ABSTRACT
Hezekiah Haynes was the younger son of a gentry family in Essex that retained links to kin in nearby Hertfordshire and Norfolk. It is likely that by 1605, the Haynes family wanted to regard themselves, and be viewed, as gentry. The kinship, economic and religious roots that Hezekiah had in East Anglia, most notably in Essex and Norfolk, as well as the connections from his father’s network that stretched into New England were part of the reason for his activism for parliament in 1642 and his later appointment as the Major-General of the east. The bonds of pre-1642 were expanded by the experience of war and then through Hezekiah simply getting older and thus having a developing family. For Hezekiah, just as his network was at the point of further extension with his greater political prominence in the 1650s and in his late 30s, the Restoration saw its retreat to closer family bonds evident in the period before 1642.
