Hezekiah Haynes

Hezekiah Haynes (died 1693) supported the parliamentary cause during the English Civil War rising to the rank of major. During the Interregnum, under the patronage of his war time commander General Charles Fleetwood, he held a number of administrative posts under the early Commonwealth and Protectorate. He supported his old general during the late Commonwealth, and after spending 18 months in prison during the first couple of years of the Restoration, he retired to the family estate of Copford Hall in Essex.

Biography Haynes supported the parliamentary cause during the English Civil War. At the outbreak of war he took a captains commission in Colonel Holborne's regiment of foot. He transferred to Charles Fleetwood's cavalry regiment and by 1645 had risen to the rank of major. He fought at Battle of Preston in 1648, commanded the regiment at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 and may well have fought at Worcester in the last battle of the Civil War.

After the death of Oliver Cromwell, Haynes supported the Wallingford House party when they overthrew Richard Cromwell and in 1659 introduced the short lived second Commonwealth. In December, shortly before the Restoration, the Rump Parliament ordered him to leave London and return home, but he chose not to. In November 1660 he was arrested on suspicion of subversion, and held in the Tower of London for 18 months. He was released in April 1662 upon payment of a £5,000 bond for his future good behaviour. He retired to his family estate of Copford Hall and lived quietly until his death on 26 August 1693.

Family Haynes was the second son of John Haynes of Copford Hall in Essex and Mary Thornton, daughter of Robert Thornton of Nottingham. In the early 1650s he married Anne, daughter of Thomas Smithsby, the former saddler to Charles I. They had at least one son.

Haynes passed the family seat of Copford Hall over to his son in 1684, and moved to Coggeshall where he died in 1693.