WORSLEY, Sir Henry (1613-66), of Appuldurcombe, Godshill, I.o.W.

The Worsleys originated from Lancashire, where Richard Worsley† was returned to Parliament as a knight of the shire in 1386 and 1391.19HP Commons 1386-1421. By 1527 a branch had settled at Appuldurcombe in the Isle of Wight, acquiring the freehold at the dissolution of the monasteries. They rapidly became one of the county’s most important and wealthy families. Richard Worsley (d. 1565) served as comptroller of the port and town of Southampton, and John Worsley held the shrievalty in 1568.20I.o.W. RO, JER/WA/37/1, 4. The grandfather of our MP, Thomas Worsley (d. 1604), was deputy to the earl of Southampton as captain of the Isle of Wight, while his father Sir Richard Worsley† was sheriff (1617) and MP for Newport (1614, 1621).21I.o.W. RO, JER/WA/37/5-7, 9.

Sir Henry Worsley was only eight years old in 1621 when his father died of smallpox.22Oglander Memoirs, 156. His wardship was sold to his mother Frances, Lady Worsley, with her brother Sir Henry Neville† (d. 1629) and a kinsman, Sir Bowyer Worsley, standing bound.23WARD9/162, f. 382. Lady Worsley married her daughters to Sir John Meux* and Sir John Leigh*, both at the apex of the local elite, and doubtless arranged her son’s propitious match, in May 1632, with a daughter of one of Hampshire’s wealthiest figures, Sir Henry Wallop*, who promised a portion of £4,000.24Oglander Memoirs, 151; I.o.W. RO, JER/WA/35/8. Nevertheless, Worsley’s fortunes may have been insecure: in the later 1630s he engaged in protracted litigation over properties to which he laid claim, and their alleged overvaluation by the court of wards.25CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 128; 1640, pp. 151-2; 1640-1, pp. 494-5; SP16/453, ff. 32-3; SP16/478, f. 40. Additionally, Sir Bevis Thelwall, a member of the royal household, obtained a judgment in the exchequer against Worsley, his mother and her second husband Colonel Jeremy Brett, keeper of Portsea Castle, requiring them to repair the sea defences at Brading.26Oglander Memoirs, 116, 153; CSP Dom. 1635-6, p. 236; 1637-8, p. 128; Resentment against the crown may have contributed to Worsley’s reluctance to pay Ship Money in 1637, and his refusal to contribute towards the bishops’ war in 1639.27Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 914.

Continuing lawsuits may provide part of the explanation for Worsley’s decision to follow in his father’s footsteps and seek election to Parliament.28PC2/52, ff. 237v, 280v. Returned in the spring of 1640 for Newport, where he was lord of the manor, he made no recorded impression on proceedings, but was re-elected in the autumn.29I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, pp. 387, 401. In the opening months of the Long Parliament he was again little in evidence – surfacing only as he indicated his willingness to loan £1,000 (21 Nov.) and, tellingly, in a nomination to the committee to consider reform of the court of wards (16 Feb.) – but in the spring of 1641 he claimed parliamentary privilege in relation to his litigation, which was duly granted.30D’Ewes (N), 52; CJ ii. 87a; CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 494-5; SP16/478, f. 40. Probably in response to representations made in February by his constituents, on 24 May he received his only other committee appointment before the outbreak of civil war, concerning a bill for the creation of a parish in Newport.31CJ ii. 155a; I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 410. Meanwhile, on 3 May he took the Protestation.32CJ ii. 133b.

By the spring of 1642, Worsley’s apparent lack of engagement with Parliament may have given way to unease regarding events at Westminster. On 23 May he was granted leave of absence upon the motion of a fellow Member with Isle of Wight connections, Sir Thomas Barrington*.33PJ ii. 362; CJ ii. 583b. Some time that year Worsley drafted a petition seeking ‘[discharge] from his service’ in the Commons, explaining that ‘by reason of some scruples that he hath in his conscience in relation to the public’, he was ‘much indisposed at present and unfitted for doing his service in the Parliament’. He had ‘been at great dispute with himself whether he should adventure on this representation of his case ... fearing thereby to incur your displeasure’, but was resolved to resign his seat,

being conscious unto himself of his own condition, and well knowing that his place in Parliament may soon be supplied by another, that may do the kingdom, and particularly the Isle of Wight, and that borough therein which sent him thither, better service.34Add. 46501, f. 26.

It is not clear if the petition was submitted. If it was, then it was certainly rejected, not least because a parliamentary ruling of 1624 prevented Members from resigning their seats.35CJ i. 724. Worsley’s profile in Parliament remained low in the summer of 1642, and his appointments both as a deputy lieutenant by the incoming parliamentarian governor of the Isle of Wight, Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, and as a royalist commissioner of array for Hampshire exemplify the ambiguity of his stance.36Royalist’s Notebk. 110; Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. Some uncertainty persisted thereafter. On 29 September Worsley declared that he would support the parliamentarian commander-in-chief, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, and provide £100 in money and plate, and in the spring of 1643 he was appointed to several parliamentarian local commissions in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.37CJ ii. 787a; Northants. RO, FH133, unfol.; A. and O. But during this period he made no perceptible impression on the proceedings in the House, and in a summer of real and imagined defections fueled by parliamentarian reverses, in June he was summoned to attend, following information that he was with the king.38CJ iii. 123b; Harl. 165, ff. 108v-109. The order was quickly overturned, however, his potentially damning royalist connections (most notably his stepfather, Jeremy Brett, who had briefly held Carisbrooke Castle for the king, his brother-in-law Sir John Meux, and his friend Sir John Oglander†), seemingly rendered harmless by evidence that he was working on the Hampshire county committee.39CJ iii. 143a; Harl. 165, ff. 108v-109; I.o.W. RO, OG/CC/71; OG/Z/20; OG/BB/480; Oglander Memoirs, 153.

Nevertheless, if Worsley remained loyal to Parliament, then his commitment was lukewarm. His rank meant he was listed first in many local commissions, but his activity inside and outside the Commons was modest compared with that of some others. He signed a letter from the deputy lieutenants of the Isle of Wight to naval commander Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, in January 1644, and as a member of the Isle of Wight committee (from 29 Mar.), an official pass for Sir John Oglander in July.40Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 515; CJ iii. 440b ; I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/485. At Westminster he took the Solemn League and Covenant (28 Feb.), and in the late spring and summer was named to three committees concerned with the war effort in his locality and the removal of ‘scandalous’ ministers in Hampshire, but on 10 August he obtained leave to go into the country.41CJ iii. 410b, 486a, 537a, 579b, 586a. Later in the year he seems to have been active on behalf of his local borough and was placed with Sir William Lewis*, Sir Thomas Jervoise* and John Kemp* in a Presbyterian classis to assemble in January 1645.42I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16a, p. 476; King, Bor. and Par. Lymington, 262. This was evidently sufficient to convince the king to take the rather empty step in December of removing him from the commission of the peace.43Docquets Letters Patent ed. Black, 243.

Worsley did not re-appear in the Commons Journal until 6 March 1645, when in the context of debates on the creation of a New Model army he was among those who accompanied Presbyterian leader Sir Philip Stapilton* to the Lords with a message concerning its prospective commander, Sir Thomas Fairfax*.44CJ iv. 71b. All the remaining references to him in the years before Pride’s Purge concern his absence from the Commons. On 25 June 1645, 3 April 1646, and 8 March and 23 November 1647 he obtained leave to go into the country for various periods, while on 9 October 1647 he did not answer at a call of the House.45CJ iii. 576a, iv. 183b, 499b; v. 107b, 330a, 366b. This cannot be accounted for by the demands attendant on zealous local administration: although he was still listed as being a member of the county committee in January 1646, there is progressively less sign of his activity.46Add. 24860, f. 145.

By the spring of 1648 the Presbyterians apparently valued Worsley sufficiently, if only as lobby fodder, to block his attempts to avoid service in Parliament. On 9 May the Commons rejected a motion to grant him leave of absence.47CJ v. 555a. When six days later there was a division on the same question, two Independents, Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire* and Colonel John Moore*, successfully marshalled a majority to allow him leave, defeating Presbyterian tellers Sir Anthony Irby* and Sir Walter Erle*.48CJ v. 559b.

There is no evidence of his being a victim of Pride’s Purge on 6 December, but Worsley made no further impression on the records of Parliament, and can be assumed to have opposed the Rump, the trial and execution of the king, and the establishment of the republic. On the other hand, he continued to receive nominations to local commissions and was pricked as sheriff of the county in 1657.49A, and O.; List of Sheriffs (List and Index ix), 56. This was despite the mention of his name in September 1656 amid vague and unsubstantiated allegations of a plot in Hampshire involving both republicans and crypto-royalists.50TSP, v. 396-7.

There is no indication that Worsley returned to Westminster with the recall of the Rump in 1659. Indeed, when summoned to attend Parliament in the wake of the readmission of the secluded Members, he wrote to the corporation at Newport on 27 February 1660 explaining that

in regard that the time is long past and many alterations have since happened, and especially considering that your corporation did lately upon the like occasion make choice of two worthy gentlemen of this county to be your representatives, I could do no less ... than to acquaint you with it ... I shall not without your approbation take upon me (however invited and summoned) to appear there in your behalf, but shall rather make it my humble desire that if I were not duly discharged before, I may be so now and that your borough may be left to their freedom for making a new election.51I.o.W. RO, NBC 45/16b, p. 13.

Worsley almost certainly welcomed the Restoration, and in October 1661 was listed as having given £40 to the king as part of a gift from the county.52E179/176/559. He was returned to both the Convention and Cavalier Parliaments for Newtown, and was listed as a ‘friend’ by Lord Wharton, suggesting that he supported the Presbyterian faction.53HP Commons 1660-1690. He died in September 1666 at his house near Winchester, and was buried at Godshill on the Isle of Wight. He was succeeded as member for Newtown by his son and heir, Sir Robert Worsley†, who married a daughter of James Herbert†, second son of the 5th earl of Pembroke.54I.o.W. RO, Hall 8 (1 Oct. 1666); HP Commons 1660-1690. Sir Henry died intestate, apparently leaving a personal estate worth £13,085, and the family rapidly agreed a settlement to benefit his other son and three daughters.55Add. 46501, f. 30; I.o.W. RO, JER/WA/35/10-11.