Rye

In the sixteenth century Rye, situated at the end of a tidal bay formed by the estuaries of the rivers Brede, Tillingham and Rother, and on a promontory on the edge of Romney Marsh, was the wealthiest Sussex town. By the 1570s it was the most important port on the south coast, and among the ten most important in the country, approximately as busy as Bristol. Its trade, dominated by the fishing industry, was undertaken with many European trading centres, especially those along the Channel. Its population may have peaked at between 4,000 and 5,000, although the number of inhabitants fell sharply with the rapid decline in trade during the 1590s, which arose partly from the silting up of the haven. G. Mayhew, Tudor Rye (1987), 11-27, 233-69. Rye displayed less parochialism than other Sussex towns, its awareness of national affairs aided by its proximity to London and its role as a point of embarkation for foreign diplomats, and soldiers travelling to Europe. The arrival of European religious refugees may help explain why Rye became a focal point for early English Protestantism. Mayhew, Tudor Rye, 50-1, 55-90.

Rye obtained a charter in the twelfth century, and was added to the Cinque Ports during the reign of Henry III. It was governed by a mayor (who was elected annually by the freemen), up to 12 jurats (who were in theory, if not in practice, chosen by the mayor), and an assembly of the resident freemen. The town clerk was elected annually by the mayor, jurats and commons. Mayhew, Tudor Rye, 92, 96-7. The right of election lay in the freemen, of whom only 33 were recorded as having voted in 1640, out of a population which included as many as 1,200 communicants in 1646. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/133, unfol.; F.A. Inderwick, ‘Rye under the Commonwealth’, Suss. Arch. Colls. xxxix. 9. In the early decades of the seventeenth century the incumbent lord warden had regularly exercised influence, although usually in order to effect the return of only one of the two ‘barons’, the title which those elected for the Cinque Ports were allowed to adopt. HP Commons 1604-1629.

Amid the court’s intensive campaign and in the clamour for places for the first Parliament in 11 years, there were nine candidates at Rye in the spring of 1640, six of whom were nominees of court officials or peers. The lord warden, the 1st earl of Suffolk (Theophilus Howard†), declared his intention to nominate in early December 1639. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/131/2. Later that month he recommended his 18-year-old younger son, Thomas Howard†, ‘wherein I request no more than you have freely done to my predecessors’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/131/4. On 8 February 1640, however, Suffolk wrote on behalf of his ‘very good friend’ Robert Reade*, who was also nominated by his uncle, the secretary of state Sir Francis Windebanke*, ‘in respect of his integrity and good affections to the public’, and by Sir John Manwood*, lieutenant of Dover Castle and an influential figure in the Cinque Ports. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/131/10, 11, 14. Suffolk may also have given indirect support for at least one other candidate, Sir Walter Roberts, bt. of Glassenbury in Cranbrooke, Kent. Roberts wrote to the town in mid-December on his own behalf, claiming that the earl ‘wished me to write to you about it’, even though he had already backed someone else. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/131/3; CB.

On 28 February 1640, the 4th earl of Dorset (Sir Edward Sackville†) explained to the town that he had initially intended to nominate Sir John Sackville†, a cousin, who owned the rectory and advowson and had represented the borough in 1625 and 1626, but had had to change his plans, ‘since [Sir John’s] occasions are such he cannot [stand] without much prejudice to his fortune’. Instead, Dorset nominated his secretary and kinsman, John White I*, who was Sir John’s brother-in-law, and who came from a minor Sussex gentry family. Dorset had also nominated White for a place at East Grinstead. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/131/13. Meanwhile, the lord high admiral, Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, nominated Sir Nicholas Selwin of Preston, a member of the band of gentlemen pensioners, because of his ‘relation to marine affairs’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/131/7.

Among those who sought candidacy without patronage was Laurence Ashburnham, whose seat, at Guestling, was only five miles away. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/131/5. Another was Thomas Digges of Barham in Kent, who evidently relied upon the reputation of his father, Sir Dudley Digges†, a prominent MP in the 1620s and master of the rolls, although he was realistic enough to appreciate that he was ‘like to be overborne by many powerful competitors’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/131/6. The final candidate to nominate himself was Sir John Culpeper, who soon had to try and clear himself of ‘a jealousy’ that he intended to secure the seat in order to advance his own business interests in the area. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/131/8, 47/132, unfol.

At the election on 22 March 1640, the freemen rejected the candidates proposed by the lord warden, but did not entirely reject the influence of courtiers, returning John White, thereby reinforcing the Sackville family interest. However, the other baron’s place went to Culpeper, who had nominated himself. Both men were present at the election, and both took the oath of a freeman. E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/12, f. 349. White was also returned at East Grinstead, but on 16 April opted to sit for Rye, albeit without dropping his claims to the former. CJ ii. 3b.

The death of Suffolk on 3 June somewhat altered the sources of patronage in the election for the Long Parliament. Reade found no support forthcoming from the new lord warden, James Stuart, duke of Richmond and Lennox. Reade, a controversial figure, discovered from Richmond’s secretary that the duke, ‘infinitely importuned for places in this next Parliament’, had commanded his servant ‘to write his letters for such as he then thought of, that they might be answers to all other suitors’. ‘My Lord’, said the secretary, ‘has written to every corporate town for one, and I know not whether his power will extend to more, but if your friends there believe it will, you shall be sure of my service’. CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 121. It transpired that Richmond had recommended Sir John Jacob*, a prominent merchant, monopolist and crown financier, who sought support from Rye on his own behalf. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/133, unfol. The earl of Dorset once again recommended John White. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/133, unfol.

The candidacy of two other men who stood for election, John Fagge and William Hay*, suggests that this time the election was fought along political and religious lines. While both White and Jacob would become royalists, Fagge and Hay were puritans and future parliamentarians. Fagge was a prominent local merchant, with evident godly leanings, who, having recently been made a jurat, sought to become the first member of the corporation to secure a seat at Rye since 1604. W. Suss. RO, Wiston 5048, 1294, 2252, 4762-3; E. Suss. RO, Glynde 191; Rye 1/13, f. 4v. Moreover, he was related by marriage to Harbert Morley*, who would become one of the county’s leading parliamentarian magnates, as well as to his fellow candidate, Hay, a family friend and subsequently a close political ally of Morley. Indeed, this election at Rye may be the first manifestation of Morley’s political powerbase, which subsequently became effective both in Sussex and in Parliament.

However, at the poll held on 20 October 1640 Jacob and White were chosen. E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/12, f. 6. The survival of a poll list reveals that John White safely won the first seat, with 24 votes, and that Jacob secured the second place with the support of 17 freemen; Hay and Fagge received 15 and 11 votes respectively. Since each freeman had two votes, it is possible to show that the pairing of Jacob and White was by far the most popular, with 14 votes. Beyond that the picture is less clear. Three men voted for Jacob and Hay, four for Hay and White, and four for Fagge and White. However, since the second most popular ‘ticket’ – receiving six votes – was that which combined Fagge and Hay, at least some degree of polarisation may be detected between future royalism and parliamentarianism in the town. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/133, unfol.

In this context, and with only two votes separating Hay and Jacob, it was perhaps unsurprising that the announcement of the result was followed by a dispute, based upon a petition from Hay. On 13 November the mayor, Richard Cockram, noted – and rejected – Hay’s contention that names recorded for Jacob included men who had not been present at the election. Hay claimed that the freemen elected himself and White, but that the mayor and jurats, ‘not being pleased with the said election would not join in the same but protracted the time’. Hay said that he had received 13 votes to Jacob’s three, but that the town clerk, Samuel Lansdale, ‘did invent and put in practice a new way for the choosing of burgesses never before that time used in that place’, namely a system whereby each freeman named two men. Furthermore, Lansdale, ‘wilfully set down the names of divers [men] for the said Sir John Jacob whom he knew were not then present’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/133, unfol.

It is not clear whether Hay’s petition was ever sent to Parliament. Nevertheless, Jacob was quickly removed from the Commons as a monopolist, whereupon a new writ for a by-election was ordered (21 Jan. 1641). CJ ii. 71a. Once again there was a scramble for places, and the duke of Richmond quickly nominated Sir William Hicks*, although he was clearly defensive about doing so. Hicks himself explained to the mayor and jurats of Rye that Richmond was ‘not a little troubled that those things should come in against him [Jacob] in Parliament, the rather for that you were pleased to elect him upon his lordship’s letter’. Furthermore, Hicks drew attention to the fact that ‘his lordship hath been pleased to favour me with his recommendation (to your town) who have no relation to court, neither ever had any hand in project or patent’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/133, unfol. Hicks, who hailed from Gloucestershire and who had represented Great Marlow in the Short Parliament, was evidently a stranger to Rye, and sought to secure his election by also presenting letters of recommendation from the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†). E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/133, unfol. With one client successfully placed the previous autumn, the earl of Dorset did not propose another for the second place, although a further nomination arrived from a different source, the Kentish knight Sir Edward Dering*. Dering informed the mayor and jurats that, ‘the House of Parliament having discharged one of the barons for your port of Rye, it is in your power now to make a better choice’. Stating that he had, ‘no ends in my letter but public ones’, Dering recommended Sir William Waller*, the future parliamentarian army commander, who had represented Andover in the Short Parliament and who again had no visible connection with Rye. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/133, unfol. Recent experience may have convinced the freemen to reject both ‘carpetbaggers’ and nominees of the lord warden. Instead, they chose William Hay, who was elected and took the freeman’s oath on 1 February. E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/13, f. 15v.

On 3 September 1645 the Commons resolved to issue a new writ for an election at Rye, to replace White, who had been disabled from sitting in the Commons, having joined the king at Oxford and sat in the Oxford Parliament. CJ iv. 263a. Even before this order was passed, however, the earl of Warwick wrote to the townsmen recommending a candidate. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/138/1. In December 1643 Warwick had replaced the earl of Northumberland as lord high admiral, and shortly afterwards he had been entrusted with the powers of the lord warden. LJ vi. 330a-b; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 477; 1644, p. 165; CJ iii. 323a. Even though both positions had been placed in commission in April 1645, following the passing of the Self-Denying Ordinance, and the powers attached granted to a committee of Lords and Commons, of whom Warwick was but one, the recommendation to Rye was probably his own. CJ iv. 111b-112a. His preferred candidate was Dr John Bastwick, the puritan ‘martyr’ of the 1630s, and a leading and controversial Presbyterian figure in the 1640s, who would almost certainly not have been approved by some of the other commissioners. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/138/1; J. Lilburne, Innocency and Truth (1645), 8 (E.314.21).

In the election on 1 October 1645, however, Warwick proved no more successful than his predecessor had been in 1641. Bastwick was defeated by a local man, John Fagge* junior, son of the unsuccessful candidate of 1640, who had then twice been mayor before his death in July 1645. E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/13, ff. 4v, 6, 6v, 15v, 45, 45v, 46, 54v, 55, 57; 47/136, unfol.; 47/140, unfol. Fagge junior, only 17 years old, had attended the godly Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and was a ward of Harbert Morley and of William Hay, who was still occupying the other borough seat. W. Suss. RO, Wiston 1294, 2252, 4762-3, 5048; E. Suss. RO, Glynde 191. It was undoubtedly through their efforts that Fagge was returned. Hay was a freeman and was present at the election. E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/13, f. 158. Both Hay and Morley had been in frequent contact with the leading townsmen in the recent past and Hay’s service to the town had been commended by the mayor. E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/13, f. 197; 1/14, f. 37v; 47/135/1-3, 6; 47/136, unfol.; 47/137, unfol.; 47/133, unfol.

Rye provided infertile soil for royalism throughout the civil wars and commonwealth, although only 168 men subscribed the Engagement on 6 March 1650. F.A. Inderwick, ‘The Rye Engagement’, Suss. Arch. Colls. xxxix. 16-27. By the terms of the Instrument of Government (16 Dec. 1653), Rye, like many other boroughs, was reduced to only one baron’s place in Parliament. A. and O. Elections for the first protectorate Parliament (3 Sept. 1654) were announced in the first week of June and the writ, signed by John Lambert*, John Disbrow* and Robert Blake*, who were soon to be styled lords warden of the Cinque Ports, was issued on 6 July. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/149/10, 47/150, unfol.; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 241; 1655-6, p. 138. Harbert Morley, who had been a prominent Rumper, but who was opposed to the new regime, may have regarded the seat as an alternative, should he fail to obtain one of the nine places available as knights of the shire. On 7 July he was duly returned with 16 of the 17 votes cast, although he was not present. C219/44iii; E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/14, f. 126; 47/150, unfol. The vote of the mayor, William Burwash, went to Nathaniel Powell, a prominent local iron master, who had long-standing ties to the royalist Tufton family, earls of Thanet, as well as to Morley. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/148, unfol.

In writing to inform Morley of his success, Burwash adduced the electors’ ‘high esteem of your honour and presumption of your acceptance’, to which Morley replied declaring ‘his acceptance of that employment he had been elected to by this corporation’, and adding that ‘as touching his oath of a baron of the ports he would send a further notice’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/149/12; 1/14, f. 127. On 11 July he further acknowledged the ‘great honour that you deem me capable of such a service’; protesting that ‘I so well know my own inability and how unfit I am for an employment of that consequence if I might fairly deny to answer your expectations’, he nevertheless accepted because he had been chosen, ‘without my seeking or solicitation’ and hoped ‘that we all may be frequent in prayer to almighty God that he would to assist me with the grain of his holy spirits that I may be qualified for this great work’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/149/13. Yet two days later, following the county election on 12 July, Morley wrote again to the mayor and jurats of Rye, confirming that he had been chosen as a knight of the shire, ‘so that it will be expected I should wave the election of your town, which I do most unwillingly’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/149/14. He went ahead and took the oath as a ‘baron of the ports’ on 18 July, but then decided finally to accept the county seat. E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/14, ff. 127v-28; 47/150, unfol.

This necessitated a new election at Rye. Almost immediately, Thomas Kelsey*, governor of Dover Castle, recommended Thomas St Nicholas*, steward of chancery in the Cinque Ports, being ‘fully assured’ of his ‘undoubted integrity and ability’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/149/15. St Nicholas had been one of the leading radicals in the Nominated Assembly, although he accepted the protectorate, and became recorder of Canterbury. Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 188-9. However, the instruction for a new election was not made until late October, and the writ itself was not issued until 17 November. CJ vii. 377b; E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/151/3. Twelve days later Nathaniel Powell was unanimously elected; whether or not this was with Morley’s support is unclear. E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/14, ff. 150-51; 47/152, unfol. The mayor informed Powell of his election on 29 November, and the latter took the oath of a freeman on 7 December, but there ensued some confusion over the return of the writ and indenture. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/151/5; 1/14, f. 153. Powell evidently held the writ, but a complaint from the authorities in Dover Castle compelled the mayor to ask him to return it, admitting that the borough had committed an error in not having done so themselves. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/152, unfol.

During the elections for the 1656 Parliament, the advancement of a ‘court’ nominee appears to have been shared between Lambert, Disbrowe and Blake, and Thomas Kelsey, now major-general for Kent and Surrey. Following the receipt of instructions dated 10 July, the three lords warden issued the writ on 24 July, although it was Kelsey who wrote to the mayor and jurats recommending Edward Hopkins*, a former merchant and colonial governor who was a commissioner for the admiralty and navy, and ‘who in reference to that trust hath the advantage of doing much good to your port’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/153/3, 24; 1/14, f. 207; ‘Edward Hopkins’, Oxford DNB. Harbert Morley, however, proposed his kinsman and political ally William Hay, noting that ‘he hath formerly been employed by you in a service of the like nature, and performed that trust with a great ability and integrity’, as was ‘well-known’ to the town; if they chose Hay they would ‘thereby forever oblige my utmost industry to serve you’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/153/4; 1/14, f. 208.

There was also a third candidate, in the shape of Allan Grebell, a prominent member of the corporation, whose particular stance does not appear. The poll list for 14 August, however, reveals that Hay – who was not present – secured the seat comfortably, receiving 25 of the 31 votes recorded, including those of Morley and John Fagge, while Hopkins secured five votes, including that of the town’s mayor, and Grebell only a single voice, possibly his own. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/153/2; 1/14, ff. 208-209v. In the usual form, Hay was informed by letter that the town, ‘formerly had experience of your faithfulness and ability in the like employment [and] have again chosen you unto the same service’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/154/4. Hopkins’ naval connections, meanwhile, got him elected at Dartmouth.

In the Parliament of Richard Cromwell* Rye was restored as a two-Member constituency. Within days of the announcement of new elections in early December 1658, Morley and Fagge wrote to the mayor and jurats, announcing that they

conceive[d] it our duty as members of your corporation to tender our assistance to you in that affair and to attend at the day of your election, provided you do fix upon any day after the third of January, which we rather desire because the day for the shire will fall upon the third of this month.

While seeking to ensure that they could both fall back on Rye in the event of failure to secure county seats, they asked the corporation

in the meantime [to] consider of persons fitting for that employment, amongst whom we offer to your consideration your old friend and burgess Mr William Hay, and if you please to elect him for one and join with him some honest and able gentleman of your parts ... twill be a further encouragement both to him and us diligently to serve you. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/157/5, 7.

Although not yet in receipt of the writ, the mayor and jurats agreed to consider this request, and evidently acted upon it, since the date for the election was set for 6 January. The major-generals having been abolished, there does not appear to have been any input from Dover Castle, and at the poll Hay was returned with ‘unanimous assent and consent’. E. Suss. RO, Rye 47/157/8. So too was his fellow baron on this occasion, Mark Thomas*, a local merchant, who was duly made a freeman. C219/48; E. Suss. RO, Rye 1/14, 293.

By 1660 Morley and Hay had gravitated towards Presbyterian royalism. Both were returned to the Convention, and Morley’s interest remained such that he was also elected to the Cavalier Parliament. The corporation resisted longer than elsewhere pressure from the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, who after the Restoration was the duke of York. HP Commons 1660-1690.