later he was appointed to the Champion frigate, one of the repeating ships in the actions off Dominica on 9, 12 April, specially attached to the red squadron under Sir Samuel Hood, with whom she was afterwards sent to the Mona Passage; there she had the fortune to capture the corvette Cérès, with whose captain, the Baron de Paroy, a nephew of the Comte de Vaudreuil, Hood contracted an intimate friendship. On the arrival of the squadron at Port Royal he was moved into the Amiable, another of the prizes, which he took to England in the summer of 1783. He then paid a lengthened visit to France, at the invitation of the Comte de Vaudreuil. In 1790–2 and again in 1793 he commanded the Hebe frigate in the Channel; in 1794 he was appointed to the Audacious, but was compelled by ill-health to leave her; nor was he able to undertake active service till February 1797, when he was appointed to the Mars, a 74-gun ship attached to the Channel fleet, then commanded by Lord Bridport. He had thus the melancholy experience of the mutiny at Spithead and St. Helens, and was one of the captains sent on shore by the mutineers on 11 May. In the following spring the Mars was with the fleet off Brest, and on the forenoon of 21 April, being, in company with the Ramillies and the Jason frigate, on the look-out in-shore, discovered a French 74-gun ship making for the harbour. This was the Hercule, a new ship, newly commissioned, on her way from Lorient. The three ships in-shore were ordered to chase; but the Ramillies carried away her fore top-mast, and about 9 p.m. the Mars, by herself, found the Hercule at anchor off the Bec du Raz, waiting for the tide to turn. The darkness and the strength of the current prevented any attempt at manœuvring. After an interchange of broadsides, the Mars let go her anchor a short distance ahead, and, veering cable, fell alongside of the Hercule; many of the lower-deck
