DEARLOVE, William (1610-43), of High Street, Knaresborough, Yorks.

Dearlove was returned for Knaresborough on the interest of his stepfather Henry Benson*, who was the town’s most influential inhabitant by the early 1640s. After being disabled by the Commons on 2 November 1641 for selling protections, Benson ‘laboured all the borough men’ for Dearlove, for whom he had secured the office of bailiff of the borough. According to Sir William Constable* – Dearlove’s rival for the seat – Dearlove had not wished to stand but Benson had forced him, declaring that he would ‘oppose those who had opposed him’ – a reference principally, it seems, to the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*) and his client Thomas Stockdale*. On the day of the election, 12 November, Dearlove deputed his place as bailiff, which was also that of returning officer, to his younger brother John Dearlove and was returned on a poll by 33 votes to Constable’s 13. Stockdale, Constable’s electoral manager, protested that the poll was illegal because Dearlove was deputy steward and bailiff, ‘and therefore the burghers durst not give their voices for fear of him’. When Stockdale’s demand that Constable be returned was refused, he and Constable’s supporters drew up their own indenture with the signatures of 26 townsmen which they sent to the sheriff.6Supra, ‘Knaresborough’; ‘Henry Benson’; CJ ii. 301, 488b; Bodl. Fairfax 32, ff. 35, 37; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 216-17, 260-8, 291; Hist. of Harrogate and Knaresborough ed. B. Jennings, 145. Writing to Lord Fairfax on 19 November, Stockdale claimed that Dearlove, like his step-father, kept ‘strict intelligence’ with local Catholic families and was in every way unfit to sit in the Commons.

William Dearlove is both bailiff and [deputy] steward of the borough and hath jurisdiction of judicature over the townsmen, so that none of them dare give their voice freely against him ... because he vexeth and oppresseth his opposites [sic] ... And for his estate, we know he is not worth sixpence in the world, but is maintained by his father-in-law’s [i.e. Henry Benson’s] arts and hath neither lands nor goods in possession nor expectation of descent ... If he had been the heir of any gentleman’s house, or had been a man of any judgement or understanding, we should not have distasted him nor grudged him the honour to sit in that most honourable assembly; but we know him extremely poor and needy and a man of mean parts and shallow capacity, and besides, he is bred in the base ways of his father-in-law [Benson], who has already been censured by the House.7Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 263-4.

In December 1641, Constable petitioned the Commons, alleging that Dearlove’s office as bailiff had rendered his election illegal, that he was a man of ‘no estate’ and that the ‘better sort’ among the townsmen had voted for himself. Sir Hugh Cholmeley and other Members moved for Constable’s return and admission to the House. But Sir Simonds D’Ewes conceived that Dearlove had been legally elected and that the issue was whether, given his connection with the disgraced Benson, he was fit to serve as an MP. The Commons thereupon resolved that consideration of Dearlove’s ‘misdemeanours and offences’ be referred to the committee for protections and that pending its investigation he was to forbear taking his seat in the House.8CJ ii. 334b; D’Ewes (C), 242-3. Assisted by Stockdale, who made careful note of Dearlove’s ‘entire affection’ with the local Catholic gentry, Constable presented evidence against Dearlove to the committee, and by early 1642 at least one of Dearlove’s friends in the Commons, Sir Henry Anderson, had abandoned him. However, Richard Aldburghe, MP for nearby Aldborough, remained Dearlove’s ‘good friend’ and advised him to secure a petition to Parliament from the Knaresborough townsmen, requesting his admission to the House – advice that Dearlove attempted to follow.9Bodl. Fairfax 32, f. 74; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 295-6, 345, 349, 366, 376-7.

Meeting late in February 1642, the committee for protections accepted Constable’s claim that Benson and Dearlove had intimidated the voters, and it asked Dearlove if he required counsel to plead his case in law. According to report, however, Dearlove merely desired that the town might have its ‘ancient privilege of election as other places have, and without any further arguments he humbly referred it to those noble gentlemen of the committee’.10A Continuation of the True Diurnall of Passages in Parliament no. 7 (21-28 Feb. 1642), 54 (E.201.19). Reporting from the committee on 19 March, Miles Corbett informed the House that Dearlove’s election was illegal in that the returning officer, his brother John Dearlove, was a minor and had helped Benson sell protections. William Dearlove, who was described as ‘a man of very mean or no fortune or condition’, was judged to have used his office to intimidate those that ‘dare not displease Benson’. The House accepted the committee’s resolution that Dearlove’s return was ‘undue and void’, but it was not until 17 August, when most of the royalist Members had left Westminster, that Constable’s return was declared valid.11CJ ii. 488b, 725a; PJ ii. 61, 63.

At some point in the spring of 1643, Stockdale and a group of Knaresborough men, ‘combining and confederating against Benson, and all of them being in arms under the command of Lord Fairfax, did in a violent and hostile manner in the night time seize and carry away the said Henry Benson and William Dearlove ... pretending they were persons disaffected to Parliament’.12CJ ii. 800a; iii. 20a; C10/72/45. On 27 March, the Commons ordered that Benson and Dearlove be committed to Newgate prison, where they died ‘for want of food’ – Benson in September 1643 and Dearlove some three weeks earlier.13CJ iii. 20a; C33//221, f. 748; C10/72/45. Dearlove’s place and date of burial are not known. No will is recorded. He was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.