In the seventeenth century Horsham, located on the river Arun and on the edge of St Leonard’s Forest, was one of the wealthiest and most prominent Sussex towns; as a centre of the Wealden iron industry, and as the nearest to London, it attracted merchants from the capital to its market. Its accessibility led to its becoming one of the main administrative centres in the county, providing a venue for both assizes and quarter sessions, as well as the home of the county gaol. D.E. Hurst, Hist. and Antiquities of Horsham (1889), 27, 158-65; VCH Suss. vi, pt. 2, pp. 130, 133. The town’s population seems to have been the largest of any in Sussex. In 1576 it was estimated that there were 1,500 ‘housling people’ in the parish, and a petition of 1643 also mentioned the same figure. W. Albery, Hist. of Horsham and Sussex (1947), 117; LJ v. 678b-679a. The town was recorded as having 165 hearth tax payers in 1664 and 196 in 1670, while the Compton census of 1676 recorded 3,000 conformists, papists and non-conformists. E179/258/14, ff. 1-3v, 37-v; E179/191/410/3, mm. 5d-7d; Compton Census, 145. Horsham’s assessment for Ship Money – £60 in 1637 – was exceeded only by Chichester and Lewes. CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 543.
Horsham was a pre-Conquest manor, enfranchised since the reign of Edward I. The right to vote lay in burgage holders, who paid rents directly to the lord of the manor; they traditionally numbered 52, but there were only 27 in 1628 and possibly 33 in 1650. According to a system of government confirmed by letters patent in 1617, the returning officers were the two bailiffs, chosen annually at the manorial court by the steward, who selected from four candidates presented by the burgesses. Arundel Castle, HO 2207, unfol; HO 2224. Since the lordship of the manor had long belonged to the Howard family, they had traditionally enjoyed a controlling interest in parliamentary elections, but that had been undermined by the attainder of the 4th duke of Norfolk in 1572 and although Thomas Howard, 21st or 14th earl of Arundel, bought others in his family out of the lordship in 1619, his subsequent absences abroad seem to have diluted his influence. Although MPs elected in the 1620s tended to have some kind of connection to his family, the return of John Middleton† to every Parliament between 1614 and 1628 seems attributable principally to his independent standing as a local ironmaster. HP Commons 1558-1603; HP Commons 1604-1629; ‘Thomas Howard, 14th earl of Arundel’, Oxford DNB.
This context – and perhaps also a reaction to the crypto-Catholicism of the Howards – allowed Horsham to become something of a puritan stronghold in the early seventeenth century. Edward Haughton, who held a lectureship, subsequently appears to have become a Fifth Monarchist. Fletcher, Suss. 72, 106; HMC Lords, 61; VCH Suss. ii. 36-9; B.S. Capp, Fifth Monarchy Men (1972), 50-1; E. Haughton, The Rise, Growth and Fall of Antichrist (1652, E.1286.1). A faction in the town was reluctant to implement Arminian-inspired reforms of the church. W. Suss. RO, Ep.i/26/2. In 1629 they contested the appointment of a new master for the town’s grammar school, customarily made on the nomination of the vicar and parishioners, with ratification from the Mercers’ Company. When the vicar, John Collins, recommended one Edmund Pierson, puritans in the parish objected, and sought instead the appointment of one Thomas Robinson. After a protracted dispute, involving petitions to the Company, Pierson resigned in favour of Robinson. VCH Suss. vi, pt. 1, p. 132; Al. Cant.; A.N. Wilson, Hist. of Collyer’s School (1965), 55-7.
In the spring elections in 1640 the Howard interest seems again to have been relatively weak. While doubtless the more acceptable to Arundel because of Catholic kin and associates, Thomas Middleton, like his deceased father John Middleton before him, appears to have owed his return to Parliament to his own local standing and record of public service; there is no evidence of the earl’s involvement. Middleton’s partner, Hall Ravenscroft, was a family friend, the son of a clerk of the peace, and a burgage holder in the borough. Albery, Horsham, 21. Ravenscroft’s grandfather had been a servant of the 4th duke of Norfolk, but the connection appears not to have been sustained. Ormerod, Cheshire, iii. 207-8; E. Suss. RO, SAS/DD/342 On the other hand, both Ravenscroft and Middleton were to demonstrate a willingness to advance the godly agenda.
Despite making no visible impact on the Parliament, the pair retained their seats in the autumn’s elections to what became the Long Parliament. For the next two years their respective contributions to its proceedings were negligible, but in the autumn of 1642 both signalled their support for the parliamentarian cause. On 19 December the Commons considered a petition from Horsham, to which both its Members were signatories, objecting to the royalism and the personal shortcomings of the vicar presented by Archbishop William Laud earlier in the year; they gave it a sympathetic hearing, but referred it on. PA, Main Pprs. 19 Dec. 1642; Add 5698, f. 196; LJ v. 498b-499a, 678b-679a; Walker Revised, 259. Laud, from his prison in the Tower, complained of the readiness of ‘that party of men to complain of all men who were not theirs in faction’, and the ‘ready admittance ... both they and their complaints [had] in both Houses’, and sought unsuccessfully to secure the appointment of his chaplain, William Brackstone. Laud, Works, iv. 13; LJ v. 515b; HMC 5th Rep. p. 62; PA, Main Pprs. 26 Dec. 1642. On 28 March 1643 the House of Lords resolved that the parishioners were ‘wholly destitute of their spiritual food’, and appointed nine of them, led by Middleton and Ravenscroft, to sequester the living and to provide for John Chatfield, a ‘godly and painful preacher’ who was already lecturing in the parish and who was the petitioners’ preferred candidate. LJ v. 678a-679b.
Thereafter, both Middleton and Ravenscroft were more active in county affairs than they were at Westminster. As a deputy lieutenant and member of the county committee, Middleton combined a high profile locally with political moderation, thus drawing the fire of the war party at Westminster. Accusations advanced in August 1644 that he had encouraged papists and delinquents, and discouraged resistance to royalist troops failed to unseat him, and he survived to become a central figure among Sussex Presbyterians. Bodl. Nalson XVI, no. 36; HMC Portland, i. 183. However, in June 1648 both he and his son signed the Sussex petition seeking a lenient settlement with the king, and both appear to have been involved in a rising at Horsham, for which the catalyst was probably the decision of the county committee to move the town’s magazine to Arundel, for fear of its seizure by malignants. W.D. Cooper, 'Royalist compositions in Suss. during the Civil War', Suss. Arch. Coll. xix. 108-10; SP46/104, ff. 24-6. As it was reported, ‘the townsmen and country would not consent but by parties watch it day and night, but at least they resolved to arm themselves and as they said, fight for King Charles’. The Resolution of His Highness and the Prince of Wales (1648), 3-4 (E.451.13). Although named by the Commons to assist in suppressing the revolt, two days later Middleton was called to attend the House, probably to answer for his conduct. CJ v. 614b, 615b. Arrested by the sequestration committee, he was summoned again in July, but no definitive action had been taken against him before he fell victim to Pride’s purge that December. CJ v. 638a, 640b; SP28/214, unfol.; E113/13. Meanwhile, Kentish troops under Sir Michael Livesay* sent to Horsham in June had quickly restored order. CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 145, 146, 169, 172; The Moderate Intelligencer no. 173 (6-13 July 1648), 1433 (E.452.28).
Since Ravenscroft, who had been somewhat more visible at Westminster in the mid-1640s, and who had pursued a middle course in politics, was also excluded at the purge, Horsham was unrepresented in the Rump. Like many boroughs, it was disenfranchised in the Nominated Parliament and under the Instrument of Government. In the 1650s, however, it became a focal point for the Quakers, attracting George Fox, who noted that in 1655 he attended ‘a great meeting’ at the house of Bryan Wilkinson. Figg, ‘Extracts, Quakers in Lewes’, 70-1; Jnl. of George Fox, i. 184, 246. Imprisoned, Wilkinson joined another Quaker, Thomas Leycock, who received many visitors, provoking Major-general William Goffe* to order William Freeman* to exclude them. TSP iv. 642; W. Suss. RO, QR/W84; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW3, f. 6. In June 1659 it was reported that Horsham had hosted a meeting of up to 5,000 Fifth Monarchists. CCSP iv. 220.
Horsham regained its right to send representatives to Westminster for the 1659 Parliament, although confusion surrounded the election. On 7 February it was reported to the Commons that writs had been issued without naming the bailiffs, whereupon three men had been returned by three indentures. The first of these, Henry Chowne*, Middleton’s son in law, was a merchant who was suspected of royalism, and who in 1658 had been approached to become involved in the plot organised by John Stapley*. TSP vii. 111. The second, William Freeman, was probably a candidate of the Cromwellian court, since he had earlier won the approval of Major-general Goffe. TSP iv. 208, 229. The third candidate was John Fagge*, the close friend and kinsman of Harbert Morley*, who doubtless represented those in the county who opposed the protectorate, and who favoured a civilian republican regime. E.Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/157/7. The election, in other words, reflected the wider struggle between the three most important factions in the county. The confusion prompted the Commons to declare the election void on 7 February, when new writs were ordered. CJ vii. 601a. The presence in the House of Henry Chowne on 1 April confirms that a second poll took place, but the identity of the second Member then returned is uncertain. CJ vii. 623a. Fagge had already opted to sit for the county, where he had also been chosen. Mercurius Politicus no. 553 (3-10 Feb. 1659), 222-3 (E.761.13); CJ vii. 601a, 602a; Burton’s Diary, iii. 203. This may – or may not – have cleared the way for the election of Chowne.
