SHELLEY, Henry (1599-1654), of Patcham and Southover, near Lewes, Suss.

The Shelley family was prominent in Sussex from the 1490s, although the Patcham branch dated from the mid-sixteenth century.22Berry, Suss. Pedigrees, 62–7; Add. 5698, ff. 119v-120. It was almost certainly Henry Shelley† of Warminghurst and Sullington, rather than our MP’s father of the same name, who sat in Parliaments in 1586 and in 1604, and who was recommended to William Cecil†, Lord Burghley as ‘a gentleman of so honest sort and honour’.23HP Commons 1604-1629. Our MP (one of at least ten children) was baptised at Patcham on 13 December 1599.24Add. 5698, f. 119v. Although the place of his education is uncertain, his elder brother Thomas (who died in 1620), his younger brother Richard, and their cousin John Sadler* (son of the minister of Patcham and Elizabeth Shelley) all attended the great puritan seminary of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which the last became a fellow.25Al. Cant.; Add. 5698, f. 119v; Berry, Suss. Pedigrees, 64-5. In 1620-1 Shelley senior sold the manor of Patcham to Anthony Stapley I*, but he maintained a presence there; even after moving his residence to Southover, he was named to local commissions as of Patcham.26C181/3, ff. 134, 167; C181/4, ff. 47, 54; C181/5, f. 70; Suss. Arch. Coll., ix. 73; lvi. 11; VCH Suss., vii. 217.

The Shelleys maintained close ties with the Bellinghams and the Springetts, with whom they were intermarried.27Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 7-13. Henry Shelley and Sadler’s father were both named in 1635 as overseers of the will of their kinsman Sir Thomas Springett, who married a Bellingham.28E. Suss. RO, SAS/A/147. Springett, father of Harbert Springett*, was one of the more godly gentlemen living near Lewes. Shelley acted as a trustee for his uncle Richard Bellingham after his death in 1624, and both Shelley and Thomas Springett were executors for his brother Francis Bellingham in 1640.29Cal. Suss. Mar. Lics., i. 206; Notes IPMs Suss., 23-4; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 9. Henry Bellingham and his cousin Shelley sold property in Suffolk for £2,700 in 1622, and when Shelley’s uncle Thomas Bellingham was convicted of manslaughter in 1636, the nephew purchased his forfeited goods.30C54/2514/39; Add. 5684, f. 110v-13.

Shelley was registered as living at Southover on the licence granted in 1626 for his marriage to Martha, daughter of William Heath of Piddinghoe, who belonged to relatively minor gentry.31Cal. Suss. Mar. Lics., i. 155; Horsfield, Hist. Lewes, ii. 178–80; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Horsham, 166. Following the death of his father in late 1634 or early 1635, he inherited not only the estate but almost certainly a pattern of service on local commissions, closed to some other family members of the same name owing to their recusancy.32E. Suss. RO, Archdeaconry of Lewes Wills, A23, f. 207; Suss. Arch. Coll., xvi. 49; ix. 104-6; Berry, Suss. Pedigrees, 66-7; C181/5, ff. 70, 206v; E179/191/388. Although not among the wealthiest in the county, Shelley was one of the powerful gentry of the eastern rapes and enjoyed long-standing friendships with those more influential than he, especially major power-brokers like Sir Thomas Pelham* and Anthony Stapley. He corresponded with Pelham and engaged in property deals with both; Stapley also resided for some time in Patcham.33Add. 33084, f. 67; PROB11/241/346; Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiv. 223; Abstract Suss. Deeds and Docs., 37; Add. Ch. 30913; Add. 5698, ff. 118-119v; Add. 5684, ff. 51v-53. When in 1640 these godly grandees exerted themselves to counter the traditional local influence wielded at elections by the earls of Dorset and the Gorings, Shelley was with them. His name appears on the indenture for the election of Pelham and Stapley as knights of the shire in November.34C219/42ii/27.

The death on 8 June 1641 of James Rivers*, one of the burgesses for Lewes, was a blow to the Pelham/Stapley nexus. It seems likely that these gentlemen acted to ensure that one friend was replaced by another when a writ was issued on 9 June for a by-election.35CJ ii. 172. Shelley was duly returned. By 25 June he had taken his seat: then and on 2 July he was nominated to committees dealing with Yorkshire matters, the latter perhaps as a result of the fact that the commander of the army in the north, Algernon Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, was also lord lieutenant of Sussex.36CJ ii. 186b, 196a.

Shelley appeared in the Commons Journal only once more before the outbreak of war in 1642, when in August 1641, in the wake of further revelations about the ‘army plot’, he was appointed as a commissioner to disarm recusants in Sussex.37CJ ii. 267b; LJ iv. 385a. However, in June 1642 he pledged £50 to the cause and he became among the most active parliamentarians in his county.38PJ iii. 474. In contrast, his namesake Henry Shelley of Worminghurst, also in Sussex, was a major in the Irish wars and a colonel in the royalist army, in 1642 captured at Chichester.39Newman, Royalist Officers, 341; Suss. N. and Q., iii. 92; CCC, 339, 2370–1; LJ vi. 671b. Potential for confusion is compounded by the fact that the MP continued to make business transactions with his brother-in-law Robert Heath, who had royalist leanings, although these may be explained by Shelley of Southover’s role as trustee of his father-in-law’s estate.40E. Suss. RO, SAS/A/157, 165, 170.

Added with Sir William Goring† and Sir Thomas Parker* to the Sussex commission for weekly assessments and sequestrations on 14 April 1643, he took the parliamentary oath and covenant on 15 June.41CJ iii. 45a, 130b. He not only subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant promptly (29 Sept.), but displayed his enthusiasm for it by joining with the more active members of the county committee, like Harbert Morley*, in writing to Speaker William Lenthall* with plans to have the Covenant imposed in every parish, as a means not only of ‘uniting of the minds and hearts of men to stand firm for the common cause’, but also of identifying malignants to be sequestered.42Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 480-1; Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 493. The measure was never adopted. Named on 30 December as a deputy lieutenant for Sussex, Shelley was described in the Commons on 5 February 1644 as absent in service: whether or not this was military is not clear.43CJ iii. 389b; Harl. 164, f. 50. However, he was back in London by 9 July, when he wrote to Sir Thomas Pelham explaining that he had decided to stay there to hear the report of the Dutch ambassadors regarding their attempts to mediate a peace. In the wake of the victory of Sir Thomas Fairfax* over the royalists in the north, and of intercepted royal letters regarding the king’s willingness to accommodate, a settlement was something Shelley ‘should be glad to see effected’.44Add. 33084, f. 67. It is a measure of his optimism that he did not expect to have to undertake plans to raise additional forces in Sussex, but only two days later he was called to attend the Committee of Both Kingdoms to assist in raising money for Stapley, now a colonel in parliamentarian forces.45CSP Dom. 1644, p. 340.

As hopes for peace faded, Shelley – who had been appointed to the regional association in November 1643 and June 1644 – seems to have preoccupied himself with county affairs.46A. and O. Perhaps through Pelham’s influence, he was included on the new-modelled commission of the peace, in which he proved a zealous activist from 1644.47C193/13/3; C193/13/4; Stowe 577, ff. 53-4; QSOB Suss. 1642-1649, 61-199. Despatched by the Commons to Sussex in March 1645 to bring in the arrears of money to pay off the Scottish army, he became one of the more assiduous members of the county committee in collecting the assessment.48CJ iv. 75b; SP28/246; SP28/343; SP28/181; E179/191/407; E179/191/401; CJ v. 400b; vi. 88a; Salzman, Town Bk. of Lewes, 72-3; Add. 33058, f. 75. With Stapley and William Hay*, he was entrusted with organising the sending of a troop of horse from Sussex for service in the west (7 June), while on 1 July he was the conduit by which the Commons instructed the committee and deputy lieutenants of Sussex to raise further recruits for the New Model army.49CJ iv. 168b, 192b. Despite such apparent enthusiasm for the war effort, and despite being named to a committee to regulate sequestrations (18 June), he was also involved in assisting Richard Sackville*, Lord Buckhurst, to foil the sequestrators by gaining control of property belonging to his royalist father, Edward Sackville, 4th earl of Dorset.50Kent AO, U269/O8/3.

Shelley’s absence from the Journal between July 1645 and March 1646 may be attributed at least partly to local preoccupations. Nominated on 20 March 1646 to a committee reviewing a report by Sir Arthur Hesilrige* on a letter from Lieutenant-general David Leslie – a sign that he was perceived to take some interest in the contentious wider political questions of Anglo-Scottish relations – he was then invisible until 9 October 1647, when, in the aftermath of the failed Presbyterian coup, he was noted as absent from the House.51CJ iv. 481b; v. 330b. He was fined £20, but this was remitted once it was understood that he had unwittingly entered a house visited by some epidemic illness and needed temporary leave to go into the country (26, 28 Oct.).52CJ v. 343b, 344a. On 23 December he was again ordered to go to Sussex as a commissioner for the assessment.53CJ v. 400b.

In 1648 Shelley received only one committee appointment, although it was significant – to consider the ordinance for settling the militia (13 June).54CJ v. 597b. Shelley does not appear to have sat after the purge on 6 December, but neither does he seem to have been secluded. He may well have been absent from Westminster during this period, having been sent to the country as a commissioner for the assessment on 25 November.55CJ vi. 88a. Perhaps the leaders in the Rump were content to leave him to his work in Sussex, where – unlike Pelham and Sir Thomas Parker – he had an excellent record of attendance at the county committee meetings.56CJ v. 597b; A. and O.

The fact that Shelley continued to be active in local affairs, both as a justice of the peace and an assessment commissioner, suggests at least a willingness to co-operate with the Rump not found among many of his colleagues.57E. Suss. RO, QO/EW2, ff. 4v-61. Shelley investigated over-taxation and the plight of maimed soldiers, collected money for repairs to Lewes bridge, and restricted licences for alehouses – a favourite puritan measure.58A. and O.; Suss. QSOB 1642-1649, 165-99; Salzman, Town Bk. of Lewes, 74, 77. In addition he was involved in approving appointments of ministers and church officials.59Suss. Arch. Coll. xxv. 128-9; xxix. 160-1; xxxvi. 20. The impression that Shelley could still be trusted by the council of state, even if he was no longer active as an MP, is confirmed by the order for him to examine and imprison pirates captured in May 1650, and by the confirmation in June of his position on the militia commission.60CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 145, 187.

Shelley was returned to Parliament again for Lewes in the elections held in July 1654 under the Instrument of Government, together with candidates elsewhere in the county largely more moderate than himself. But between 10 July, when he appeared for the last time on the Sussex bench, and 22 August, when his brother-in-law Robert Heath proved his will, Shelley died.61E. Suss. RO, QO/EW2, f. 61; PROB11/241/62. Members did not assemble at Westminster until early September, but by some oversight, on the 28th Shelley was named to a committee for the affairs of Ireland, perhaps because he had submitted a petition in November 1653, which was referred to the Irish and Scottish committee.62CJ vii. 371b; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 241. A new writ was issued for Lewes on 26 October.63C231/6, p. 299; C219/44ii; CJ vii. 377b.

In his will, drafted in May 1653, Shelley left bequests to four of his children totalling £2,200, but the value of his estate was less than his wife’s jointure, and he was forced to admit that ‘I cannot give unto her an addition answerable to my desire’. He left the rectory of Patcham and his mills at Fletching to his eldest son Henry.64PROB11/241/62. No further members of his family sat at Westminster.