BYSSHE, Edward II (c.1610-79), of Lincoln’s Inn, Mdx., and Smallfield Place, Burstow, Surr.

There has been some confusion over the early years of this MP and his seniority among the sons of Edward Bysshe I*. At least in part this is due to Anthony Wood, who stated that he was a student at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1633 aged 18 – almost certainly a conflation of Edward II with his younger brother Thomas, who matriculated from the college aged 19 in 1634.21Wood, Ath. Ox., iii. 1218; cf. Al. Ox. Edward II gave his age in 1635 as 25, and was a barrister of six years’ standing when in October 1640 he was elected for Bletchingley, the seat close to the family home at Burstow which his father had held in the previous five Parliaments.22J. Comber, Suss. Genealogies Ardingley, 65. Bysshe I had three years earlier relinquished another office on the grounds of ageing, and this substitution may have represented a conscious step towards the son replacing the father in public affairs.23CSP Dom. 1637, p. 193. The younger man may additionally have hoped to further his ambitions in heraldry. His only committee nomination before the outbreak of civil war was to review the workings of the earl marshal’s court and the fees of related officials (23 Nov. 1640).24CJ ii. 34b.

Bysshe took the Protestation a few weeks late, on 8 June 1641, suggesting intermittent attendance at the House.25CJ ii. 171a. Like his father, he was named a subsidy commissioner for Surrey, and on 27 October 1642 he was appointed to the parliamentarian committee for the county.26SR; CJ ii. 824b. But he was evidently found wanting. On 12 November he was among MPs ordered to be brought up in custody to the Commons at their own charge; the cause is unknown and there were evidently no serious repercussions.27CJ ii. 959b. Although he declared himself in the affirmative to the vote for confirming Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, as commander-in-chief of the parliamentarian armies (8 Feb. 1643), was appointed with some of the Commons’ ‘fiery spirits’ to a committee to receive information (24 May), and was appointed to further local commissions, his allegiance continued to look half-hearted.28CJ ii. 959b; iii. 101a; LJ v. 658b; A. and O. Summoned on 28 September to attend the committee for the sequestration of the estates of ‘Members who neglect the service of the House’, he was summoned again on 22 January 1644 and ordered to forbear taking his seat until he had given an explanation of ‘his long absence’.29CJ iii. 256b, 374b. This time he must have made a reasonably prompt and acceptable submission: on 7 February he was readmitted to the House and took the Covenant.30CJ iii. 390b. A few days later he produced acquittances for money paid in to the Committee for Advance of Money* to cover a fine imposed the previous November.31CCAM 296.

Thereafter, through piecemeal payment of assessments or other means, Bysshe seems to have found a way of operating on the fringe of parliamentary life without forfeiting the confidence of fellow MPs. Despite being in the interim invisible in the Commons Journal, he was sufficiently trusted to be named as a commissioner under the ordinance to put Surrey in a posture of defence in July 1645.32A. and O. Added on 22 November to the committee reviewing the regulation of the college of arms, on 19 March 1646 he was appointed a commissioner to investigate abuses in heraldry.33CJ iv. 351b. He must have put in at least a respectable amount of activity here, since on 20 October 1646 he was nominated Garter King of Arms.34CJ iv. 700b. The necessity to provide appropriate pageantry for the funeral of the earl of Essex two days later precipitated him into office well before the relevant ordinance was passed (23 Nov.).35CJ iv. 701b, 705a; LJ viii. 576a. While John Aubrey characterized this as eating ‘the bread of Levalists’ [Levellers] and accepting ‘a pension of £600 per annum from sequestrators’, Anthony Wood conceded that, at least initially, Bysshe had a superior understanding of arms and that he used his place to encourage learning and scholars.36Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Surr. 72; Wood, Ath. Ox. iii. 1219.

Perhaps as a partisan of the Presbyterians, Bysshe received another rare committee nomination, to consider propositions for the navy, in January 1647.37CJ v. 47a. By this time he had joined his father on the Surrey commission of the peace, where he may have continued to develop a local importance much greater than is indicated by his limited profile at Westminster.38C231/6, p. 239. Unlike his father, he was named an elder of the Reigate classis in March 1648.39W.A. Shaw, Hist. English Church, ii. 434. In August he obtained leave to go into the country for a month, but had returned for the September call of the House, when he was not noted as absent.40CJ v. 658a.

Bysshe’s seemingly minimal presence allowed him to negotiate Pride’s Purge, which might have been expected to involve his exclusion. Although he was not otherwise mentioned in the Journal, on 23 July 1649 Bysshe was given leave, as a Member, to travel to the French province of Languedoc for the recovery of his health.41CJ vi. 268a. Not only did he continue under the commonwealth as Garter, but in 1650 he also acquired the office of Clarenceux. While this may in part have reflected a shortage of willing and acceptable candidates, it manifested an ability to accommodate himself to the government at the same time as earning appreciative comments from William Dugdale, who had served the king as a herald.42Wagner, Heralds of England, 258, 260. In spring 1651 a royalist agent claimed that Bysshe had assured him of support for a royalist rising:

He told me that he and his father could have a thousand men in readiness [in their area of Surrey] upon the least opportunity, and the people were mad to be in arms, if there were but the least tumult to give them occasion.43HMC Portland, i. 582.

However, the involvement of Bysshe I is implausible and if Bysshe II was implicated, then he once again avoided retribution.

In 1654 Bysshe was elected to Parliament despite the fact that the disenfranchisement of Bletchingley meant seeking a new seat at Reigate, seven miles south east of the family home at Burstow. This time he received three committee nominations, including to investigate abuses in legal procedures (3 Nov.) and to promote the study of civil law (22 Dec.).44CJ vii. 381a, 381b, 407b. His publication that year of an edition of several notable heraldic works, Nicolai Uptoni de Studio Militari, prefaced by an appreciation of John Selden*, may well have commended him to lawyers and antiquaries in the House, as did his extensive library.45Wood, Ath. Ox. iii. 1219; Bibliotheca Bissaeana (1679).

Bysshe did not sit in the 1656 Parliament but in 1659 successfully gained the Surrey seat of Gatton after a contest. When rival candidate and former New Model army officer Lewis Audley* arrived at Westminster Hall on 27 January to assert his right to sit on a double return, the two clashed. Bysshe’s claim, championed by leading civilians in the House, was that Audley had given him and his partner at Gatton, Thomas Turgis, ‘very uncivil and provoking language’ and that he had ‘challenged and dared Mr Bish to go into [St Martin’s in] the Fields to fight with him’, thus breaching parliamentary privilege.46CJ vii. 595a. According to Bysshe’s brother-in-law Guybon Goddard*, Audley called him ‘rascal several times, and base fellow, and that he was no gentleman’.47Burton’s Diary, iii. 15. Summoned to answer for his actions, on 2 February Audley argued that he too had been insulted and disparaged, but despite a delay in the arrival of Bysshe’s counsel, the Commons broadly accepted the latter’s version of events and sent Audley to the Tower.48CJ vii. 597a, 597b; Burton’s Diary, iii. 37-45. It seems to have been the appreciation that this was a mild punishment – Audley having a residence there – and the realisation that Audley’s election could in any case be dismissed on the grounds that he was in holy orders, that led Bysshe and others to agree to his release a few days later.49CJ vii. 601a; Burton’s Diary, iii. 85-6. It is ironic that Bysshe’s sole committee nomination in the Parliament (27 Feb.) was to review the cases of those in prison and consider who should be discharged.50CJ vii. 854a.

Bysshe failed to find a seat for Bletchingley in the Convention, but negotiated the Restoration smoothly and was successful in 1661. His role in the Cavalier Parliament was characteristically limited.51HP Commons 1660-1690. As his debts increased and his health declined, his professional standards slipped markedly; his reputation suffered from apparent fabrication of genealogies, including his own; his library had to be sold.52Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Surr. 72-3; Wood, Ath. Ox. iii. 1219; Bibliotheca Bissaeana. He died on 15 December 1679, the last of his family to sit in Parliament.53‘Sir Edward Bysshe’, Oxford DNB; Manning, Bray, Surr. ii. 318.