WHITE, John I (c.1598-?bef. 1663), of Dorset House, London, and Eltham and Knole, Kent

White came from a minor gentry family which had been settled at Northiam, east Sussex, eight miles north west of Rye, since at least 1491.10VCH Suss. ix. 269; Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 130. His father, who owned the manor of Brownsmith, died in October 1599, leaving a daughter and a six-year-old son, William, from his first marriage, and the infant John from his second marriage, contracted about November 1597.11Suss. Rec. Soc. xiv. 239. In his will he left £300 to his daughter and named as trustees and overseers nine local gentlemen including Oliver St John† (the future Viscount Grandison) and the notable puritan rector of Northiam, John Frewen.12PROB11/94/412. His widow soon re-married and then died within a few years, so it is likely that young John was brought up by guardians with his elder half-brother, perhaps already in the circle of the Sackville family, into a branch of which they both in turn married.13Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 130; Suss. Rec. Soc. xiv. 16. Their brother-in-law John Sackville† was already in the employ of his kinsman Edward Sackville, 4th earl of Dorset by 1625.14HP Commons 1604-1629, s.v. ‘John Sackville’. If the subject of this article was the John White admitted to Gray’s Inn in January 1627, it may have been under the earl’s aegis: he was certainly in Dorset’s service by April 1633, but may well have entered it some years earlier since when the heralds made their visitation of Sussex in 1634, he already had three children.15GI Admiss. i. 180; CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 36; Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 130. By 1640 he was well established as the earl’s secretary and advisor, and since at least 1635 had been a trustee of some of his commercial interests.16SP16/475/212; SP44/13, f. 28v.

On 28 February 1640 Dorset, who was lord lieutenant of east Sussex, wrote to the mayor and jurats of Rye recommending White as a prospective burgess at the forthcoming parliamentary elections in place of John (now Sir John) Sackville, his original nominee.17E. Suss. RO, RYE/47/131/13. Apparently as an insurance policy, White also stood in the Sackville borough of East Grinstead.18CJ ii. 3b, 10b. Meanwhile, doubtless at Dorset’s behest as well as his own interest, on 13 March White promoted vigorously the election at Hastings of Robert Reade*, nephew and secretary of Sir Francis Windebanke* and a rival at Rye. According to a declaration on 20 March by disgruntled freemen, who considered their opinions marginalized by the mayor, White had promised that if Reade were chosen, he would not only ‘do them the best service he could’ but would also ‘give to the poor of ... Hastings £20 down and £10 a year during his life, and two barrels of powder yearly for the [military] exercise of [its] youth’.19SP16/448, f. 90. Disappointed candidate John Ashburnham* told secretary of state Edward Nicholas on the 31st that he had received assurances that he would be chosen, ‘but that my Lord of Dorset’s (White) told them I was to go provider for the army into Scotland’ – thus associating him with the unpopular northern campaign as well as indicating he would be absent from Westminster – ‘and so persuaded them to choose Mr Reade, for whom, they say, he or some others did make large promises to the town’. However, since Reade was his friend he did not propose to question the election or probe further ‘Mr White’s impertinences and over-busying himself in that place’.20SP16/449, f. 86. Despite the fact that, in a spring of hotly contested elections, this case was unique in involving allegations of bribery, nothing more seems to have come of it, perhaps because there was more manoeuvring among local noblemen and other courtiers – of whom Ashburnham was also one – than met the eye.21Suss. Arch. Colls. cv. 49-55. The members of the corporation of Hastings were evidently satisfied with their choice and the manner of it: when they wrote to Reade on 7 April providing him with a certificate and notes to help him make good his election, they sent greetings to ‘our noble friend and com-baron Mr White’, while on 24 April they sought assistance from both men to use their (or perhaps Dorset’s) influence with Theophilus Howard†, lord warden of the Cinque Ports, to help them meet their obligations to levy soldiers.22SP16/450, f. 77; SP16/451, f. 104.

However, suggestion of manipulation of the polls also surfaced elsewhere. On 16 April it was recorded that White had opted to sit for Rye rather than for East Grinstead, as if he had been returned in both places.23CJ ii. 3b. Yet eight days later there was a complaint against the election at East Grinstead of Robert Goodwin*, who had received one more vote than White thanks to the questionable enfranchisement of inhabitants as well as burgage-holders. Having heard claims that the bailiff had threatened those who would not give their voices for White, the Commons concluded that Goodwin’s election was good.24CJ ii. 10b; Aston's Diary, 152; Horsfield, Suss. ii. app. 40. Whether or not he was more guilty than others of exerting undue pressure, once a seat in the House was secure, White failed to make any visible impression on proceedings during the three-week session.

White was again elected for Rye in the autumn. His activity in what became the Long Parliament is obscured by the presence of John White II*, the puritan lawyer who was Member for Southwark: the two are rarely overtly distinguished in the sources, although that in itself may be an indication of the lawyer’s pre-eminence. Given that Dorset was chamberlain to the queen, it is plausible that his secretary was the man nominated on 17 February 1641 to the committee preparing an act confirming grants made by Charles I to his wife.25CJ ii. 87b. White I was surely the Member who voted on 21 April against the attainder of Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford and who on the 26th sought to ‘explain and excuse’ what the earl had done: although by this time relations between Dorset and the lord deputy had become ‘frosty’, the former was not one to desert the king at such a juncture.26Procs. LP iv. 42, 51; SP16/479, f. 148v; ‘Sackville, Edward’, Oxford DNB. Both John Whites took the Protestation promptly on 6 May and it seems that the secretary was as concerned as any about disorder at this time.27CJ ii. 133a. On 7 June, when he was apparently detained on business away from the House, a letter he had received at Dorset House from his brother-in-law Thomas Sackville in Hull was brought to the attention of the Commons by Sir Henry Mildmay*, ‘whereby it did appear that the army was in distemper, full of mutiny’.28Procs. LP v. 8, 13, 16. But he appeared to some to underrate the popish threat. When on 12 August a French priest who served the queen was apprehended, White ‘stood up and offered to be bail ... but the House did not accept of him for giving an ill example’; having drawn perhaps unwelcome attention to himself, he was then ‘enjoined to bring in a list of the queen’s priests’.29Procs. LP vi. 379.

For the succeeding ten months there is no certain sighting of this MP in the parliamentary sources. His service of Dorset and also, in the matter of her lands, the queen, was rewarded on 17 October, when he was granted a lease and a keepership in Eltham park, Kent, where the Sackvilles were her stewards; this doubtless further marked him out as a staunch adherent of the court interest.30Gregory, Story of Royal Eltham, 201; SP16/490, f. 93. On this and other grounds, the many committee nominations for White may all very plausibly be attributed to the lawyer. Conceivably, it was the secretary who moved on 28 December for a resolution of a double return at Arundel, which involved Edward Sackville, Dorset’s younger son, but in so doing he risked drawing dangerous attention to his own history.31D’Ewes (C), 355. He was specifically identified as the White who on 11 June 1642 with Edmund Waller* told against Denzil Holles* and Oliver Cromwell* for the minority who opposed putting the question that the departure without leave of nine peers to join the king at York was tantamount to inciting war.32CJ ii. 620a. Dorset, who was still trying to promote peace, had probably left for the north in May and on 28 June White was given leave to go to York himself, ostensibly on business related to the payment of royal servants.33CJ ii. 643b; PJ iii. 455.

On 6 September White was summoned with Sir Edward Alford*, MP for Arundel, to attend the House forthwith, to no avail.34CJ ii. 754b. He had evidently taken up residence with Dorset in the king’s quarters. As Charles and his forces advanced on London in early November, he despatched White and a trumpeter to treat for a cessation of arms with Parliament’s commander-in-chief, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex. Their arrival coincided with an incident in which ships laden with ordnance powder and ammunition navigating the Thames from Brentford to Windsor came within the range of royalist guns and were blown up, prompting Essex to imprison White and his companion in the Gatehouse. The king claimed White had been in danger of ‘being put to death for bringing’ his message, but the MP escaped without serious mishap; a warrant to transport him to the king’s army was ordered on 14 November.35Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 61; HMC Cowper, ii. 327; CJ ii. 849b.

White attended the Oxford Parliament and on 5 February 1644 was, with Buckhurst and others, disabled from sitting at Westminster for having deserted to the service of the king.36A Copie of a Letter (1644), 8; CJ iii. 389b. He received a royal pardon on 3 May.37Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 200. ‘At the earl of Dorset’s’, he was assessed on 28 July at the considerable sum of £1,000, but no proceedings were taken at that point against him or others on Parliament’s list of delinquents.38CCAM 436. White compounded after the surrender of Oxford on the same day as Dorset (24 Sept. 1646) and like the earl claimed substantial impoverishment as a result of the wars, estimating that his loss of the fruits of his office and by the destruction of his goods amounted to £10,000. He was both a debtor and a creditor, having lent £100 (irretrievably) to Theophilus Howard, the late 2nd earl of Suffolk, among others.39SP23/192, ff. 325-33. One of the London newsbooks reported early in 1647 that White – who was described as ‘once a tradesman in London, then secretary to the earl of Dorset’ – had been imprisoned in the Fleet for ‘threatening words against the Parliament, as if by the king’s coming [to Holdenby] some ill should befall them [the two Houses] and those that act for them’.40Perfect Occurrences no. 3 (15-22 Jan. 1647), sig. Cv (E.3712.3).

White may have joined Dorset in his impoverished post-civil war retirement, at least until the latter died in 1652. By August 1655 the former MP had vanished from the view of the Committee for Compounding.41CCC 728. It is possible that he was the John or Jack White mentioned in royalist correspondence of January 1659 and March 1660 as having done service for (Sir) Edward Hyde*, later 1st earl of Clarendon; in the Fleet prison (for debt) at the latter date, this man died there before 13 June 1662.42CCSP iv. 131, 615; PROB4/134/60. When in 1661-2 petitions were made relating to a lease on coal exports granted in 1635 to a syndicate which included White, acting as trustee for his employer, they did not clarify whether he was still alive.43SP44/13, f. 28v; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 620. He may have been in the midlands at this point, acting as a Sackville agent in Staffordshire; but he may have been dead.44Kent Hist. and Lib. Centre, U269/C66. The fate of his wife and children is similarly obscure.