Situated on the River Rother in north-west Sussex, some six miles west of Petworth, the seat of the Percys, earls of Northumberland, Midhurst was a borough by prescription, which had first returned Members in 1301, and which traditionally fell under the influence of the Brownes, Viscounts Montagu of Cowdray, the county’s most prominent Catholic dynasty. The family’s steward nominated the borough’s jury at the annual meeting of the capital court baron, which in turn elected the bailiffs, the senior of whom acted as returning officer. The right of election lay in the burgage holders, of whom there were 93 in the late seventeenth century. A.A. Dibben, The Cowdray Archives (1960), i. pp. xix-xx; W.D. Cooper, ‘Midhurst’, Suss. Arch. Coll. xx. 20-21; W. Suss. RO, Cowdray 1958. Perhaps because of the Browne influence, the town was something of a haven for recusants. In 1621, 40 households were recorded as containing recusants, and when subscriptions to the Protestation were taken in February 1642, 210 males signed, but a further 54 recusants refused to take the oath, although 35 of these agreed to do so later. VCH Suss. iv. 76; HMC 3rd Rep. 277; West Suss. Protestation Returns, 125-8. In 1676, furthermore, the Compton census recorded not only 341 conformists but also 56 papists and 50 non-conformists, revealing a strong puritan presence. Compton Census, 143. This had earlier been represented by the town’s minister from 1615 to 1633, William Greenhill, who subsequently became a prominent congregational minister at Stepney and in the Westminster Assembly of Divines. ‘William Greenhill’, Oxford DNB.
Since Francis Browne, 3rd Viscount Montagu, was a recusant, his influence at parliamentary elections was necessarily discreet; ostensibly, ill-health curbed any engagement in public affairs. CP. It is difficult to say what part, if any, he took in the return of Thomas May* and Robert Long I* to the Short Parliament in spring 1640. May, however, came from a rising gentry family from west Sussex with court connections, and was brother-in-law to Christopher Lewkenor*, who had held a Midhurst seat in 1628 and who was close to the Brownes. C193/13/2; C231/5, p. 265; ASSI35/80/9; ASSI35/82/4; ASSI35/82/5; ASSI35/83/6; ASSI35/84/8; SP16/382, f. 182; SP16/386, f. 224; SP16/393, f. 87; SP16/395, f. 228; SP16/425, f. 217. Long, who had no previous connection with the borough or with the county, was a gentleman of the bedchamber and surveyor to Queen Henrietta Maria, which may have neutralized for the Brownes the fact that he was also a receiver for recusancy fines. LC5/132, p. 308; LC3/1, unfol.; T56/8, p. 196; C66/2427/19; CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 35; 1638-9, pp. 273, 419; 1639, p. 119; Strafforde Letters, ii. 149, 152.
The autumn elections for what became the Long Parliament gave rise to a dispute. It is not clear if Long stood again, but three other candidates were recognized at Westminster. On 6 January 1641 suspicion of irregularities at the poll led the Commons to rule that Thomas May and also Richard Chaworth, who had been returned by the bailiff, could sit pending further investigation, but that William Cawley I, who had been returned only by the burgage holders, for the time being could not. CJ ii. 63b. May had presumably stood on his record and connections. Chaworth, a civil lawyer who was diocesan chancellor for both Bishop William Juxon of London (the lord treasurer) and Bishop Brian Duppa of Chichester, was a candidate plausibly linked to the court and to the Arminian wing of the church. Recs. of the Diocese of Chichester (Chichester, 1962), i. 239; Acts Dean and Chapter Chichester, 265-6; W. Suss. RO, Ep.I/55/1, 19, 21, 22, 24; Al. Ox. On 1 February, the only occasion on which his presence at Westminster was recorded, ‘fiery spirits’ questioned whether those, like him, who had taken the oath associated with the new ecclesiastical Canons, were eligible to sit in the House. Chaworth confessed to having taken the oath, and asked to be allowed to remain in the chamber, but was expelled from the House when on 15 February the House resolved to accept Cawley’s case. Procs. LP ii. 333, 336, 451, 453; CJ ii. 86a. The bailiff of Midhurst was instructed to amend the return accordingly. CJ ii. 89b. Although Cawley was later to be a regicide, and had opposed forced billeting in the 1620s and Ship Money in the 1630s, his circle of friends included several local gentlemen who were to be royalists, among them Christopher Lewknor, who may have contributed to his return at Midhurst. W. Suss. RO, Harris MS 394; Add. MSS 13462-4; Goodwood MS E710; CCC 834; Suss. Manors, i. 14; C54/3985/2. The puritans who were behind the successful call for the appointment of one John Roe to be minister at Midhurst in September 1642 may also have supported Cawley. CJ ii. 750b.
At the outbreak of civil war, Cawley and May took divergent paths. Cawley rapidly emerged as one of Parliament’s keenest supporters in Sussex, and it was his report to the Speaker on the capture of Chichester for the king in November 1642 which revealed May’s participation in the royalist plot. On 23 November, May was duly disabled from sitting further in Parliament. CJ ii. 860b; C231/6, p. 19; HMC Portland, i. 72-4; Add. 18777, ff. 68v, 127. When the city fell to parliamentarian forces under Sir William Waller* in December 1642, May and Lewkenor were among prisoners sent to London. The latest printed newes (22 Dec. 1642), 2 (E.83.8); England's Memorable Accidents (26 Dec. 1642-2 Jan. 1643), 134 (E.244.34); SP23/176, p. 201. No move was made to issue a warrant for the election of a replacement for May until September 1645, upon which Sir Gregory Norton* was returned, by 10 October. CJ iv. 271b, 326a; Perfect Passages no. 51 (8-15 Oct. 1645), 403 (E.266.2). Although a former gentleman-pensioner, Norton supported Parliament during the civil war, and had been appointed receiver at Midhurst and Chichester in September 1642. E407/1/49; PA, Main pprs. 10 Jan. 1632. His connection with Sussex stemmed from his marriage in 1620, but his roots and many of his interests lay elsewhere. Suss. Manors, i. 126; Bodl. Rawl. A 246, f. 111v; Coventry Docquets, 610; LJ vi. 643b-44a, 663a; CJ iii. 568a, 580a; Merritt, Westminster, 158-9. Norton was a friend and close associate in Westminster local government of radicals like Humphrey Edwardes*, another former gentleman pensioner, and his election at Midhurst was probably secured by the ‘war party’ on the Sussex county committee, and by his promise to secure a renewal of the borough’s charter. W. Suss. RO, Cowdray 28. By this time the influence of Viscount Montagu, who since the outbreak of war had spent much time on the continent, was virtually extinct and his estate was subject to sequestration. Fletcher, Suss. 284. The Independency of Norton and Cawley meant that Midhurst was represented under the Rump. During the protectorate, however, Midhurst was disenfranchised under the terms of the Instrument of Government. When parliamentary representation was restored for elections in 1659, so too was the influence of the Browne family, to a greater or lesser extent. One of those returned was William Yalden*, a local man whose father had served in the household of the 2nd Viscount Montagu and purchased land from the 3rd viscount. CCC 2543-4; SP23/105, p. 515; E. Suss. RO, SAS/BA/81; W. Suss. RO, Add. 14461. Yalden senior was a trustee of the latter’s estates, and both father and son had done their utmost to salvage them from sequestration. W. Suss. RO, Cowdray 86, 4468-72; E. Suss. RO, SAS/BA/95, 105; C54/2946/3; CCC 2543, 2633; SP23/11, f. 148; SP23/105, pp. 515, 517, 521; SP23/135, pp. 9, 12, 19, 23, 41, 43. From 1655 the latter began to take on public office, but it may have been as a covert royalist that he gained his parliamentary seat. C181/6, p. 107; C231/6, p. 370; C193/13/5, 6; ASSI35/98/10; ASSI35/99/9, 10; ASSI35/100/6; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW3, ff. 49, 59, 70v.
The lack of an indenture relating to the second seat and the absence of attendances in the parliamentary record make it difficult to determine who was elected. OPH xxi. 256. Initial reports suggested that the borough returned John Humfrey, quite possibly the man who found a seat at Bridgnorth, although there is no more evidence to confirm that. Mercurius Politicus no. 550 (13-20 Jan. 1659), 176 (E.761.6). Otherwise, the successful candidate has been identified as Benjamin Weston*, who had sat for Dover in the Long Parliament and, eventually, the Rump. A younger son of Richard Weston†, 1st earl of Portland, he had been reared in a family of Catholics and had a Catholic son-in-law, on whose behalf he had recently been active. CB; CCC 2171, 2370-1. Although he had supported Parliament during the civil war, and had even been nominated as a commissioner for the trial of Charles I, he was also an executor to Jane, Dowager Countess Montagu, whose lands he had endeavoured to protect in the early 1650s. CCC 2544. If Weston was returned, then it seems likely to have been a further example of the Browne family interest at work.
