Sussex

Sussex was a county split in more ways than one. The Weald in the north and east, and the Downs in the south and west, each had their distinctive topography and economic base, particularly with the concentration of iron works in the Weald. Administratively, the county was also divided between east and west, a situation encouraged by the notoriously poor transport infrastructure, which adversely affected lateral movement; although the county’s four rivers, the Arun, Adur, Ouse and Rother, were all navigable, each ran from north to south. Two major towns, Lewes in the east and Chichester in the extreme west, shared the hosting of the county court. Furthermore, in the seventeenth century there was a religious contrast between the east, where puritanism was strong, and the west, where Catholicism remained influential amongst some of the great gentry and aristocratic families. This had an impact on the elections for knights of the shire, not least because there was now a tendency towards the return of gentry from the eastern rapes.

Electorally, Sussex was well represented at Westminster. In addition to the county seats, there were nine boroughs (Arundel, Bramber, Chichester, East Grinstead, Horsham, Lewes, Midhurst, New Shoreham, and Steyning), as well as three Cinque Ports, Rye, Winchelsea, Hastings, to which a fourth, Seaford, was added in 1641. Although opportunities were relatively plentiful, however, there were also a number of noble families seeking to exert influence. The county as a whole provided seats for clients of the Lennards, barons Dacre; the Nevilles, barons Abergavenny; the Percys, earls of Northumberland; the Howards, earls of Arundel; and the Brownes, viscounts Montagu. Additionally, electoral influence was wielded by the Sackvilles, earls of Dorset, and the incumbent lord warden of the Cinque Ports. In this context, Members returned as knights of the shire in the period 1640-60 were mostly established and wealthy gentry, although the temporary expansion of county seats in the 1650s let in some less prominent men. A majority had prior experience sitting for a borough; once again 1654 and 1656 saw the most exceptions to this.

The most striking pattern which emerges is the predominance of men from east Sussex. Fifteen out of 16 of those returned came from the eastern rapes, and the one exception, John Fagge, who acquired an estate at Wiston, was most closely associated with his native Rye in the east, and with Harbert Morley, one of east Sussex’s most powerful gentlemen. Furthermore, ten of the 15 had their principal seat within seven miles of Lewes (Sir Thomas Pelham, Anthony Stapley I, William Spence, William Hay, Harbert Morley, John Pelham, Harbert Springett, John Stapley, Sir Thomas Rivers, Anthony Shirley). Since Lewes was the venue for county elections, this pattern almost certainly reflects the importance of an ability to mobilize support from local men, particularly given the transport problems already mentioned. In practice it had profound implications for the number of puritans, and ultimately parliamentarians, who were returned for the county seats.

In the Short Parliament the two seats were taken by Sir Thomas Pelham and his close friend Anthony Stapley I. Pelham was the pre-eminent godly gentleman in Sussex, with immense wealth and considerable local power. A deputy lieutenant, he married his son John Pelham to a daughter of Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester, while his political contacts beyond Sussex included his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Vane II*. He represented East Grinstead in 1621, and the county in 1624 and 1625, and in this period was instrumental in establishing the Lewes lecturership, held for a while by the controversial puritan preacher Anthony Lapthorne. Add. 33145, ff. 27v, 28v; HP Commons 1604-1629. His colleague in this Parliament was his kinsman, Stapley. E. Suss. RO, Glynde 108-9, 185; Suss. Manors, i. 180. Stapley had probably benefited from Pelham’s influence in securing seats at New Shoreham in 1625 and 1625, and Lewes in 1628. CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 299; E. Suss. RO, SAS/H/83; HP Commons 1604-1629. By the late 1630s, Stapley was a leading critic of the crown’s ecclesiastical policy, and one of those who refused to contribute to the first bishops’ war in 1639. Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 914; Nalson, Impartial Colln. i. 206. In January 1640 he was identified by recognised as a ringleader with James Rivers* and Harbert Hay* of a factious group of local puritans on the commission of the peace. CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 386-7.

While no evidence has emerged of rival candidates for the county seats in April 1640, Pelham and Stapley still spent £130 in Lewes entertaining the freeholders eligible to vote in the election. Add. 33145, f. 126. Stapley was sufficiently uncertain of success to stand also with Rivers for the borough of Lewes, where they were reported to have a ‘strong party’ against candidates recommended by the earl of Dorset and Lord Goring. SP16/442, f. 279v. Returned also elsewhere, Stapley opted for to sit for Sussex (16 Apr.), but neither he nor Pelham made any discernible impact on the brief parliamentary session. CJ ii. 3b.

Over the summer Pelham, a widower, made a prestigious second marriage which enhanced his standing still further, while Stapley gained further notoriety by promoting the indictment of a prominent Laudian cleric, Dr Richard Bayly, for a provocative sermon against the Reformation. Add. 5697, f. 265; Suss. Arch. Coll. ii. 99-101; Add. Ch. 29663; Add. Ch. 30710; Add. 33144, f. 86; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 520. It is not clear whether or not the two friends expected more opposition in the autumn elections, but their expenses were higher than in the spring (£193). Add. 33145, f. 132v; C219/42ii/27. Both were re-elected.

It was probably Pelham and Stapley who on 25 January 1641 presented the Sussex petition for ‘root and branch’ reform of church government; Stapley sponsored another in February 1642. Procs. LP ii. 272; Two Petitions of the Countie of Sussex (1641, E.134.35); PJ ii. 402, 448, 455; LJ iv. 591; CJ ii. 450b. With Sir Thomas Parker* and Pelham’s former ward Harbert Morley*, the pair were commissioned by Parliament in November 1642 to raise forces in the county. CJ ii. 857b. However, while Pelham and Stapley remained friends during the 1640s, they came to represent different strands of parliamentarianism, which were often at odds locally. Pelham, a political Presbyterian, who played no direct military role and whose activities centred on the commission of the peace, was, like Parker, criticised for half-hearted commitment. Fletcher, Suss. 28-31; Add. 33084, f. 78. He did not serve in Parliament after Pride’s Purge. Stapley, on the other hand, served as a parliamentarian officer, and a sometimes controversial governor of key Sussex garrisons. CJ ii. 515b, 523b, 589b,722a, 992b; iii. 156a, 162a, 173a, 182a, 212a, 362a, 368a, 389a, 401a, 403b, 616a; PJ iii. 476; A Perfect Diurnall no. 21 (31 Oct.-7 Nov. 1642), sig. V4 (E.242.5); HMC Portland, i. 156; Parliament Scout no. 29 (5-12 Jan. 1644), 249 (E.81.23); Mercurius Aulicus no. 54 (7-13 Jan. 1644), 774-5. Alongside Morley, he was a radical Independent member of the county committee; he ultimately served on the high court of justice to try the king, signed his death warrant, and continued in the Rump. Bodl. Tanner 60, ff. 251-5; Cent. Kent. Studs. U269/08/3; CJ vi. 103a, 107b, 110a, 113b; Muddiman, Trial, 76, 88, 96, 103, 195-228. Unlike Morley, having acquiesced in the eventual dissolution of the Rump in 1653, Stapley was a member of the select group which remained in London thereafter, ‘advising and consulting about settling the affairs of the nation’, and he served on the interim council of state. Clarke Pprs. iii. 2, 4; CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 333, 340, 402, 451; 1653-4, pp. 12, 14.

Stapley was one of three Sussex gentlemen nominated that summer to the Nominated Assembly by a process of selection which remains unclear. He was joined at Westminster by William Spence, a lawyer whose family had been parliamentarian activists and who himself had been associated with Stapley and Harbert Morley under the Rump. Despite his later connections to Congregational churches, the basis of his recommendation as a Member is unknown, although he was regarded as a radical supporter of legal reform, and an opponent of a maintained (state-funded) public preaching ministry. A Catalogue of the Names of the Members of the Last Parliament (1654, 669.f.19.3); TSP iv. 161; W.T. Whitley, Mins. of the Gen. Assoc. of the Gen. Baptist Churches in England (1909), i. 9. The third Member from Sussex was neither as prominent as Stapley, nor as radical as Spence. Nathaniel Studley*, whose roots were in Kent but who had been steadily acquiring property in Sussex, had been a regular attender at county committee meetings and had joined the commission of the peace under the commonwealth. CJ vi. 450a; SP28/181, unfol; SP28/246, unfol; SP28/343, unfol; E179/191/407; ASSI35/90/2; Suss. QSOB 1642-9, 146, 177, 179, 200; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW2, ff. 4v-46; Salzman, Town Bk. of Lewes, 74. Although considered by one contemporary commentator to have opposed the maintenance of a preaching ministry, he later served as one of the ‘ejectors’ – the laymen assisting the clergy examiners of preaching ministers – and accommodated himself to the protectorate. A Catalogue of the Names of the Members of the Last Parliament (1654); A. and O.

Under the terms of the Instrument of Government, Sussex was allotted nine county seats in the Parliaments of 1654 and 1656. In many ways the result of elections in 1654 represents a return to prominence of the dominant gentry families. Not only were Sir Thomas Pelham and Anthony Stapley I returned, but so too were their sons, John Pelham and John Stapley. Politically, it appears to have been a rebuff to the new protectorate government. Aside from Anthony Stapley I, whose attitude to that authority is not easy to fathom, the other three men most closely associated with Sussex republicanism, and with loyalty to the Rump – John Fagge, William Hay and Harbert Morley – all secured seats. There was also success for a different group opposed to Oliver Cromwell* – the old Presbyterians and crypto-royalists, who included, in addition to the Pelhams and John Stapley, Francis Lennard*, 14th Baron Dacre, and Stapley’s father-in-law, Harbert Springett. Dacre had been a prominent Presbyterian peer in the spring and summer of 1647, while Springett, an associate of the Pelhams and Sir Thomas Parker, had ceased to sit in the Long Parliament (for New Shoreham) after Pride’s Purge. CJ v. 135b, 138a; LJ ix. 127; Woolrych, Soldiers and Statesmen, 26-31, 44-54; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 709; CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 738-40; E. Suss. RO, Danny MS 170; Add. Ch. 30548-50; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 281-2; Suss. Arch. Coll. xx. 35-44; CSP Ire. Adv. 1642-59, p. 73; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 399.

Before Parliament assembled in the first week of September 1654, Sir Thomas Pelham died, but no new writ was ordered until 23 October. CJ vii. 377b; C219/44ii. Upon its return, Pelham’s godson, Sir Thomas Rivers, was elected in his place. Rivers was almost certainly supported by Harbert Morley, who raised his case in the House when, ostensibly on the technicality that the writ was dated after the beginning of the session, the clerk of the commonwealth refused to certify Rivers to the clerk of Parliament without the approval of the council of state. In fact, the council probably sought to prevent someone considered lukewarm towards the protectorate from taking his seat. However, at Morley's behest, Rivers was admitted by a Commons resolution on 2 December. CJ vii. 394a.

Similar influences may be detected in the elections for the 1656 Parliament, although there was a more strenuous effort by the ‘court’ to exercise its preferences through Major-general William Goffe*. Republican opposition to the protectorate was once again represented by the return of Harbert Morley, his close ally John Fagge and Sir Thomas Rivers. According to Goffe, Morley ‘ruled the roost, by the help of the disaffected party, much to the grief of the honest party’, and such men were determined ‘to have no soldier, decimator, or any man that hath salary [from the government]’. TSP,v. 341. Those with Presbyterian and royalist sympathies who were also re-elected included John Pelham (now second baronet), John Stapley, Sir Thomas Parker and Samuel Gott, the last two of whom had been excluded from Parliament in December 1648. More controversial than any of these was George Courthop, who was reported to have been active in organising the 1648 Sussex petition, calling for a lenient settlement with the king, and who was accused of having sent money to the king, and of using the proscribed Book of Common Prayer. Mercurius Politicus no. 324 (21-28 Aug. 1656), 7206 (E.497.12); no. 326 (4-11 Sept. 1656), 7235 (E.497.18); TSP v. 341, 382-3. The only ‘court’ candidate to be successful was Anthony Shirley, who had long been associated with godly families like the Pelhams and Stapleys. Despite the fact that he was a son-in-law of the troublesome Surrey grandee Sir Richard Onslow*, Shirley, who had been returned at Arundel in 1654, found favour with Goffe and perhaps consequently, disfavour with Morley and his allies. TSP iv. 161, 190; C231/6, p. 323; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW3, ff. 17, 18v; ASSI35/97/7. Goffe proposed Shirley as a candidate both in the county election and at Arundel, succeeding only in the former. TSP v. 341.

Although Goffe’s manoeuvrings around the county election were largely ineffective, the council used the powers which it held under the terms of the Instrument of Government to exclude individual Members from Parliament. Those prevented from sitting in the House as a result of this included Samuel Gott, George Courthop, Sir Thomas Rivers, John Fagge, and Harbert Morley. SP18/130, f. 46; Bodl. Tanner 52, f. 156; Whitelocke, Mems. (1853), iv. 274-80; OPH xxi. 16; A Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 4 (E.935.5). Although these men were prevented from taking their seats, the doubtful provenance of the letter of protest supposedly sent to Parliament by the excluded Members renders it difficult to establish the responses of those from Sussex. Bulstrode Whitelocke* recorded that all five men put their names to the protestation, but Morley and Fagge denied any personal involvement. Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 274-80; TSP v. 456, 490. Some of those excluded retired to their estates, while Gott considered subscribing the oath of loyalty to the protector before the second session of Parliament, so that he could take his seat; whether or not he resolved this dilemma is unknown. William Salt Lib. SMS 454/10.

Courthop faced not only exclusion, but also further punitive measures against him. Goffe told John Thurloe* that many ‘honest people’ were ‘very much troubled’ by Gott’s return, and forwarded a set of objections from local men, ‘that you would be pleased to consider whether the matter contained in the enclosed paper be sufficient (if proved) to keep him out of the Parliament'. Goffe also promised that ‘some honest men will article against Courthop, if they may be heard at the council’. TSP v. 341, 382-3. Courthop sought a trial to clear his name, confident that the council could not prove his contacts with Charles Stuart, even though these were ‘true as to the matter of fact’. Mems. of Sir George Courthop 1616-85 ed. C. S. Lomas (Cam. Misc. xi), 141-2. Although a date was set for such a hearing, subsequent delays enabled Courthop to mobilize support from prominent courtiers, and the case against him was eventually dropped. He was subsequently able to take his seat in Parliament, even if only because he was not physically prevented from entering the House. Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 143-5.

For the 1659 Parliament the traditional arrangement of two knights of the shire for each county pertained. John Fagge and Harbert Morley were returned as Members for Sussex, apparently without significant opposition. It seems that both men anticipated a contest, since both also sought election elsewhere. Fagge was also returned at Bramber and Horsham; he was allowed to take his seat, and he eventually opted to sit for the county. Morley was also returned at Lewes, although he too chose to sit as a knight of the shire. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/157/7; CJ vii. 601a, 602a.