Arundel’s importance lay in its advantageous defensive position on the edge of the South Downs, at the lowest crossing point of the wide tidal estuary of the Arun. Although a market town and, joined with Chichester, a port of some importance for the timber trade, it was, as William Camden recognised, ‘greater in fame than in fact’. The borough was always dominated by its castle, and as a consequence, by the Howards, earls of Arundel, who held the honour of Arundel, of which the castle, manor and borough were part. VCH Suss. v, pt. 1, 11-13, 63-6; Tierney, Hist. and Antiq. Arundel, i. 6, 30, ii. 720.
Arundel had been a seigniorial borough by prescription since the reign of Edward I. W.D. Cooper, Parl. Hist. Suss. (1834), 7. There was no charter, but the privileges were confirmed by letters patent in 1586. W. Suss. RO, ABA, I3. The earl of Arundel being then in the Tower, this exemplification represented the usurpation by the townsmen of some of the power traditionally held by the lord of the manor. They were granted certain liberties, including the right to elect the mayor and to nominate the small group of burgesses, who made up the close corporation and self-perpetuating oligarchy in which government thereafter lay. The mayor, who acted as returning officer, was elected annually at the court leet by a jury of 12 burgesses; those 13, together with a dozen other inhabitants nominated by the mayor, could select two parliamentary candidates, one of whom was elected by the commonalty. Tierney, Hist and Antiq. Arundel, ii. 692, 697-9, 703, 704, 709, 710; VCH Suss. v. pt. 1, 74; I. Mason, ‘Arundel borough’, Suss. Arch. Coll. cxxviii. 159-61. The franchise traditionally lay in the inhabitants at large, although in practice by the mid-seventeenth century it was exercised by those paying scot and lot. In 1642, 109 people were taxed to provide funds for a new bridge, while in 1676 the Compton census recorded a population of 400, including four papists and 50 non-conformists. W. Suss. RO, ABA, F2/14; VCH Suss. v. pt. 1, 83; Compton Census, 144.
The borough had sent two MPs to Westminster since 1295. VCH Suss. v. pt. 1, 83. The Howard family controlled both seats until 1624. Thereafter, with varying degrees of success and sometimes uncertain relation to Howard preferences, local gentry proposed candidates for one seat. In 1628 Thomas Howard, 21st and 14th earl of Arundel, secured the return of his eldest son, Henry Frederick Howard*, Lord Maltravers, who was only 19 years old, alongside John Alford*, son of a recent sheriff of Sussex. HP Commons 1604-1629.
Similar circumstances seem to have pertained in the spring of 1640. Maltravers was again returned, this time alongside Henry Goringe*. The latter, from a well-established gentry family, was an assiduous justice of the peace and of independent stature locally, but insofar as he does not appear to have clung to the godliness of his upbringing and the connections that went with it, may have been perfectly acceptable to Arundel. Following the elevation of Maltravers to the House of Lords before the parliamentary session even began, a writ for a by-election was ordered on 24 April. Henry Garton*, a rising Middle Temple lawyer with family roots in the borough, who was elected on 4 May, may have been nominated by Arundel. C231/5, p. 382; CJ ii. 10a; HMC 4th Rep. 26.
In the autumn elections of 1640, however, there was a contest which in time developed into a powerful onslaught on the earl’s hegemony. On the face of it, Garton was returned again, this time alongside Sir Edward Alford*, younger brother of John and (through marriage) a man of property outside Sussex – another man potentially acceptable to, and perhaps partially reliant upon, the goodwill of the Howards. But by 20 November a petition had been launched by – as it later transpired – Edward Sackville, younger son of Edward Sackville†, 4th earl of Dorset. This primarily affected Alford. Also returned on his family’s interest at Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, where a double return had emerged by 9 November, on the 20th Alford was granted additional time to consider his preference pending a decision on both disputes, during which, contrary to an initial ruling, he sat in the House. CJ ii. 22b, 32b; D’Ewes (C), 60. In January 1641 Sackville failed for the second time to appear before the Commons to present his case, whereupon the committee of privileges ‘cast out’ his petition, thereby apparently clearing the field at Arundel, but it was not until 6 August 1641 that a verdict came on Tewkesbury, and then the new election called there produced a second double return involving Alford. D’Ewes (C), 126; CJ ii. 133b, 230b, 239b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 248.
The new Tewkesbury dispute was still unresolved when on 29 October the death of Garton from plague at his Middle Temple chambers served to re-open the Arundel case. CJ iii. 352a-b; Harl. 382, f. 101; Reg. of Burials at the Temple Church, ed. H.G. Woods (1905), 5. On 1 November there was ‘some little discussion’: when Sir Thomas Bowyer*, a Sussex MP active on the privileges committee, moved for a writ for a by-election to replace Garton, ‘others’ countered by reviving the Sackville claim. D’Ewes (C), 60. After inconclusive debate the next day, on the 12th, following a report by John Maynard*, the Commons upheld the election of Garton and Alford, and ordered the issue of the writ. Alford then at last stood up to declare himself for Arundel, only to face objections by Sir Arthur Hesilrige* that, with the Tewkesbury verdict undelivered, he did not have the luxury of choice. That there were undercurrents hostile to Alford and to the Howard interest thought to be at his back, and that these were not confined to reformist leaders like Hesilrige, is suggested both by the contribution to the ensuing debate of Sir Simonds D’Ewes* and by what followed in the next few weeks. D’Ewes (C), 69, 126-7; CJ ii. 302b, 313a.
As preparations for the Arundel election got under way, on 6 December Oliver Cromwell* brought the attention of the Commons to letters sent to the borough by the earl of Arundel, seeking to exert influence, and asked that the Speaker would counter this by despatching a letter requesting voters ‘to make a free election’. Once again, the moderate D’Ewes backed this up by talk of ‘a simony of favour’ and corruption ‘by a great man’s letter as well as by a bribe’. D’Ewes (C), 236. In response, the House appointed a committee to consider election abuses, particularly at Arundel, and to draw an order for preventing them in future. CJ ii. 333a; D’Ewes (C), 236-7. As revealed by Cromwell’s report four days later, in response to Arundel’s attempt to nominate his secretary, Nicholas Harman, the committee had drafted an order to prevent ‘that election and all others of the same kind’; after a few amendments, the order forbidding such influence was passed. D’Ewes (C), 260; CJ ii. 337b; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 206; 1640-1, p. 34.
Notwithstanding this, the Arundel election proceeded on 20 December with Harman still in the frame. On 28 December ‘Mr White’ – given previous conflict, more likely John White I*, MP for Rye and secretary to the earl of Dorset, than the Southwark puritan John White II* – advised the House that two indentures had reached the clerk of the crown. The first, under the common seal, and returned by the mayor, James Morris, designated John Downes – duchy of Cornwall official and future regicide – as having been elected, while the second, returned by others of the borough, indicated the choice of Harman. D’Ewes argued that the Commons ‘might observe the old course of Parliaments, and take no notice of any indenture but that which is returned by the mayor of the town under the common seal’. D’Ewes (C), 355-6. The Commons ordered the clerk of the crown to deliver both indentures to the House the following morning, but in a context of severe political tension the matter did not resurface for over a fortnight. CJ ii. 359a. On 15 January 1642 several leading reforming MPs rallied to support Downes, whose local support probably signified a notable shift towards puritan dominance in the borough. Mason, ‘Arundel borough’, 161-3. Sir Gilbert Gerard* successfully moved that Downes should sit until the election was determined; Sir Robert Harley’s* proposal that the clerk of the crown should remove the other return was rejected; the House accepted Sir Walter Erle’s* suggestion that the sheriff of Sussex should be summoned to amend the return at the bar. PJ i. 80, 87; CJ ii. 380b.
Even that did not conclude the matter. A petition from Harman was read on 24 January 1642. CJ ii. 390b. The sheriff of Sussex finally appeared on 11 February and amended the election indenture, presumably verifying the return of Downes. PJ i. 349; CJ ii. 425a. But Miles Corbett* raised the matter again on 16 June, possibly in response to a legal suit against the mayor, which may have been brought by Harman and his supporters. PJ iii. 88. Initially the Commons resolved that the committee for privileges be revived in order to reconsider Downes’s election, but the next day, following a procedural objection raised by William Strode I*, it was decided that the matter should be decided only when the committee had considered the other cases before it. CJ ii. 628a, 630b; PJ iii. pp. xxi, 96. There are no further references to the case, although Downes remained in the Commons, where he represented the borough until the dissolution of the Rump in 1653, after which he informed the borough that he had opted to forego his wages as the town’s MP. W. Suss. RO, MP1926, f. 66.
During the civil war Arundel became a focal point for military activity. In 1642 Parliament removed its notorious minister, Thomas Heyney, branded as a ‘malignant priest’, and vilified in John White I’s ‘century’ of scandalous ministers. Sawyer, ‘Procs. CPM Suss.’, Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxvi. 138-9. That December, the ease with which a small force under Sir William Waller* secured the town suggests the townsmen’s sympathy for Parliament. VCH Suss. v. pt. 1, 17; J. Vicars, Jehovah Jireh (1644), 231. The town and garrison surrendered to royalist troops in early December 1643, however, despite the efforts of Edward Apsley*, James Temple* and Harbert Morley* to muster resistance to the forces of Sir Ralph Hopton*. Unsurprisingly, the king appointed former MP Lord Mowbray as governor, but it is not clear whether he took up his post before the town was recaptured by Parliament. On 20 December royalist commander Sir Edward Forde retreated to the castle in the face of Waller’s troops, and withstood little more than two weeks of siege before surrendering. Blauw, ‘Passages of the Civil War in Suss.’, 56-63; OPH xiii. 15-16; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 509; LJ vi. 370a-b; VCH Suss. v. pt. 1, 17. Following Waller’s success, Parliament quickly sought to provide the garrison with supplies and a new governor (William Morley, Harbert’s brother), and to consider claims from inhabitants whose property had been damaged during the siege. CSP Dom. 1644, p. 26; W. Suss. RO, ABA, M9; Tierney, Hist. and Antiq. Arundel, ii. 714-15.
On 22 January 1644 Arundel lost one of its Members, Sir Edward Alford, who was disabled for having gone to Oxford and sat in the Parliament there. After the usual delay, a new writ was issued for an election at Arundel on 12 September 1645. CJ iv. 263a; C231/6, p. 19. By this stage there was no possibility of viable Howard influence, with most family members not only recusants and delinquents but also living in exile. By 10 October, Harbert Hay* had been elected, either on the interest of moderate Presbyterians in the county like Sir Thomas Pelham* and Sir Thomas Parker*, or as a compromise candidate, acceptable also to the Independents. Perfect Passages no. 51 (8-15 Oct. 1645), 404 (E.266.2); C219/43ii/133.
It may have been Hay and John Downes who sought to establish the powers of the borough more firmly through a charter, plans for which were first hatched in 1645. Mason, ‘Arundel borough’, 169. However, it was not until the period of the Rump – in which Hay did not sit – that a petition from the borough of Arundel seeking a review of its charter and confirmation of its privileges was referred to the committee for corporations (19 Mar. 1650). Several Proceedings in Parliament no. 25 (14-21 Mar. 1650), 355 (E.534.20); CJ vi. 384a. The outcome is uncertain. In April Charles Chute told the earl of Arundel about the desire of the mayor and burgesses to be a free corporation. He claimed that
this petition will be signed by some of your lordship’s good tenants for fear of the lash. But they humbly crave your lordship’s pardon therein, deeply protesting to me that they desire no such thing. And further say that the mayor and burgesses have forfeited their charter and that your lordship may therefore justly resume again your land given them by your lordship’s ancestors.
Chute counselled delay rather than confrontation, however, since the earl needed assistance from some of the petitioners regarding other borough business. Arundel, Misc. Corr. C 4. It is possible that this pressure for a charter coincided with, and was intended to offset, an attempt to reduce the power of the borough’s largely parliamentarian oligarchy, since it was claimed during the protectorate that 1650 saw the introduction of a new method of electing burgesses, whereby the final decisions were made by the commoners of the town rather than the cabal of mayor and burgesses. W. Suss. RO, ABA, L3. The gradual restoration of the Howard influence in the borough was reflected in uncertainty surrounding the status of the town’s garrison. Despite its having been used in 1651 to house such high-profile prisoners as Sir John Clotworthy* and Sir William Lewis*, plans were drawn up for its removal, which in 1653 resulted in the castle being returned to Henry Howard (son of the recently-deceased former Lord Mowbray, who had become 22nd earl of Arundel, and younger brother of Thomas, the absent and incapacitated 23rd earl). CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 358, 362; 1653-4, pp. 191, 256-7, 432; VCH Suss. v. pt. 1, 17.
The bill for the dissolution of the Long Parliament, discussed in the last weeks of the Rump, included a clause reducing the borough’s representation to a single member. CJ vii. 270b. This was confirmed by the terms of the Instrument of Government. In the 1654 Parliament Arundel was represented by Anthony Shirley*. Although his father-in-law was Surrey grandee Sir Richard Onslow*, a thorn in the protectorate government’s side, there is evidence that a few months later he was well-regarded by the Cromwellian court, and he may have enjoyed its support previously. TSP iv. 161. In 1656, however, opponents of Cromwell and his agent in Sussex, Major-general William Goffe*, were more clearly at work. In an attempt to counter the influence of disgruntled Rumper Harbert Morley, Goffe – as he revealed to John Thurloe* on 23 August – was working to have Shirley returned as a knight of the shire, and to place one of his loyal allies, Captain William Freeman*, at Arundel. He was successful in the first aim, but failed at Arundel, where Morley secured the seat for his father-in-law, Sir John Trevor I*. TSP v. 341.
The Parliament of Richard Cromwell* in 1659 saw the restoration both of Arundel as a two-Member constituency and of the influence of the Howard family. The inhabitants sought assistance from Henry Howard to resolve the confusion surrounding the election of burgesses, as a result of which it was agreed to adopt the new method introduced in 1650. W. Suss. RO, ABA, L3; Mason, ‘Arundel borough’, 169-70. They also asked Howard to nominate candidates for Parliament. Arundel, A262, f. 36. One of those subsequently elected, Richard Marriott*, was a steward or receiver for portions of the Howard estate. The other, Henry Onslow, was doubtless returned primarily on the interest of his father, Sir Richard Onslow, but inasmuch as Sir Richard had longstanding connections with the Howards, they may have found him acceptable.
