Family and Education

bap. 2 Apr. 1638, 4th but 2nd surv. s. of Sir Edmund Wyndham† of Kentsford, St. Decuman’s, Som. and Pall Mall, Westminster by his 1st w. Christabella, da. of Hugh Pyne† of Cathanger, Som., bro. of Sir Hugh† and Thomas Wyndham†.  m. 19 June 1665, Jane, da. and h. of James Young, gent. of the privy chamber to Charles I, 10s. 7da.  Kntd. by 29 Apr. 1665.1

Offices Held

Page to Charles II bef. 1660; sewer to Q. Catherine of Braganza by 1669, gent. usher of privy chamber 1687–94.2

Cornet, R. Horse Gds. (The Blues) 1661, lt. 1667, capt. 1685–9.

Freeman, Winchester by 1666, Portsmouth 1678, Southampton 1679; commr. inquiry, New Forest 1692–4.3

Biography

Although Wyndham’s father and two elder brothers had all sat in Parliament in the two previous reigns, he was the only member of this branch of the family who continued to do so after 1690. He successfully contested Southampton, some eight miles from his seat at Cranbury, in the election of that year, following which he was classed as a Whig by Lord Carmarthen (Sir Thomas Osborne†). In the first session he acted as a teller on 8 Apr. against a question to substitute ‘declare’ for ‘reverse’ in a motion for bringing in a bill ‘to reverse the judgment of a quo warranto against the city of London as arbitrary and illegal’, and was granted leave of absence on the 14th. He was back in the House on 10 May, when he acted as a teller against a motion to receive the report from the committee on the bill for vesting forfeited estates in the King and Queen, and was teller on the 13th for continuing the bill for confirming the Hudson’s Bay Company’s privileges for seven years. On the 14th he told against a motion to give an immediate third reading to the forfeitures bill, and on the 17th for a motion that the right of election at New Windsor was in the mayor, bailiffs and select burgesses only. In April 1691 he was listed as a Court supporter by Robert Harley*. In the 1691–2 session, on 13 Nov. 1691, during the debate on the East India Company, he joined the Whigs and a section of the Tories in speaking against the existing company and in favour of a new one. On 4 Dec. he acquainted the House of having received a letter ‘which contained matters of importance’, but when the letter, which ‘reflected upon the lords of the Admiralty’, was read to the House it was considered ‘a frivolous matter’ and nothing was done. On the 14th he acted as a teller for a motion to send for the informant against persons illicitly trading with France, and on 2 Jan. 1692 told for a motion to agree with the committee of the whole’s computation of the charge of the military establishment for Ireland for 1692. Later that month, on the 26th, he was granted leave of absence for two weeks. He became much less active in the following sessions, being granted leave of absence again on 7 Jan. 1693. In his list of 1693, extended to 1695, Grascome classed him as a Court supporter. In the 1693–4 session he acted as teller on 14 Nov. against reading the bill for regulating trials in cases of treason, while in the following session, on 23 Nov. 1694, he told in favour of addressing the King for an estimate for the next year’s service for the war.4

In 1695 Wyndham successfully contested Southampton again. He was forecast in January 1696 as likely to support the government on the proposed council of trade, and signed the Association promptly. He appears to have been absent from the division in March on fixing the price of guineas at 22s., and from the division in the following session on 25 Nov. on the attainder of Sir John Fenwick†. He was granted leave of absence on 1 Apr. 1697, and in the next session his only recorded activity of any note occurred on 28 Mar. 1698 when he was teller against passing a bill for preserving timber in the New Forest. In the general election of that year he transferred from Southampton to St. Ives, where he and a Tory, James Praed, defeated the Whig, Sir Henry Hobart, 4th Bt.* Wyndham was subsequently listed as a Country supporter, and was later noted as likely to oppose the standing army. On 17 Mar. 1699 he was granted leave of absence for one month and, after the dissolution of Parliament, did not stand for re-election. In January 1700 he petitioned for the renewal of a lease of certain lands in Dorset and Yorkshire, which was granted in March 1701. He died on 22 July 1706 and was buried at Hursley.5

Ref Volumes: 1690-1715

Authors: Paula Watson / Ivar McGrath

Notes

• 1. H. A. Wyndham, Fam. Hist. i. 175–8; W. E. H. Oxley, Memories of Westminster, 157.
• 2. CSP Dom. 1661–2, p. 631; Wyndham, 265.
• 3. Hants RO, Winchester corp. ass. bk. 5, f. 31; R. East, Portsmouth Recs. 363; Southampton RO, Southampton bor. recs. SC3/1/1, f. 236; Cal. Treas. Bks. ix. 1384, 1550; x. 700.
• 4. Luttrell Diary, 16, 62, 78, 107.
• 5. Cal. Treas. Bks. xv. 255, 414; xvi. 230.