Nathaniel Fiennes, 1608 to 16 December 1669, was a younger son of the Puritan nobleman and politician, William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele. He sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1640 and 1659, and served with the Parliamentarian army in the First English Civil War. In 1643, he was dismissed from the army for alleged incompetence after surrendering Bristol and sentenced to death before being pardoned. Exonerated in 1645, he actively supported Oliver Cromwell during The Protectorate, being Lord Keeper of the Great Seal from 1655 to 1659.
Elected to the Long Parliament in November 1640, Fiennes played a leading role in the opposition to Charles I prior to the outbreak of civil war in August 1642. In the early years of the war, his objections to any form of established church aligned him with Cromwell and the Independents, rather than the moderate Presbyterians who dominated Parliament. However, his belief in a balanced political solution meant that after Parliament's victory in 1646, he supported a compromise peace settlement with Charles I. As a result, he was one of the MPs excluded by Pride's Purge in December 1648 along with his younger brother John Fiennes, and played no part in the Execution of Charles I.
Fiennes re-entered politics when Cromwell became Lord Protector in 1653, sitting as an MP in the Second and Third Protectorate Parliaments, as well as being made Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in June 1655. After Cromwell died in September 1658, he backed the succession of his son Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector, but lost office when the latter resigned in April 1659. Following the 1660 Stuart Restoration, he was pardoned under the Indemnity and Oblivion Act, and lived quietly at home in Newton Tony, Wiltshire, until his death on 16 December 1669.
Personal details
thumb|left|upright=1.0|Family home, [[Broughton Castle]]
Nathaniel Fiennes was born 1608 at Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire, second son of William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele (1582–1662), and Elizabeth Temple (died 1648). Siblings included his elder brother James (1602–1674), Bridget, John (1612–1708), Constance and Elizabeth.
He was twice married, the first time in August 1636 to Elizabeth Eliot (1616–1648?), daughter of Sir John Eliot, an MP who played a leading role in passing the 1628 Petition of Right; he was later imprisoned by Charles I in the Tower of London, where he died in 1632. They had two surviving sons, Nathaniel (1637–1672), who inherited his fathers' estates, and William (1639–1698), who succeeded his uncle James as Third Viscount Saye and Sele in 1674.
Elizabeth died sometime before 1650 when Fiennes married again, this time to Frances Whitehead (1621–1691). They had four daughters, Anne, Frances, Mary (1663–1737) and Celia (1662–1741), later well known for a series of books recording her travels around Britain.
Career
Fiennes attended Winchester College, then entered New College, Oxford in 1619. He graduated in 1624 without a degree, but was made a perpetual fellow of the college as "founder's kin". Like his Puritan father, he strongly opposed Laudianism and Episcopacy in any form, opinions strengthened by his residence in the Calvinist stronghold of Geneva.
He returned to Scotland in 1639, and established communications with the Covenanters and the Opposition in England. As Member of Parliament for Banbury in both the Short and Long Parliaments he took a prominent part in the attacks upon the church.
He spoke against the illegal canons on 14 December 1640, and again on 9 February 1641 on the occasion of the reception of the Root and Branch petition, when he argued against episcopacy as constituting a political as well as a religious danger and made an impression on the House of Commons, his name being added immediately to the committee appointed to deal with church affairs.
He was tried at St Albans by the council of war in December, was pronounced guilty of having surrendered the place improperly, and sentenced to death. He was, however, pardoned, and the facility with which Bristol subsequently capitulated to the parliamentary army induced Cromwell and the generals to exonerate him completely. His military career nevertheless came to an end. He went abroad, and it was some time before he reappeared on the political scene.