Robert Reynolds (Attorney General)

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Sir Robert Reynolds was an English lawyer and Member of Parliament (MP) who served as Solicitor General and Attorney General during the Commonwealth period.

Reynolds, who was the brother of Sir John Reynolds, was MP for Hindon in the Long Parliament, taking the parliamentary side on the outbreak of the Civil War.

He refused to be a commissioner in the trial of King Charles I. Nevertheless, in 1650 he was appointed Solicitor General. After 1653 he retired from public life until the death of Oliver Cromwell, but was elected MP for Whitchurch in Richard Cromwell's Parliament before resuming his seat for Hindon in the restored Rump, and in 1660 was appointed Attorney General.

He supported the return of Charles II, and though supplanted as Attorney-General at the Restoration was knighted by the new king as a sign of favour.

Political offices
Preceded by
John Cooke
Solicitor General for England and Wales
1650-1654
Succeeded by
William Ellis
Preceded by
Edmund Prideaux
Attorney General of England and Wales
1660
Succeeded by
Sir Geoffrey Palmer

[edit] References

  • D Brunton & D H Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
  • Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808) [1]
  • Concise Dictionary of National Biography (1930)