Michael Malet (c 1632 - after 1683) was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1679.
[1] Malet was an extreme Protestant opposed to the High Church as well as Roman Catholics.
It was said of him when Samuel Pepys introduced the naval programme "Michael Malet, who, to make good the M’s in his name, is many times mightily mad, without a metaphor or a trope, said he knew no need we had of ships in time of peace, unless it were to carry away the Italian women again, meaning the duchess of York."
Later it was reported that he "came to the Queen’s drawing room to show he can be as mad elsewhere as in the Parliament House, and there bawled out aloud to his royal highness, quite across the circle when the room was full, ‘Monsieur le Duc, il faut laisser l’idolatrie, il faut faire Dieu votre ami; il vous servira mieux que le roi de France, ce que je maintiendrai’; which he was so pleased with that he said it over twice; and afterwards, being persuaded out of the Queen's presence, uttered twenty other follies in the privy chamber".
His final disgrace came at a by-election in Berkshire in July 1678 when "poor, maggot-headed Mr Malet" uttered some words ... which were said to "reflect very greatly upon his Majesty’s honour" and he was sent to the Tower.