Caryll Molyneux
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Sir Caryll Molyneux (1624-1699) was Baronet of Sefton, and third Viscount Molyneux of Maryborough in Ireland.
He joined the Royalist army at the outbreak of the English Civil War, and served with his brother, the second viscount, in the Lancashire Regiment, which was mostly Catholic, through almost all the fighting from Manchester (1642) to Worcester (1651). After succeeding to the title he, as a well-known Catholic Cavalier, experienced very harsh treatment from the victors; and the family estates suffered severely.
It was not until the reign of James II that his fortunes improved. He was then made Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, and was one of the few who fought with any success on James's side against the Prince of Orange, for he seized and held the town of Chester, until all further resistance was in vain. Some years later he was arrested on a fictitious charge of treason, called The Lancashire plot, was imprisoned in the Tower with other Catholics, but upon trial was victoriously acquitted (1694).
Other members of this old Catholic family were
- John Molyneux, of Melling, a constant confessor for the Catholic faith under Elizabeth I
- his son and grandson, who both died in arms fighting for King Charles at Newbur
- Father Thomas Molyneux, S.J., probably of Alt Grange, Ince Blundell, was a confessor of the Catholic faith at the time of Oates's Plot, meeting death from ill-treatment in Morpeth gaol, 12 January, 1681.
The family came from Moulineaux in Seine Inferieure about the time of the Norman Conquest, and can be shown to have held the manor of Sefton without interruption from about 1100, while other branches of the family (of which those of Haughton in Nottinghamshireand Castle Dillon in Ireland are the most conspicuous) have spread all over the world.
The main stem remained staunch Catholics through the worst times. William, seventh viscount, was a Jesuit, and there were in his time not less than seven Molyneux in the Society of Jesus alone. Arms: azure, a cross moline, or.
[edit] References
- Victoria County Histories, Lancashire, III (London, 1907), 67-73
- Foley, Records S.J., VII (London, 1882), 513-516
- Catholic Record Society, V (London, 1909), 109, 131, 218, etc.
- Phillipps, The family of Sir Thomas Molyneux (Middlehill. 1820)
- Molineux, Memoir of the Molineux Family (London, 1882)
This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.
