SAYE AND SELE, WILLIAM FIENNES, I ST VISCOUNT (1582-1662), was the only son of Richard Fiennes, 7th Baron Saye and Sele, and was descended from James Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, who was lord chamberlain and lord treasurer under Henry VI. and was beheaded by the rebels under Jack Cade on July 4, 1450. Fiennes was educated at New College, Oxford; he succeeded to his father's barony in 1613, and in parliament opposed the policy of James I., undergoing a brief imprisonment for objecting to a benevolence in 1622, and he showed great animus against Lord Bacon. In 1624, he was advanced to the rank of a viscount. In the early parliaments of Charles I. he was in Clarendon's words "the oracle of those who were called Puritans in the worst sense, and steered all their counsels and designs." His energies found a new outlet in helping to colonize Providence Island, and in interesting himself in other and similar enterprises in America. Although Saye resisted the levy of ship-money, he accompanied Charles on his march against the Scots in 1639; but, with only one other peer, he refused to take the oath binding him to fight for the king to "the utmost of my power and hazard of my life." When the Civil War broke out, however, Saye was on
the committee of safety, was made lord-lieutenant of Gloucester shire, Oxfordshire and Cheshire, and, raising a regiment, occupied Oxford. He was a member of the committee of both kingdoms; was mainly responsible for passing the self-denying ordinance through the House of Lords; and in 1647 stood up for the army in its struggle with the parliament. In 1648, both at the treaty of Newport and elsewhere, Saye was anxious that Charles should come to terms, and he retired into private life after the execution of the king, becoming a privy councillor again upon the restora tion of Charles II. He died at his residence, Broughton Castle near Banbury, on April 14, 1662. On several occasions Saye outwitted the advisers of Charles I. by his strict compliance with legal forms. He was a thorough aristocrat, and his ideas for the government of colonies in America included the establishment of an hereditary aristocracy. Saybrook (q.v.) in Connecticut is named after Viscount Saye and Lord Brooke.