GORINGE, Henry (c.1583-1655), of Okehurst in Billingshurst and Highden in Washington, Suss.

The Gorings traced their ancestry back to the reign of Edward I, and by the seventeenth century several branches were prominent in Sussex affairs. Among the descendants of Sir William Goring†, a gentleman of the privy chamber to Edward VI, the most notable were George Goring†, 1st Baron Goring (later 1st earl of Norwich) and his son George Goring*. Henry Goringe, this MP, who adopted a different spelling, was from the senior branch of the family, via Sir William’s eldest son, Sir Henry Goring (d. 1594) of Burton, but his father, Edward Goring (d. 1617) of Okehurst, was a second son, and, although moderately well-endowed, less visible in public life than his relations. On the other hand, Edward’s household appears to have been the most ‘godly’. His will was notably pious, and while his sons Henry Goringe and Edward married daughters of Thomas Eversfield of Denne, their sister, Dorothy married Eversfield’s son, Nicholas Eversfield†, a puritan and a controversial opponent of the court during the 1620s.19PROB11/129/545; Berry, Suss. Pedigrees, 138-40; Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 45-6.

Nothing is known of Henry Goringe’s education. The estate to which he succeeded in 1617 was sizeable and he proceeded to consolidate it in the early 1620s through a number of transactions, some of which were undertaken with Nicholas Eversfield.20W. Suss. RO, Wiston MS 955-6, 2219, 4330-1. He was able to provide portions of between £700 and £800 for his two daughters in 1627 and 1639, and his knighthood fine of £15 in 1630 was more substantial than most.21W. Suss. RO, Wiston MSS 4956, 4968; E407/35, f. 165v. He had sufficient means to lend £1,000 to county grandee Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland – a loan still outstanding in 1649. 22Alnwick, Northumberland MS, U.I.5, U.I.6. Meanwhile, in 1629 he acquired with Edward Goring and Robert Morley† of Glynde the wardship of his nephew Thomas Eversfield*.23W. Suss. RO, Wiston MSS 672-4.

Goringe was soon placed on local commissions, nominated as a justice of the peace by leading gentlemen like Sir Thomas Bishopp†, with whose family he was to remain close in later years.24Clwyd RO, Rhual MS, D/HE/732, pp. 51-2; C181/3, ff. 133v, 167; C181/4, ff. 47, 54; C181/5, ff. 69, 70; C192/1; SR. Through the 1620s and 1630s he proved one of the more assiduous justices in his attendance at quarter sessions.25W. Suss. RO, QR/W15-31; E. Suss. RO, QR/EW27. He also sent regular reports to London in accordance with the Caroline book of orders.26SP16/201, f. 43; SP16/250, f. 166; SP16/314, f. 218; SP16/328, f. 153; SP16/347, f. 260; SP16/363, f. 265; SP16/383, f. 30; SP16/426, f. 51.

In the spring elections of 1640, Goringe was returned to Parliament for Arundel, alongside Henry Garton*. His chief patron was probably Thomas Howard, 14th or 21st earl of Arundel; others might have been the earl of Northumberland and Edward Sackville†, 4th earl of Dorset, who was certainly exerting his influence over the borough later in the year. It seems clear that, despite the atmosphere of his early life, Goringe was not returned on the godly platform, dominated by Sir Thomas Pelham*, Sir Thomas Parker*, James Rivers* and Anthony Stapley I*. Unlike them, Goringe had contributed to the king’s northern campaign in the first bishops’ war in 1639.27Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 911. Whatever his agenda at Westminster, he made no impact on parliamentary records.

Goringe does not appear to have stood for re-election in the autumn. Over the next two years there is little indication of his attitude towards the deepening divisions between Parliament and the king. While his cousin, Colonel George Goring, as governor of Portsmouth, was active in the first army plot of 1641, Henry busied himself as a local magistrate.28W. Suss. RO, QR/W40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49; E. Suss. RO, QR/EW53. His collected Sussex Protestation returns and contributed towards the relief of Irish Protestants.29West Suss. Protestation Returns, 189; SP28/181, unfol.

During the civil wars Goringe, like most of his kinsmen, almost certainly sympathised with the king, while stopping short of active support for the royalist war effort. He was not named as a commissioner of array and did not join George Goring in declaring for the king or in the attempt to seize the Chichester garrison. For a while he remained in the commission of the peace, and although, by some oversight, he added in April 1643 to the Sussex assessment and sequestration committees, he was removed the following September.30CJ iii. 45a, 227a; LJ vi. 203a; E. Suss. RO, QR/EW57; QR/E60; Suss. QSOB, 1642-49, 1-37. Such apparent neutralism in a county which was, on the whole, a parliamentarian stronghold, is highly suggestive of covert royalism. Goringe may have aroused suspicion in 1642, when he and John Alford*, became trustees for a leading local Catholic, Francis Browne, 3rd Viscount Montagu, acquiring the advowson of Hollington in an apparent attempt to protect parts of Montagu’s estate from sequestration.31Suss. Manors, i. 220. In April 1643 Goringe became a trustee for another royalist, Sir Edward Bishoppe*, and arranged a marriage between his son Henry Goring† and Bishoppe’s daughter.32W. Suss. RO, Wiston MS 3624. The following year one of Goringe’s daughters married Henry Peckham*, another ‘neutral’ with royalist sympathies.

Suspicions regarding Goringe doubtless lay behind his removal from the commission of the peace in 1644.33ASSI35/85/1. Like so many in his position, however, Goringe returned in 1646, after which he was once again active.34Suss. QSOB 1642-49, 93-162; W. Suss. RO, QR/W57, 59, 60, 61, 62; E. Suss. RO, QR/EW76; QR/EW80. That August he was nominated with his cousin Sir William Goring of Burton to the Sussex sub-committee of the Committee for Taking the Accounts of the Kingdom, as part of an attempt to bolster this bastion of Presbyterian interest against the Independents by adding men who had been suspected of royalism.35SP28/256, unfol. In April 1647 Goringe’s name was once again put forward, alongside Nathaniel Powell*, Sir William Morley*, Henry Peckham* and William Yalden*, all of whom displayed such sympathies.36SP28/257, unfol. However, it is unclear whether his nomination was ever ratified, and there is no indication that Goringe was involved in the petition sent in June 1648 from the county to Parliament, calling for a lenient settlement with the king, or in the royalist uprising at Horsham which occurred at the same time.

During the early years of the commonwealth, Goringe played no part in political life. By August 1650 he had again been removed from the commission of the peace.37ASSI35/91/6. Instead, he fought assiduously to protect the estates of his royalist cousins. The earl of Norwich, sentenced to death in March 1649 but subsequently reprieved, stayed with Goringe en route for continental exile in order to settle his estates.38E. Suss. RO, DAN/293, 296. Goringe and another of Norwich’s kinsmen, Anthony Stapley I*, were granted the manor of Hurstpierpoint in trust for the earl.39Suss. Manors, i. 236; E. Suss. RO, DAN/1137-9. Goringe and Stapley dealt with the commissioners for compounding, paid the earl’s fine in the summer of 1649, and managed the estate until at least 1653.40E. Suss. RO, DAN/335, 336, 1144, 1149, 1151-5, 1157, 1159, 1163, 1166.

Both Goringe and his elder son Henry were suspected of being royalists in the 1650s, although neither was actively involved in conspiracy against the government.41Bodl. Eng. hist. e.309, p. 40. Goringe, who settled his estates on Henry in 1650, died early in 1655, and was buried at Billingshurst on 26 February.42W. Suss. RO, Wiston MSS 2223, 2264, 3252-3; Add. 5698, f. 258. His heir, who was proposed as a knight of the royal oak after the Restoration, sat in Parliament twice for Sussex and twice for Steyning, and succeeded to the baronetcy of Sir James Bowyer in 1680.43Blaauw, ‘Passages of the Civil War in Suss.’, 104; CB; HP Commons 1660-1690. Successive generations of the family sat at Westminster into the nineteenth century.