ELLYOT, Sir William (1587-1650), of Busbridge, Surr.

This MP was descended from mid-fifteenth-century Wonersh resident Thomas Ellyot, a filazer [official] of the court of king’s bench dealing with writs for Surrey and Sussex, and a clerk of the peace for the former. The MP’s great-grandfather, John Ellyot of Godalming, acquired Busbridge in the 1540s, but his grandfather, Lawrence, said to have sailed round the world with Sir Francis Drake† , was the first to settle there.19Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 617-18. The MP’s father, also Lawrence (born in 1559) was a gentleman of godly inclinations judging by the names of some of his younger children.20Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 619.

By the time of his third marriage to a sister of (Sir) Simonds D’Ewes* in February 1621, Ellyot had a comfortable income and an impressive newly-built house. D’Ewes considered his brother-in-law a ‘very judicious honest man’ and for the most part the two ‘enjoyed ... a most firm and endeared friendship’. It was interrupted only briefly by a dispute following the death of Paul D’Ewes in 1631 which led Ellyot, disappointed by lack of provision for his family in his father-in-law’s will, to commence a chancery suit to recover £400.21D’Ewes, Autobiography, i. 174-5; ii. 23-4; VCH Surr. iii. 27.

Meanwhile, Ellyot had been added to the commission of the peace for Surrey. In July 1626 he reported to D’Ewes that ‘we find men so backwards in their contributions’ to the Forced Loan, ‘that the sum in the county will I fear rise to so small a value that no [sic] doubt whether the king will accept it or rather cause it to be redelivered’.22Harl. 382, f. 71. Following his appointment in 1627 as one of the lords lieutenant for Surrey, Edward Cecil†, 1st Viscount Wimbledon, ‘importuned’ Ellyot to accept a place as deputy lieutenant which not only burdened him with the task of dealing with unpopular billeting but also incurred the resentment of veteran local grandee Sir George More† of Loseley, who took it as a personal slight that his grandson and heir, (Sir) Poynings More*, was passed over for this office.23BL, Loseley MSS, microfilm M437, f. 124. Broader disagreements between Ellyot and the pair outlasted Sir George’s death in 1632 and spilled over into Ellyot’s work as a magistrate.24BL, Loseley MSS, microfilm M437, f. 124; Surr. Hist. Centre, LM/COR/4/82. However, his activity in local affairs over the 1630s and in particular his promotion of the interests of clothiers during the trade depression, probably contributed to a solid reputation, while his appointment as a gentleman pensioner manifested connections at court, perhaps linked to his second marriage to a sister of George Goring† (from April 1628, 1st Baron Goring).25CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 480; 1636-7, p. 110; 1637-8, pp. 348, 527; 1638-9, p. 127; I.o.W. RO, OG/BB/324; Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 618-19.

On 11 March 1640 Ellyot was elected to Parliament as a Member for Haslemere, a borough about ten miles south west of Busbridge.26Surr. Hist. Centre, LM/984. Poynings More, almost certainly a disappointed rival candidate, appears to have complained of underhand dealings.27Surr. Hist. Centre, LM/COR/5/11. Ellyot left no trace in the records of the Short Parliament, but it is likely that he was critical of at least some aspects of royal policy in the previous decade.

In May and June 1640 Ellyot and Sir Richard Onslow* reported to the lords lieutenant an almost overwhelmingly negative response to demands for coat and conduct money from the five hundreds of west Surrey, attributing it to a continuing economic depression.28CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 206, 287. Although in August he gave D’Ewes better news – that he had lately paid in both that tax and Ship Money – doubtless informed by contacts at court, he also conveyed a gloomy assessment of the state of the northern campaign and a copy of the petition of grievances from the Yorkshire gentry.29Harl. 382, ff. 88, 89. It is not clear whether he contested the October elections, but he expressed to D’Ewes, who had been returned, continuing interest in ‘the great affairs of your House’ and when in June 1641 George Abbott I* sought to resign his seat at Guildford, Ellyot was offered the chance to replace him. Yet, while he professed ‘hearty prayers and good wishes to the weal public’, on ‘consulting with my wife her dissuasion and my own indisposition made me give a negative answer’.30Harl. 382, ff. 90, 95. The Commons in any case went on to reject Abbott’s request.31CJ ii. 201a; Procs. LP v. 516, 523-4.

A fortnight after Charles I’s abortive attempt to arrest the Five Members, Ellyot had ‘heard of your strong guard for your security’ at Parliament and of ‘the expectations for the king’s return to the peers’ House’. ‘Somewhat fearful’ of what his monarch’s next movements might be, he prayed that God would ‘direct him for the best’, but was even more alarmed at what ‘these popish and proud clergy’ might do, who ‘were never at a greater height’. He exchanged ‘coarse language’ with his own ‘popish and treacherous vicar’ Nicholas Andrewes, who was also chaplain to Matthew Wren, bishop of Ely, when Andrewes requested his signature to a local petition to Parliament in support of bishops, and he was one of the instigators of a petition lodging complaints about Andrewes’ pluralism, ceremonialism and hostility to preaching.32Harl. 383, f. 197; 282, f. 103; Surr. Arch Colls. ii. 213-16. Revealing the lobbying to which MPs were subject, he wrote to D’Ewes again a month later keen to know whether the king had signed the bill abolishing episcopal voting rights in the Lords, reminding his brother-in-law of ‘the motion I made unto you concerning the better performance of the exercises upon fast days by the scandalous ministers’ and expressing his concern for persecuted Protestants in Ireland.33Harl. 383, f. 199. As political tension mounted he wanted to know ‘what declaration hath been made concerning the militia’, what had been heard of ‘foreign preparations’ rumoured to be in train to aid the king and ‘what relief is lately gone to Ireland’.34Harl. 383, f. 201.

Like some others connected to the court, Ellyot was named by the king as a commissioner of array in May, but he was later replaced.35Northants. RO, FH133. Towards the end of the year he paid his respects to the king and Prince Rupert when they were briefly at Oatlands palace, but while deploring the destruction wrought by troops and skirmishes in Surrey he soon became part of the parliamentarian administration as a commissioner and member of the county committee; in January 1644 he was confirmed as a deputy lieutenant.36Harl. 383, f. 207; 382, ff. 103,119–22; A. and O.; LJ vi. 390b, 450a. Religion was probably one motivating factor: despite reservations about his work as a sequestration commissioner, he was keen to pursue ‘the vicar’s business’. On 23 February 1644 he wrote that it was ‘to be heard before the committee in the exchequer chamber’ and asked D’Ewes to ‘speak with some of the committee that they may befriend it’.37Harl. 382, f. 108. That November his petition to the Lords for arrears of wages due for his service as a gentleman pensioner was recommended to the Commons for referral to the Committee for Revenue*.38LJ vii. 52a.

By April 1647 Ellyot was searching for a new incumbent for Godalming, Andrewes’ replacement having been inducted elsewhere, ‘and the grave clergy of our end of the county resorting to me for assistance to make up the brotherhood’. Seeking a personal recommendation from D’Ewes, he asked him to ‘let not the [Westminster] Assembly have any interest in it’.39Harl. 255, f. 100. Even those appointed Presbyterian elders – as Ellyot was the following year in Godalming – might prefer to be free of the Assembly’s placement of favourite ministers.40Shaw, Hist. Eng. Church, ii. 433. In May 1648 he attended a meeting held at the White Hart in Guildford during the agitation in the county for a personal treaty between king and Parliament.41Surr. Arch. Colls. lxvii. 69.

Having in 1646 lost his much-loved wife, Ellyot continued to prosper materially, but complained of infirmity.42Harl. 382, ff. 126, 128, 130, 132. He died on 7 December 1650 and was buried at St Nicholas’s church, Godalming.43Aubrey, Nat. Hist. Surr. iv. 5-7. He bequeathed an unencumbered estate to his eldest son and in his will made careful provision for his other five sons and specified a £1,200 marriage portion for his unmarried daughter. He also remembered his friends D’Ewes and Sir Richard Onslow.44PROB11/217/115. The heir, another William Ellyot, was active in local affairs and was knighted after the Restoration, but neither he nor his brothers sat in Parliament.45Vis. Surr. (Harl. Soc. lx), 41; Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 619; A. and O.