ONSLOW, Sir Richard (1601-64), of Knowle, Cranleigh, and West Clandon, Surr. and St Clement Danes, London

Onslow’s grandfather, a successful and well-connected lawyer of Shropshire origin, was elected to three Parliaments between 1558 and 1563 (twice for Steyning, Sussex), and served as Speaker in 1566. By marriage he acquired a substantial Surrey estate, centred on the parish of Cranleigh in south-west Surrey.52HMC 14th Rep. IX, 473-4; HP Commons 1558-1603, Richard Onslow, infra. Onslow’s father, Sir Edward, described by a descendant as a ‘church puritan’, consolidated the family’s links in the area, but did not enter Parliament. When Onslow’s elder brother, Thomas, died suddenly less than two years after his father, Richard was still well under age and his mother was compelled to purchase his wardship.53HMC 14th Rep. IX, 476; Manning and Bray, Surr. i. 538; Chamberlain Letters, ed. N. E. McClure, ii. 44; WARD9/162, f. 238.

This early setback was, however, soon overcome. At just 19, Onslow acquired a wife whose considerable inheritance consisted chiefly in one of the great inns at the north-west entrance to the City of London. Solid wealth was joined to his own strength of character and, in time, ‘very close friendship with most of the considerable men’ of his locality. His great-grandson apparently exaggerated little in his characterisation of ‘a man of high spirit, of a large fortune and great parts, knowledge and courage’, who ‘was much esteemed in his own country, where he bore the principal sway in all business and interests’ and who, in his record of sitting five times in Parliament for Surrey as well as twice for Guildford, laid the foundation of a formidable and long-lasting local interest.54HMC 14th Rep. IX, 476.

At 25, Onslow began his long service as a justice of the peace, deputy lieutenant and militia commander and lasting association with colleagues like Sir William Ellyot*, Sir Ambrose Browne* and his own militia deputy, Nicholas Stoughton*.55C231/4, p. 202; HMC Laing I, 172; Manning and Bray, Surr. iii. 670; CD 1628, ii. 120, 168; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 127. Like his brother-in-law the rising attorney George Duncumb*, he was involved in the affairs of their neighbour and joint lord lieutenant Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Arundel, with whom he was said to have had ‘a very particular friendship and intimacy’ and for whom he became a trustee.56HMC 14th Rep. IX, 483; CCC 2461, 2471. Returned for the first time to Parliament in 1628, he made little mark on the record, perhaps in part because he had little to prove.57HP Commons 1604-1629.

Through the 1630s Onslow was nominated to further local commissions.58Rymer, Foedera, ix. pt. 1, p. 19; PC2/46, f. 273; C181/4, ff. 121v, 168v; SP16/260, f. 112. He also expanded his estates in Surrey and Sussex, and towards the end of the decade took a lease on the house at Loseley of the impoverished Sir Poynings More*, possibly because it was nearer than his own residence to Guildford and to London.59VCH Surr. iii. 78; Coventry Docquets, 653; Surr. Hist. Centre, LM/COR/5/13. In 1639 he contributed £20 towards the expenses of the war in Scotland.60Rushworth, Hist. Collns, iii. 911.

Local champion and moderate reformer, 1640-2

Re-elected to Parliament in the spring of 1640, he was again not especially prominent. His sole nomination was to the committee for privileges (16 Apr.) and he made no recorded speeches.61CJ ii. 4a. His stance on the perceived grievances of Charles I’s personal rule is unknown, but over the summer he reported to the lords lieutenant the considerable resistance to the collection of coat and conduct money from the inhabitants of west Surrey, who either refused to pay or even make assessments, or who proffered an economic depression as an excuse for the shortfall.62CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 206, 287.

Returned for Surrey a third time in the autumn, initially Onslow’s visible contribution to proceedings remained modest. He had only three committee nominations before Christmas, although he was named first to investigate a petition from Watford, Hertfordshire, alleging excessive rigour in the levying of Ship Money by a former sheriff (5 Dec.).63CJ ii. 21a, 40a, 45b. On 21 November he was among the wealthier MPs who promised £1,000 as security for the loan to the crown.64Procs. LP i. 228, 231, 235. There were a mere two committee appointments in the spring – to prepare the act against usury (19 Mar. 1641) and to punish the clergy who the previous year had met in Convocation after the dissolution of Parliament (27 Apr.) – but neither was insignificant and the latter in particular pointed to a commitment to religious and moral reform.65CJ ii. 108a, 129a. Having taken the Protestation promptly on 3 May, Onslow then received no more nominations until the end of October.66CJ ii. 133b.

None the less, he must have been regularly present in the chamber. When on 11 June it was noted that Guildford MP George Abbott I* had ‘absented himself these two months’, Onslow had sufficient credibility on his own account to move that, if Abbott did not attend the next day, he should be ‘put forth’.67Procs. LP v. 98. A few weeks later he advanced a new motion, explaining that the financially embarrassed Abbott had himself requested to ‘decline his election’, albeit with no more success: the Commons decided it ‘would not meddle with’ a potentially difficult issue of resignation (6 July).68CJ ii. 201a; Procs. LP v. 5.16, 523-4. If Onslow was behind overtures to Sir William Ellyot to take on the seat in the event of a vacancy, then he was disappointed.69Harl. 382, ff. 90, 95.

The pattern of occasional important appointments continued after the recess. Named on 29 October to the committee to review collection of the poll tax, starting with London, a few days later he was included on the joint deputation of Lords and Commons to treat with the City over a loan of £50,000.70CJ ii. 298a, 302a. Placed on the standing Committee for Irish Affairs (2 Nov. 1641), as news of the rebellion there reached Westminster, Onslow was also named to prepare the act for raising a force to counter it (4 Nov.).71CJ ii. 302a, 305b. In due course he adventured a total of £1,600 in the ensuing enterprise.72SP63/292, f. 260. Meanwhile, he was concluding the purchase of the park and lodge at West Clandon, some five miles north east of Guildford, from the soap monopolist Sir Richard Weston. Since the latter was under investigation both on account of his commercial activities and his recusancy, the House ordered Onslow to bring in for examination a schedule of Weston’s debts (29 Oct.).73CJ ii. 298b. Three weeks later, when John White II*, MP for Southwark, explained that the sale was ‘only for the discharge of [Weston’s] true debts’ and not an attempt to avoid fines, the Commons agreed that Onslow could keep the property and pay the purchase money to Weston’s creditors.74D’Ewes (C), 167; CJ ii. 320a; CCC 2291. The decision enabled him to further consolidate his influence in the area at the expense of the troubled Poynings More.

On 14 December 1641, despite the pressure of important business at Westminster, Onslow obtained leave with two other Surrey-based Members, John Glynne* and Sir Robert Parkhurst*, to attend a commission of enquiry at Guildford into the bounds of local forest; that deliberations reached upheld inhabitants’ aspirations to limit forest law doubtless did not harm to Onslow’s reputation.75D’Ewes (C), 286-7; CJ ii. 342b. In the aftermath of Charles I’s abortive attempt to arrest the Five Members and his departure from London, on 10 January 1642 Onslow was among leading Surrey MPs ordered to search Vauxhall for concealed arms.76PJ i. 28; D’Ewes (C), 397.

Back at Westminster, on the 19th he participated in moves to have those Members recently created peers by the king excluded from the Lords, where they had been intended to bolster royal influence. With the apparent aim of demonstrating that the Lower House had a superior claim to dispose of their service, he reminded his colleagues that his grandfather, who had been called to the Upper House as solicitor-general in 1566, was then recalled to the Commons, still as MP for Steyning, and made Speaker.77PJ i. 108–9. Named last to the joint committee to consider the king’s answer to the Scottish commissioners’ propositions about dealing with the Irish rebellion (27 Jan.), he was more prominent a fortnight later as one of the deputation to convey Parliament’s thanks to Charles for his assent to the bills for the exclusion of bishops from the Lords and the pressing of soldiers for Irish service.78CJ ii. 400a, 430b. An antipathy to episcopal government is indicated by his inclusion on the act detailing the punishment of John Williams, archbishop of York (22 Feb.).79CJ ii. 448b.

On one level, this represented a rather modest contribution to the work of Parliament, but perhaps Onslow’s chief significance lay in his very presence in the chamber as a solid supporter of certain reforms, as well as a promoter of local interests and a conduit of parliamentary orders. On 28 April he presented a petition from assessment commissioners in the western division of his county, alleging that other commissioners had burdened them disproportionately, but it was not favourably received.80PJ ii. 239. He participated in preparations for war, promising four horses (10 June) on behalf of himself and his eldest son Arthur Onslow*, who had been elected for the Sussex constituency of Bramber early in 1641.81PJ iii. 470. With other Surrey Members he was on the committee appointed to seek a loan from the merchant strangers (14 June).82CJ ii. 623a. By 19 July he had nailed his colours to the mast sufficiently for the king to remove him from the commission of the peace.83C231/5, p. 532. Notwithstanding this, on 4 August he attended the Surrey assizes at Kingston-upon-Thames and presented a parliamentary warrant for the arrest of judge Sir Thomas Malet for obstruction of its county committee; he then supervised Malet’s despatch under guard to London.84CJ ii. 704b; PJ iii. 278n. Back in the chamber by 12 August, he was one of a small committee which withdrew to consider the adjournment of the assizes to Dorking, closer to his heartland.85CJ ii. 716b. Meanwhile, Edward Hyde* condemned the action as an ‘unspeakable dishonour of the public justice’, and retribution came in the shape of an impeachment for high treason once the king established a settled administration at Oxford.86Clarendon, Hist. ii. 247; HMC Dartmouth, i. 3; Harl. 164, f. 367.

First civil war, 1642-5

Thereafter, as the country slid into war, Onslow travelled frequently between Surrey and Westminster, balancing military functions as a colonel of horse with a pre-eminent role in Parliament’s strategic and administrative initiatives in the area. The vacancy arising from the death of lord lieutenant Charles Howard, 2nd earl of Nottingham, (his partner Arundel having already exiled himself to Antwerp) provided Onslow with an opportunity to consolidate his position. On 5 October he took to the Lords the order for the appointment of Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, as Nottingham’s replacement, while later that month he was named to committees tasked with holding the City and Parliament together (20, 27 Oct.) and to the Committee for Examinations (28 Oct.).87CJ ii. 795a, 817b, 825a, 825b. With Sir John Evelyn of Surrey*, John Goodwyn* and two others, on 2 November he was ordered to nominate new deputy lieutenants for east Surrey as it faced an incursion of royalist forces and to devise measures against men from the county who refused to serve Parliament outside it.88CJ ii. 831a; J. Gurney, ‘George Wither and Surrey politics’, Southern Hist., xix. 75-6. According to later hostile testimony, he used his own soldiers to demolish the king’s powder mills at Chilworth and confiscated the raw materials.89HMC Dartmouth, i. 3. He was also responsible for London’s southern defences: his motion advanced on 20 December that the Lords should be asked to agree to orders for maintaining a guard in the London suburb of Southwark was favourably endorsed.90Harl. 164, f. 267v.

Onslow’s diplomatic handling of the temporary presence of the king in his county enhanced his standing among moderate and undecided gentry, while his patent sympathy for local concerns strengthened his position once the royalists had left, although at least one commentator recalled 15 years later that one of his servants was ‘taken in his company by the guard in Southwark, with commissions of array in his pocket from the and scurrilous songs against the roundheads’.91Gurney, ‘George Wither and Surrey politics’, 76; G. Wharton, A Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 18. This was open to more than one explanation, however, and at the time the weight of evidence lies against any double-dealing. As measures for prosecuting the war solidified, on 14 February 1643 Onslow took to the Lords an ordinance for raising 500 dragoons for the defence of Surrey; the prospective commander, Onslow’s long-standing militia deputy, Nicholas Stoughton, was empowered to disarm those who did not contribute and had discretion to garrison any town in the county.92CJ ii. 964b; Add. 18777, f. 154.

Onslow’s two committee appointments in the first quarter of the year included one addressing tensions between local inhabitants and the guard at Lambeth (21 Feb.).93CJ ii. 974b, 997b. A temperate voice at Westminster as well as in Surrey, twice he was a teller with his friend Denzil Holles* against the ‘fiery spirit’ Henry Marten*: on 30 January for the majority who supported the release from custody of former MP Thomas Chicheley*, who had come to London on a covert mission from the king to his children, and on 23 February in favour of wider participation in Parliament’s Committee of Safety.94CJ ii. 947b, 976a. He was keen not to overburden his county with taxation, or to be exclusively identified with the unwelcome burden. When Edward Bagshawe* sought to have Southwark excused from further payment towards the fortification of London, Onslow proposed a compromise whereby the bill be covered by a refund from the regular weekly contributions (7 Mar.).95Add. 18777, f. 174v. He resisted as long as he could being despatched to supervise collections, leaving the duty to Sir Ambrose Browne, but the passing of the ordinance for seizing delinquents’ estates was accompanied by an order to oversee their implementation (31 Mar.).96Harl. 164, f. 315; CJ ii. 992b; iii. 25b.

That task proved difficult, hampered not just by pro-royalist sentiment or simple reluctance to pay, but also by divisions and competing authority among parliamentarians. Sir Richard revealed to the House on 3 April that Sir Henry Cholmley* had pre-empted a meeting of assessment commissioners to fix rates and, armed with a warrant from the lord general, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, had levied £1,000 on the middle division around Kingston, ignoring the fact that ‘all that part of the county had been very liberal in their contributing to the Parliament, whereas ... in the east division ... near London, divers towns had yet contributed nothing’.97Harl. 164, f. 353. Since Kingston had been initially hard to win over, this was a provocative course, but it is plausible that in criticizing Essex’s agent, Onslow was also expressing his loyalty at this particular juncture to Sir William Waller*, who after initial successes in the south and amidst growing differences with the earl, had been diverted to command in the west. On 14 April Onslow was again ordered to go to his county, this time to instruct magistrates sitting in session at Lambeth to acquit a soldier found guilty of murder at coroners’ inquests because he had killed a man in defence of himself and others: the man was ‘likely to be tried and condemned’, and if no course was taken ‘to prevent it none would be willing for a time to serve’ the House.98Harl. 164, f. 367. On his return Onslow seems to have raised the ‘mischiefs’ and discontent caused by warrants for the seizure of men and horses: deputed to prepare an order addressing the issue, he then carried it to the Lords (20, 23 Apr.).99CJ iii. 53a, 60b.

For the next two years Onslow’s visible parliamentary service largely took place in the field and in local committees, while his periodic appearances in the House usually bore some relation to military matters. Responsible under Parliament to pay the troops at Farnham Castle from Surrey ‘contribution money’ (May, June 1643), on 17 May he was also appointed to a committee to list horses equipped and available for action in and around London.100CJ iii. 80a, 89a, 112b. Having taken the Covenant on 8 June, perhaps because of a lingering connection to Waller he was placed on a committee discussing plans for the maintenance of the vital garrison at Bristol (17 June).101CJ iii. 120a, 132a. In a summer of parliamentarian defeats, he was twice involved in committees devising means to control the behaviour of Parliament’s forces and defend London and Westminster (23 June, 13 July).102CJ iii. 140a, 165a. His own position became less secure with the recasting of parliamentarian administration in Surrey: control of the militia passed from the deputy lieutenants to a remodelled county committee, where more militant gentlemen like Sir John Maynard* also had influence. Furthermore, in July the governorship of Farnham Castle passed to Maynard’s kinsman, Colonel Samuel Jones*, an incomer to the county whose friends were predominantly Londoners not always sympathetic to the concerns of Surrey gentry.103Gurney, ‘George Wither and Surrey politics’, 77-8.

In the autumn, when Onslow again took the Covenant (3 Oct.), he was added to the committee considering the punishment of absent Members (21 Sept.), but he was chiefly concerned with supplying money, ammunition, fuel and men for the defence of the capital and its environs without alienating local communities.104CJ iii. 250a, 257b, 261a, 262a, 274a, 275a, 286b. As the House debated on 13 September and ordinance for raising horse, Onslow and other Surrey gentlemen stood up to ‘allege how much that country had been impoverished by the earl of Essex’s forces lying lately there’ and to seek ‘some respite or breathing time’, but to the disgust of diarist Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, who was Sir William Ellyot’s brother-in-law and appreciated the logic of Onslow’s moderation, this was overruled by more ‘violent spirits’.105Harl. 165, f. 178v. Onslow again defended Surrey from those like Sir Henry Mildmay* who had ‘scandalized’ it, emphasizing the ‘notable services’ it had already done for Parliament when more aggressive Members criticised the county a few months later.106Harl. 165, f. 254.

On the face of it Onslow could not be accused of lukewarm commitment to the cause. One of three MPs despatched to Waller on 23 October to chivvy him into more robust action, he was subsequently on committees preparing instructions to Essex (20 Dec.), strengthening the powers of the London militia (22 Dec.), preparing an ordinance for seizing control of north Wales (30 Jan. 1644), raising money for the southern counties newly associated under Waller’s command (30 Jan.), and considering the defence of Hurst Castle and the Isle of Wight (8 Feb.).107CJ iii. 287a, 347a, 349a, 383a, 383b, 393b. He was on the committee set up to compose differences between Waller and Colonel Anthony Stapley I*, governor of Chichester (8 Feb.), liaised between Waller and Essex, was evidently the leading paymaster of the associated counties’ forces and was not behind-hand in levying horses from those whom he thought capable of supplying them.108CJ iii. 393a, 412b; HMC 7th Rep. 687; Surr. Hist. Centre, LM/COR/5/33.

But he still faced a challenge from the militants in Maynard’s circle. George Wither, who until he abandoned the garrison in October 1642 had been under Onslow’s orders as captain in charge of Farnham Castle, nursed grievances against his former superior and from October 1643 began to voice general criticism of the conduct of local affairs in his Mercurius Rusticus.109Gurney, ‘George Wither and Surrey politics’, 77. Probably encouraged by Maynard, in March 1644 Wither published Se Defendendo, a vindication of his own conduct which contained an implicit attack on the competence of Onslow and Stoughton.110Se Defendendo (1644, E.37.13). Perusing passages in the pamphlet, the Commons found that it had ‘scandalized’ Onslow and were prompted to appoint a new licenser of publications in the shape of John Rushworth* (11 Apr.), while the Committee of Both Kingdoms gave Onslow and Stoughton a sympathetic hearing (May).111CJ iii. 457b; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 155. Onslow reasserted control locally through the committee meeting at The Crane in Kingston and in June was earning the gratitude of the House supporting with his regiment Colonels Richard Norton and Harbert Morley* at Basing House.112CJ iii. 538a; CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 165, 226; Harl. 166, f. 76. Yet, while he continued to receive parliamentary endorsement (24 Sept.), the military campaign was closely fought and did nothing to dissipate local rivalries.113CJ iii. 637b; Harl. 166, f. 135v; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 538; Gurney, ‘George Wither and Surrey politics’, 79-82. Also on 24 September the Commons received representations against Maynard and Jones from members of the Surrey committee including Onslow, his son Arthur, John Goodwyn and Sir William Ellyot, while a counter petition from Jones and his allies was lodged on 18 October.114CJ iii. 637b, 669b; Harl. 166, f. 124v; Gurney, ‘George Wither and Surrey politics’, 82. One newspaper reported that there was a scheme afoot to make Sir Richard governor of Farnham; support for Jones remaining in this post came from the City of London.115Perfect Occurrences no. 11 (18-25. Oct. 1644), n.p. (E.256.28).

Perhaps at least partly in the hope of influencing the outcome, Onslow had returned to the Commons by 26 September. That day he was a teller for the minority who wished to exclude Sir William Croft, a royalist commander in the Marches and Wales, from pardon under the terms of the peace propositions being discussed at Uxbridge.116CJ iii. 639b. Whether this was testament to a continuing interest in the war in that region or simply to the cultivation of support for his Surrey cause is unclear, but it heralded some weeks of relative visibility at Westminster. Named to committees considering the City of London’s propositions for a settlement (15 Oct.) and complaints against the parliamentary administration in Sussex (16 Oct.), on 21 October he was ordered to report to the Committee of Both Kingdoms on the state of the Surrey powder mills.117CJ iii. 665a, 666b, 671b. That he had friends on the CBK is indicated by his addition to the committee for Parliament’s armed forces (29 Oct.) and that these included Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, is possibly suggested by his inclusion among those discussing the ordinance granting office to Pembroke’s former secretary, Michael Oldisworth* (6 Nov.).118CJ iii. 681b, 687b. In any case, he was useful as an experienced and reliable money raiser for the parliamentary forces and a still powerful figure in the south east (31 Oct., 26 Nov., 10 Dec.; 4 Feb. 1645).119CJ iii. 683b, 706a, 720b; iv. 41a: CSP Dom. 1644, p. 538.

In one of the rare appointments that testified to Onslow’s piety, he was included in the committee preparing the ordinance against immorality and blasphemy (29 Jan. 1645), chaired by Maynard.120CJ iv. 35b. Otherwise, however, their jostling for control of Surrey continued, debate in November 1644 having proved inconclusive.121A Perfect Diurnall no. 68 (11-18 Nov. 1644), 538 (E.256.36). It became caught up in the manoeuvring surrounding the decision to create what became the New Model army, Jones being a member of the war party. In January, Maynard revived Wither’s allegations about Onslow and Stoughton, while Jones’s conduct came under the scrutiny of the House. Finally, towards the end of March Onslow and his friends, having secured control over the deployment in Surrey of the regiment of Colonel Edmund Ludlowe II*, engineered Jones’s resignation from the governorship of Farnham.122CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 341; Gurney, ‘George Wither and Surr. politics’, 84. Their plan to replace him by his deputy, Jeremiah Baines*, a staunch Presbyterian, came to nothing, but a key skirmish had been won.123Perfect Occurrences no. 14 (28 Mar.-4 Apr. 1645), n.p. (E.260.9).

Party politics and local politics, 1645-8

Factional politics had largely worked in their favour, but the relation of Onslow and his allies to parties at Westminster was complex, and local factors may have often weighed more heavily with them than ideological preferences. Acceptance of the Self-Denying Ordinance, which required Sir Richard to relinquish his military command in April 1645, may have been part of the price he paid for reasserting civilian pre-eminence in Surrey; some covert dealing may have been at work. Onslow probably benefitted from the support of the earl of Northumberland, who as lord lieutenant plausibly preferred to see power in the hands of trusted deputy lieutenants like Onslow rather than with Maynard. Appointed in July to the committee organising the introduction of classical Presbyterianism in London, Sir Richard was a convincingly consistent religious Presbyterian (where others named were not), but for all his friendship with Holles, he was not consistently aligned with political Presbyterians.124CJ iv. 218a; Gurney, ‘George Wither and Surr. politics’, 87. Predictably a leading promoter of the ordinance to put Surrey in a posture of defence (24 June), he was indebted to Richard Knightley* for support in pushing it through, after Lords’ amendments, in the face of opposition from Holles and Sir Philip Stapilton* (1 July).125CJ iv. 183b, 185a, 193b.

Meanwhile, in the late spring and summer Onslow received a clutch of committee appointments. While continuing to handle funds advanced to pay for troops in Surrey – in this instance the lifeguard of Sir William Waller – he was also involved in general financial business, raising money from delinquents and from London, and sat on one of the committees which examined intelligence of Members compromised by alleged correspondence with the royalist headquarters at Oxford.126CJ iv. 115b, 139a, 146a, 164a, 173a, 178b, 193, 203a; Harl. 166, f. 236v. He reported from the committee deputed to confer with militias in London and neighbouring counties over support for the Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire association in order to bring the siege of Oxford to a successful conclusion (10, 11 July).127CJ iv. 203a, 204a.

In contrast, Onslow was absent from the Journal for most of the period from mid-July 1645 to mid-April 1646. It is tempting to conclude that he was usually too busy with Surrey matters to take on other business, but a few appointments around the turn of the year suggest that he was still a notable political figure nationally. Nominations to the committee to confer over the London militia (4 Dec.) might be regarded as arising automatically from his Surrey functions, and that to consider a petition from Sir John Danvers* as linked to a personal (and intriguing) friendship with the maverick MP (12 Jan. 1646).128CJ iv. 365a, 403b. However, Onslow’s inclusion among the more select groups of MPs who prepared instructions for commissioners going for talks with the Scottish and parliamentary forces encamped at Newark (5 Dec.) and who drafted Parliament’s repulse of the offer of greater Scottish assistance (7 Jan.), indicates his considerable stature.129CJ iv. 366b, 399b. Most plausibly, he was to be counted among those who were keen to see a peaceful settlement but, significantly for a religious Presbyterian, not at the expense of an extension of Scottish influence south of the border.

Yet a new salvo fired by Wither, which thrust Onslow back into the limelight in the spring and summer of 1646, seemed to herald a closer alignment with the Presbyterians. On 10 April it was Holles who complained of it to the House.130Add. 31116, p. 528. Recently excluded from the Surrey commission of the peace, on which he had latterly served, Wither had issued a pamphlet blaming that and other misfortunes on ‘no other causes but such as are concealed in the breast of Sir Richard’, who, he claimed, had made himself a local dictator

having got (as it were) the supremacy over all causes, and all persons ecclesiastical and civil within his dominions, disposeth of election, preferreth deputy-lieutenants maketh and unmaketh justices of the peace, committee-men, colonels and all other inferior military officers, marshals, treasurers ad collectors, as he pleaseth; yea, favours and disfavours, imposeth and taketh off, imprisons and sets at liberty, builds up and pulls down, armeth and disarmeth, ordereth and disordereth, according to his discretion, with little or no contradiction.131G. Wither, Justiarius justificatus (1646), 2 (E.506.30).

Furthermore, in his ‘restless seeking to accomplish some secret design of his own’, he had ‘occasioned most of the miseries which have wasted Hampshire and Surrey’; it was ‘chiefly (if not altogether) his fault, that a strong garrison was not established at Farnham’ at the very beginning of the war.132Wither, Justiarius justificatus, 9-10. Quite apart from constituting an attack on parliamentary privilege, which resulted in Wither’s being brought to the bar as a delinquent and committed to the serjeant-at-arms, these accusations were extremely serious.133CJ iv. 505b; Add. 31116, p. 528; Som. Rec. Soc. lxxiv. 18. By the time report was made from committee by a somewhat unsympathetic Laurence Whitaker* on 7 August, they had expanded.134CJ iv. 624b, 638b, 639b. Wither had accused Onslow of having also sent money to the king at Oxford and then of suborning witnesses to accuse Wither of a conspiracy to fix the charge, while some inhabitants of the west division of Surrey petitioned that Onslow had not paid them for service undertaken at Basing House.135Add. 31116, p. 559; HMC Var. iv. 74. It took a ‘long and difficult report’, a counter-petition from officers who had served under Onslow at Basing, and the support of Holles and Stapilton in a division against Oliver Cromwell*, and Hesilrige, to conclude that Wither’s publication was false and scandalous and (by a majority of 65 to 54) that Wither should pay Onslow £500; the book was to be burned at Kingston and Guildford.136CJ iv. 640a; Add. 31116, p. 559; Som. Rec. Soc. lxxiv. 31.

Meanwhile, Onslow had lined up with Presbyterians as a teller when on 14 April the House divided along factional lines over the proceedings against Alderman John Warner for non-payment of customs on tobacco.137CJ iv. 508b. However, considerations of a threat to local security were probably uppermost in his mind when he was a teller against both Holles and Hesilrige for the majority who opposed giving the Princes Rupert and Maurice leave to reside at Oatlands palace in Surrey after the surrender of Oxford (25 June).138CJ iv. 588a. Although as a member of the committee considering propositions to send to the king (22 June) he could probably be counted among the peacemakers, he was no doubt relieved when, with Goodwyn and Stoughton, he was ordered on 30 June to provide the Speaker with the names of the princes’ party so that they could be given passes to go beyond the seas.139CJ iv. 584b, 592b.

Among a handful of committee nominations during this period, were those to discuss important issues like assessments for Ireland (24 Apr.) and the regulation of Oxford University (1 July); he was a messenger to the Lords on business from the Committee for Compounding (16 May) and was named as a commissioner for exclusion from the sacrament (3 June).140CJ iv. 521a, 547b, 555b, 562b, 595b. All this suggests that he was recognised as a notable figure around Westminster, but gives away little on his ideology. However, in relation to appointments to deal with relief of those who had suffered from living under royalist occupation (17 July) and complaints against former enemies (23 July), it is likely that Onslow took a moderate stance.141CJ iv. 620a, 625a. He remained faithful to old friends, despite their delinquency – a loyalty which cannot have endeared him to radicals. In February 1646 he and Suffolk MP Sir William Playters* were entrusted by the earl of Arundel with land worth £200,000 for the payment of his debts.142CCC 2471. On 25 April they obtained leave to petition the House of Lords regarding property of Arundel and of Lord Dacres, which had allegedly been seized without sufficient warrant by the Carlisle garrison.143CJ iv. 521b. Onslow’s grandson credited him with ‘doing many signal services’ to the Howards ‘during the time of the troubles, especially with regard to the easy composition of £6,000 he procured for the then earl of Arundel’s estate’.144HMC 14th Rep. IX, 483.

After the sentence against Wither was announced, Onslow was absent from the Journal for a few weeks, but he reappeared in October to a flurry of committee appointments, perhaps keen to play a part in post-war reconstruction. Among an unprecedented seven nominations in three weeks were those to identify suitable sheriffs and justices of the peace (30 Oct.),and to review the commissions of major-generals, prepare an ordinance indemnifying army officers from prosecution for wartime actions and sell the lands of unpardoned delinquents to fund forces in Ireland (10, 15, 30 Oct.).145CJ iv. 690a, 694b, 709b, 710b. Conceivably, he approached these from the perspective of one who welcomed the disbandment of the army. More than usually engaged in the reforming work of the House, he was included on committees for the regulation of the court of chancery (16 Oct.) and for the relief of creditors adversely affected by the parliamentary privilege enjoyed by their debtors (29 Oct.).146CJ iv. 701a, 708b. He was also named to those for the project to publish the Septuagint Bible (16 Oct.), the provision of preachers in Chichester (11 Nov.) and to review complaints against unregulated lay preaching (31 Dec.).147CJ iv. 695a, 719b; v. 35a. Among Members devising compensation for William Fiennes, 10th viscount Saye and Sele, and several MPs who lost income because of the abolition of the court of wards (24 Nov.), he was also one of those deputed to attend a hearing related to the earls of Northumberland and Pembroke (2 Dec.).148CJ iv. 727a, 735b.

As the year turned and he was appointed to important committees to review the work of the committee of accounts (25 Jan. 1647) and to prepare a letter to the Scottish Parliament informing it of the vote to proceed with a peace treaty (26 Jan.), evidence for Onslow’s precise stance is hard to find and to interpret.149CJ v. 63a, 65b. At the beginning of December there had been what looks like an attempt to revive allegations about his conduct in Surrey, with no immediate result.150CJ iv. 735b. Before 6 January, when he was ordered to lay the document before the Commons, he had come into possession of a pass signed by Edward Nicholas, the secretary of state at Oxford, and issued on 29 November 1643 on behalf of the king to William Stephens*, man of business to the earl of Pembroke.151CJ v. 44a. Five days later the ‘protection’ was revealed to the House enclosed in a letter which Onslow had written on the 8th to the Independent Sussex MP Harbert Morley*; both were read and referred to the committee of complaints.152CJ v. 48b. Sir Richard’s motives are unclear, but one possibility is that he was attempting to raise his own stock with the Independents at a point when he was vulnerable by sowing doubt about the commitment of Stephens (who was emerging as an Independent) or resurrecting earlier suspicions of Pembroke.

Whatever the explanation for this, the matter did not resurface in the Journal. After the end of January, Onslow’s appearances in 1647 were sparse, suggesting that for the most part he preferred to keep his head down unless there was an opportunity of wielding influence. He was only one of many Members included on the committees responding to the representations from the army at Saffron Walden (27 Mar.), preparing the ordinance on the London militia (2 Apr.) and investigating alum works (13 May).153CJ v. 127b, 132b, 170b. As radical agitation gathered force in the context of plans to disband the army, he was somewhat more visible and rallied to the political Presbyterians. Nominated to committees to arrange relief for maimed veterans and their dependents (28 May), and to the ‘committee of safety’ for mobilising London against the New Model (11 June), as well as to hear the proposals of the Scottish commissioners (5 June), he was concerned that the army depart quickly from the capital.154CJ v. 190b, 200b, 207b. On 16 June, the day the army presented articles of impeachment against Holles and the other Presbyterian leaders, he was a teller for the minority who thought that troops should receive only two weeks’ pay immediately, a further two weeks’ money being available only when they had marched 20 miles further away from London.155CJ v. 214b.

However, Onslow’s part – if any – in the 26 July 1647 Presbyterian ‘coup’ at Westminster is obscure. His absence from the Journal between 16 June and the second week in October suggests that he sought refuge in the country during this period. However, his appointment on 9 October to the committee reviewing the cases of absent Members seems incompatible with prolonged invisibility at Westminster.156CJ v. 329a. Three more nominations before the end of the year potentially involved him in investigating the coup (23 Nov.) and considering representations from the army at Windsor (7 Dec.), as well as in the reforming ordinance for poor relief and the punishment of vagrancy (23 Nov.).157CJ v. 366b, 367b, 376b.

Yet, after he and others were despatched to Surrey on 23 December to expedite the collection of assessments, there was no sign of him in Parliament for nearly five months.158CJ v. 400b. It may be conjectured that he opposed the Vote of No Addresses in January 1648, and thus that he chose to withdraw from full engagement in the business of the House for a period, but he was evidently not in favour of peace at any price. John Evelyn observed on 18 May that Onslow ‘much opposed’ the pro-royalist petition presented by Surrey men at Westminster on the 16th, while Mercurius Elencticus alleged that he had been bribed £2,000 ‘to corrupt and persuade the county to desist’.159Diary and Corresp. of John Evelyn ed. W. Bray, 542; Mercurius Elencticus no. 26 (17-24 May 1648), 101 (E.443.45)] That the loyalty of a wealthy man with a reputation at stake could be so bought by the Independents seems unlikely, whereas the testimony of Sir William Ellyot that Onslow had told assembled objectors that he ‘would not discourage them or any from petitioning for it was their right’, has a ring of truth: he cannot have been unaware of – or free from – the burden placed on his countrymen by the quartering of New Model soldiers locally.160A.R. Mitchell, ‘Surr. in 1648’, Surr. Arch. Colls. lxvii. 69. It is thus perhaps more plausible that Onslow was trying desperately to reassert his habitual influence in the county in order to steer it towards a moderate negotiated settlement.161HMC 14th Rep. IX, 477. Evelyn’s comment a few days later that Sir Richard had ‘utterly lost himself’ is open to different interpretations, but probably it signified either that he had temporarily lost any control of events or that he had definitively rejected royalist overtures.162Diary and Corresp. of John Evelyn, 543. Intercepted correspondence which reached the Lords on the 27th revealed that as late as the 21st some hoped to engage Onslow and Sir Ambrose Browne in an insurrection, but this seems mere wishful thinking.163LJ x. 285-8. On the 20th Sir Richard, who must have been in London over the previous few days, saw through the Commons instructions to be sent from Parliament to the Surrey committee to pacify the county.164CJ v. 567a.

Over the summer and early autumn Onslow divided his time between suppressing rebellion and promoting peace. He was on the committee which on 26 May conferred with the Common Council and the London militia committee about keeping order in the capital, and on 1 June was added with other political moderates to the Derby House Committee.165CJ v. 574a, 579a; LJ x. 295b. The latter gave him orders on 4 June to mop up retreating Kentish rebels around Kingston and on the 30th to stifle a new uprising informed to be in the offing in Surrey, while he was accountable to the Commons for finding money from local sequestrations to secure Farnham Castle (29 June).166CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 95, 148; CJ v. 616b. But he was also named on 27 June to a joint committee that afternoon to debate a treaty with the king.167CJ v. 614a; Rushworth, Hist. Collns, vii. 1164.

Although Onslow was among those despatched on 5 July to deal with it, it was William Monson*, Lord Monson, and Kentish MP Sir Michael Livesay who took the lead in putting down the rebellion of Henry Rich, 1st earl of Holland.168CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 161. None the less there is no reason to doubt that Onslow, as his great-grandson claimed, opposed this ‘weak and wild undertaking’: in this instance the insurgents lacked local support and credibility.169HMC 14th Rep. IX, 477; Surr. Arch. Colls. lxvii. 74, 76, 80. With other Surrey MPs he was nominated on 10 July to discuss an ordinance for combining the militias of Westminster, the City and various suburbs, but probably had the opportunity to join in pacification of his own area before returning to Westminster to see through measures for raising a troop of horse for Surrey, funded from the sequestered estates of the rebels (22-31 Aug.; 9 Sept.).170CJ v. 678a, 681b, 691b, 695a; vi. 10b; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 260.

On 30 August Onslow was ordered to ask William Reyner, the distinguished minister at Egham, Surrey, and member of the Westminster Assembly, to preach at Margaret’s church, Westminster at the next fast day; on 27 September he was instructed to convey the thanks of the House.171CJ v. 692b; vi. 34b; Calamy Revised, 408. Otherwise that autumn he was on the committee which sought a loan from the City of London to underwrite the negotiations with the king at Newport (1 Sept.) and busy raising money from assessments and sequestrations in Surrey.172CJ v. 697b; vi. 30b, 55a, 88a. On the deputation sent to General Sir Thomas Fairfax* at St Albans to confer on how the army might be paid off (21 Oct.), he was named to the committee devising practical arrangements for this (22 Nov.).173CJ vi. 58a, 83b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns, vii. 2.1309. On 25 November, as he brought to the Commons the Lords’ agreement to the earl of Arundel’s composition, he might have felt a certain optimism.174CJ vi. 87a.

From Pride’s Purge to protectorate, 1648-55

Having identified so strongly with these policies, however, Onslow was a prime victim of the purge of the Commons on 6 December, being among those temporarily detained.175A Vindication (1649), 25 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5); Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 2. 1355. There seems little reason to doubt that, as a social conservative seeking only to ‘restrain’ the power of the king and ‘to preserve the constitution upon its true basis’, he abhorred both the regicide and the commonwealth that followed.176HMC 14th Rep. IX, 477. None the less, probably in the interest of maintaining law and order, he continued to act as an assessment commissioner in Surrey and to discharge other local functions, while protecting the interests of the Howards.177A. and O.; CCAM 1258. In return, his potential local influence made him indispensable to the government despite suspicion of his loyalty.

During the Scottish invasion scare of 1651, the council of state wrote to Sir Richard and others in west Surrey, appealing to them to use their power in the district to ensure expeditious impressment of soldiers.178CSP Dom. 1651, p. 285. Whitelocke, who was of a similar cast of mind, claimed that Onslow and his regiment ‘marched hard’ to participate in the battle of Worcester that September, but there is some plausibility in the latter’s great-grandson’s assertion that Sir Richard himself had recorded that, feeling entrapped into involvement, he had ‘hovered about ... until the battle was over’, and that Cromwell had considered his allegiance in the fight uncertain.179Whitelocke, Mems. (1732), 508; HMC 14th Rep. IX, 478. Some royalists still entertained hopes that Onslow would join Sir Ambrose Browne in their plots – and indeed Onslow’s great-grandson asserted that ‘he acted ... on frequent occasions with great zeal and resolution against the then powers’ – but others considered him ‘so totally guided by Presbyterian ministers’ that they ‘were not willing to trust him’.180TSP i. 750; HMC 14th Rep. IX, 477; HMC Portland, i. 582. As late as November 1655 Major-general William Goffe* was wary of his influence in Sussex and Cromwell had apparently dubbed him the ‘fox of Surrey’.181TSP iv. 161; HMC 14th Rep. IX, 478.

Onslow probably greeted the advent of the protectorate with some relief, recognising a return to more familiar forms of government. ‘Being popular in Surrey’, he had sufficient standing to be returned to Parliament in autumn 1654.182Wharton, A Second Narrative, 18. Once at Westminster he was more visibly active than he had ever been previously, his chief motive being clearly to secure a political settlement to his liking, and he became a key figure in the Presbyterian scheme to remodel the Instrument of Government, increasing the power of Parliament and reducing that of the protectoral council.

During the Parliament’s short life, Onslow was nominated to 20 committees – for him a record unprecedented in scope and variety – starting with standing committees for privileges (5 Sept.) and Irish affairs (29 Sept.).183CJ vii. 366b, 371b. Some were addressing legal reform: the regulation of chancery (5 Oct.); dealing with abuses in writs (3 Nov.); providing for probate of wills in York (14 Dec.); encouraging the profession of civil law (22 Dec.).184CJ vii. 374a, 381b, 401a, 407b. Others related to economic and social legislation, sometimes with local relevance: encouragement of freer trade in corn and dairy products (6 Oct.); relief of creditors and those imprisoned for debt (25 Oct.); investigation of impediments to the implementation of the act erecting a gaol in Surrey (9 Nov.); commerce (4 Dec.); abolition of purveyance (22 Dec.).185CJ vii. 374b, 378b, 383b, 395a, 407b. Whether this indicated a willingness to implement change in certain areas or a determination to prevent or limit usually cannot be determined owing to an absence of speeches or other evidence. All that can be said is that he could accept a redistribution of parliamentary seats for Suffolk, where he had an interest as a trustee of Arundel (6 Dec.), but not for Kent (2 Jan. 1655).186CJ vii. 396b, 411b.

However, there is no doubt that Onslow was a vigorous opponent of the Instrument of Government, setting himself regularly in division against Cromwellian loyalists like Col. Philip Jones*, Roger Boyle*, Lord Broghill, and John Disbrowe*, and in concert with critics of the regime like his fellow Presbyterians, John Birch* and John Bulkeley*, and even the republican Harbert Morley*. Honours were roughly even. Unless, like the tactician Morley, he was simply manoeuvring selectively to secure majorities of friends in the House, Onslow was evidently keen to reach a settlement or at least fix certain principles. Included on committees which drafted and redrafted the new Government Bill as it evolved (7, 18 Dec.) and prepared related legislation, he tried four times to block adjournment of debate or discussion of further detail (9 Nov.; 5 Dec. 1654; 9, 19 Jan. 1655).187CJ vii. 384a, 395b, 398a, 403a, 409b, 414a, 420b. He accepted government by a single person and Parliament (8 Jan.), but – a member of the committee which discussed a clause in the bill of settlement addressing how and whether a resulting act might be altered (12 Jan.) – gave Parliament the upper hand in such matters as finalizing legislation and consenting to the militia, and denied the protector power to pardon those legally convicted of treason (6, 14 Dec.; 10, 17, 20 Jan.).188CJ vii. 396a, 401a, 413b, 414b, 415a, 419a, 421a. Appointed to committees on clauses relating to revenue (13 Jan.) and on the disbandment of the army (18 Jan.), Onslow appeared to wish to limit the funds available to the government (15, 16 Jan.).189CJ vii. 415b, 417b, 418a, 419a.

On one issue only did Onslow appear to deny the pre-eminence of Parliament. Significantly, this related to religion. He was a teller on 11 December and on 3 January for the minorities who rejected a provision for ‘damnable heresies’ to be ‘particularly enumerated by Parliament’. He served on the relevant committee (12 Dec.), but narrowly failed to carry his point of view.190CJ vii. 412a. His stance probably confirmed the opinion of some that he was in the pocket of Presbyterian clergy, seeking to retain control of the definition of theological orthodoxy.

Second protectorate Parliament, 1656-1658

While the protectorate government had its suspicions of Onslow, his standing was such that it seems to have been impossible to bar him completely from either local administration or national debate. Onslow was prepared to reciprocate, gradually moderating his opposition to the Cromwellian regime over the next few years. He was duly returned to Parliament again in 1656, apparently without serious opposition. This time he was named third to the committee for privileges (18 Sept.) and, after a slow start, was nominated frequently and ostensibly involved in all the major business until called to the Other House.191CJ vii. 424a.

Time appeared to have modified some of his views on religion. Perhaps predictably, he was nominated to committees promoting observation of the Lord’s Day (18 Feb. 1657), dividing the parish of St Andrew’s, Holborn (4 Mar.), and purchasing impropriations to fund preachers (31 Mar.).192CJ vii. 493b, 498a, 515b. Appointed with many others to the committee to consider how more revenue might be raised from recusants while at the same time encouraging them to conform (22 Oct. 1656), he seems to have been at its active core (11, 15 Dec.).193CJ vii. 443b; Burton’s Diary, i. 117, 148. But the case of James Naylor and his Christ-like ride on a donkey into Bristol may have forced him to confront the logic of his position – that laymen in Parliament could after all adjudicate in theological matters. Satisfied that Naylor had ‘confessed enough’, he urged Parliament to take responsibility for deciding in what manner it would proceed against him (5 Dec.).194Burton’s Diary, i. 31, 36. While declining ‘to define’ blasphemy in general, he was certain that this was ‘horrid blasphemy’ and confident that it was Parliament’s duty ‘to do something in this business, and with all possible zeal’ (8 Dec.).195Burton’s Diary, i. 69. Prepared to leave the exact punishment to be decided, he saw no problem in legislation ‘post facto’ to declare judgement on the offence (9 Dec.).196Burton’s Diary, i. 90. When the Commons came to debate the religious aspect of a new civilian constitution to be proffered to Oliver Cromwell, Onslow proposed a clause that ‘the true Christian religion, as it shall be expressed in a Confession of Faith, to be hereinafter agreed by his Highness and Parliament, according to the rule and warrant of the word of God, and no other’ would be prescribed as the only acceptable public worship of the nation (18 Mar.).197CJ vii. 506b. Appointed to the committee set up to decide which ministers might be deemed fit for ecclesiastical employment (19 Mar.), he was keen to prolong the discussion, while as a trier himself under the Act of August 1654, he wished to perpetuate the existing system of regulating the ministry (24 Apr.).198CJ vii. 507b, 508a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 21. All the same, it is evident that in practice he was, and had always been, broad-minded, using the considerable patronage he deployed to protect some ministers who used the proscribed Book of Common Prayer, or who otherwise fell foul of the more austere commissioners.199N. Beaton, No Treason to say Kings are Gods Subjects (1661), esp. 3-4, 12; W. Oughtred, The Key of Mathematiks (1647), dedication.

Even more than in 1654-5, Onslow was involved in legal, social and economic matters. Once again he was named to committees dealing with the fall-out from the abolition of the court of wards, the reform of chancery and the issue of civil law, and in connection with the last, showed himself sympathetic to representations from the universities when he told for the minority to attempted to reduce the time limit on the visitation ordinance (28 Apr.).200CJ vii. 447a, 450a, 457a, 462b, 526a, 528a. He was successful in gaining a majority for locating the new Surrey registry of wills at the centre of his sphere of influence in Guildford (1 Dec. 1656), but failed to persuade sufficient colleagues to support his motion that civil marriages contracted by those under 21 since 29 September 1653 without the consent of parents or guardians should be void (29 Apr. 1657) – a move which was conservative in intent, but would have had radical implications, not least in encroaching on the independence of ministers.201CJ vii. 462a, 527a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 73-4. Named to the potentially reforming committees for relieving creditors and poor prisoners for debt (29 Oct. 1656) and for settling Wyggeston’s Hospital, Leicester (9 Dec.), he was revealed to be in surprising accord with former Leveller Samuel Hyland* of Southwark, when he argued for a clear and limited definition of vagrancy (5 Dec.).202CJ vii. 447a, 466a, Burton’s Diary, i. 22. John Fitzjames*, the Dorset MP who was several times a teller with Onslow, nominated him to the committee for repairing highways while he was absent from the House through illness around New Year 1657, suggesting he had already signalled an interest, while his experience was also specifically called on in relation to managing forests (23 Oct., 14 Mar., 29 Apr.).203CJ vii. 444b, 478a, 503b, 528a; Burton’s Diary, i. 287, 294. Twice appointed to committees to regulate and raise money from new building in London (13 Feb., 9 May), he was a teller for the minority who tried to gain an exemption from fines for William Russell*, 5th earl of Bedford, in relation to his Covent Garden development.204CJ vii. 491a, 532a, 548a.

If his relationship to the Howards was indicative, Onslow, who was duly on the committee for Arundel Castle (4 Feb.), should have been one of the more sympathetic members of committees dealing with delinquents (22 Oct.) and confiscated lands (at Drury House, 2 Dec.).205CJ vii. 443b, 463b, 486a, His nomination to over 20 committees discussing private or corporate petitions connected him to a range of business from estate settlements to land grants in Ireland and put him in a position of considerable influence.206CJ vii. 466b, 468a, 470b, 472b, 473a, 482b, 483a, 484a, 485a, 488a, 489a, 490b, 493a, 494b, 501a, 503a, 503b, 515b, 516b, 523a, 529a, 543b, 546a. Active, whether the case concerned peers and army commanders like William Cecil*, 2nd earl of Salisbury, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) or George Monck*, or the coiners Anne Bickley and Francis Burghill, on whose behalf Onslow brought in a bill of pardon (24 Apr.), he seemed convinced that Parliament should be the adjudicator, and argued that it should honour its previous undertakings and make equitable and enforceable judgements.207CJ vii. 466a, 485a, 488a, 523a, 528b, 546a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 20, 63, 66, 79, 83, 103–5, 130, 176. On the whole this stance worked to the advantage of those with traditional rights rather than of those with new claims, although he was content to see Broghill, as ‘an honourable person, that had so well merited’ given ‘a public compensation’ out of appropriate lands.208Burton’s Diary, ii. 198.

Added on 11 November to the committee to address the arrears of excise, Onslow appeared determined that debate should continue until the problem was solved (8 Jan.).209CJ vii. 453a; Burton’s Diary, i. 324. Adopting what he projected as a practical and moderate line on public finance, he reckoned that he had ‘as much reason to plead against taxes as any man, considering the burden upon the county for which I serve, but seeing there is a necessity for it, I shall not be against it’.210Burton’s Diary, ii. 30. However, he considered that ‘the Spanish war’ could be prosecuted for less than some allocated to it in the projected political settlement and thus that the annual revenue could be reduced.211Burton’s Diary, ii. 24, 32, 41. Appointed to the committees to inspect the treasuries of England, Scotland and Ireland (30 May), and to discuss the bill for ascertaining public debt (19 June), he was a teller for the minority who tried to block a reduction in duties on wine (22 June).212CJ vii. 543a, 563a, 568b. Favouring the median figure for proposed assessments, he several times spoke also for a carefully calculated and equitable levy (10, 12 June) – albeit within reason: ‘they need not go to mathematical proportion’ – and was prepared to concede that Ship Money, although illegal, had at least been ‘most equal’ in imposition and might, under parliamentary rule, be taken as a kind of pattern.213Burton’s Diary, ii. 208, 212, 215, 218, 225–7.

The introduction of a new constitution revealed how far Onslow had become reconciled with the protectorate. On 24 February Onslow was a teller for the large majority who resolved that the Remonstrance inviting the protector to assume defined monarchical powers should be read through systematically.214CJ vii. 496b. One contemporary even described him as ‘head of the country party’ which voted to consider the new constitution. 215Henry Cromwell Corresp. 205. He was certainly closely involved in ensuing debate and was listed among those MPs who voted for kingship on 25 March.216Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 22 (E.935.5). A hostile commentator in 1658 thought he was ‘fully for kingship, and was never otherwise’; ‘seeing he cannot have young Charles, old Oliver will serve his turn’.217Wharton, A Second Narrative, 18. Acknowledging that his ancestor was ‘very earnest for making Cromwell king’, Onslow’s great-grandson offered alternative explanations: that he ‘imagined’ monarchy ‘was the only way of recovering the peace and settlement of the nation, and was indifferent as to the person who wore the crown’; that he was a covert supporter of the restoration of the Stuarts and considered this the best way to achieve it ‘and ruin Cromwell’; or even that ‘Cromwell had won him over by the promise of his being a lord under this new establishment’.218HMC 14th Rep. IX, 481. Sir Richard’s wealth and position might have made such ambition unsurprising, but it raises the question of whether there had been parallel overtures from the king in the 1630s or early 1640s which had been spurned. He may have had more sympathy for the Stuarts than his public utterances suggest, but he had missed opportunities to be really useful to them and had little in common with courtiers or plotters. On the other hand, it seems highly likely that a preference for tradition, order and accountability was at work.

The Venetian ambassador recorded that in early March, as the Commons prepared to discuss the nature of the chief magistrate, Onslow rose and argued eloquently and learnedly that it was of great consequence and required careful consideration.219CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 27. That month he was named to committees discussing several clauses of the Remonstrance, including the question of the chief magistrate’s title, and its justificatory conclusion; his aforementioned paper relating to the clause on religion gives a flavour of his participation.220CJ vii. 502a, 506b-508b, 511b. Having been a member of the delegation which attended Cromwell to receive his reaction (27 March), he was appointed to consider what had evolved into the Petition and Advice (6 Apr.) and then to attend Cromwell again (7, 8 Apr.).221CJ vii. 514a, 520b, 521a, 521b. The published record of exchanges accords him a relatively modest role in persuading the protector to overcome his scruples, but the speech he is recorded as making on 16 April is probably both characteristic of the man and a classic statement of conservative rationale for adherence to a new order provided it observed traditional forms and vocabulary. ‘No other name than king’, he told Cromwell, ‘can be suitable and comprehensive enough to contain in it the common good to all intents and purposes’; that had been proven during the wars of the Roses.222N. Fiennes et al. Monarchy Asserted (1660), 55. The title ‘protector’ was unknown to English law, and the grafting of ‘a young science upon an old stock’ was not liable to produce growth, whereas that of king was thoroughly incorporated into law and custom.223Monarchy Asserted, 56. He expressed his understanding of the reservations of ‘the soldiery’ and acknowledged their acquiescence thus far, but insisted that ‘all ought to submit and be concluded by the judgement of a Parliament’, which as ‘the womb of the commonwealth’ had gestated a settlement and brought it to delivery. It was for Cromwell to ‘make it speak the English tongue’ and to unite army and civilians like Judah and Israel under his kingship.224Monarchy Asserted, 58-9.

Onslow’s unease at the slippery basis of the existing constitution and its inherent contradictions was apparent on 24 April when he insisted that it would be scandalous ‘to confirm all in the lump’ every act and ordinance made since 1649; ‘we may make ourselves all traitors if we confirm all government which establishes a protector, and the last Parliament would not confirm it but in parts, and that upon serious consideration’.225Burton’s Diary, ii. 41 Onslow’s king would be limited in the way a protector was not: opinion already tended to ascribe too much executive power to ‘the single person’. ‘In former times we knew where it was’ but now, he implied, such certainty had gone (28 Apr.).226Burton’s Diary, ii. 52. Under the settlement of Parliament there would be attention to ensure that laws would be consistent with one another.227Burton’s Diary, ii. 91-2.

Onslow remained at the centre of debates and committees as talks dragged on: on the 29th he reported on the latest delegation to Cromwell.228CJ vii. 540b, 541a, 541b. On several occasions he revealed a conviction that Parliament should retain a good deal of control over appointments to public office and he supported the move that privy councillors should formally register their consent to its legislation.229Burton’s Diary, ii. 56, 89, 160, 276, 289; CJ vii. 557b. Ultimately thwarted, like the other negotiators, by Cromwell’s refusal to yield to persuasion and accept the kingly yoke, in the final days of the session he was on the committees to arrange that the protector should nonetheless be invested with as much awe-inspiring solemnity as could be mustered (23, 25 June).230CJ vii. 570b, 575a.

The Other House, 1658-9

On 9 December 1657 Onslow was summoned to the Other House for the second session of the Parliament.231HMC House of Lords, n.s. iv. 504. He duly took the oath on 20 January 1658.232HMC House of Lords, n.s. iv. 505. Named to the committee of privileges, he was absent from proceedings only once during the short session.233HMC House of Lords, n.s. iv. 509, 520. His other nominations reflected his piety and conservative loyalism: he was included on committees to set penalties for those who profaned the Lord’s Day (26 Jan.) and, as religious radicals, disaffected army officers and crypto-royalists combined to petition against the protectorate, to prepare a statement on ‘the concourse of papists and others who have been in arms against the commonwealth’ (3 Feb.).234HMC House of Lords, n.s. iv. 516, 523.

During 1658 Onslow consolidated his position as a leading civilian supporter of the protectorate. When, following Oliver’s death in early September, General George Monck* sent advice from Scotland to his successor, Richard Cromwell*, he included Lord Onslow among six recommendations for inclusion in the privy council.235TSP vii. 388.

Called again to the Other House for the third protectorate Parliament, Onslow was again appointed to the committee for privileges, as well as to the committee for petitions (28 Jan. 1659).236HMC House of Lords, n.s. iv. 525-7. Although absent from about a quarter of the days the House sat – perhaps at least partly to avoid involvement in the bill for annulling the title of Charles Stuart – he was still fairly prominent.237HMC House of Lords, n.s. iv. 528-30, 536, 539-40, 547-8. On 5 February he reported from the committee on the bill for the recognition of Richard as lord protector.238HMC House of Lords, n.s. iv. 532-3. Among four other committee nominations were those to consider a law restraining the use of the proscribed Book of Common Prayer (8 Feb.) and to devise further measures for preventing potentially subversive assemblies (15 Feb.).239HMC House of Lords, n.s. iv. 534, 537, 545, 550.

Meanwhile, as on 15 February the Commons turned to debate delinquent Members, Sir John Northcote reached for what he thought was the precedent of ‘Sir Richard Onslow being questioned here for a cavalier’ in order to demonstrate that those under investigation by the House might continue to sit. Robert Goodwin corrected him – Onslow ‘was never accused of delinquency’ – and referred the remark to the committee of privileges.240Burton’s Diary, iii. 237 Onslow was still in the minds of some MPs when they discussed a double return at Haslemere and the resulting dispute between Captain Westbrook, ‘Lord Onslow’s friend’ from the Surrey militia, and John Hooke*.241Burton’s Diary, iii. 325; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 285.

Restoration

In February 1660 Onslow returned to Westminster with others purged in 1648. He was immediately nominated to the committees on the bill for a constituting a council of state (21 Feb.) and for discussing qualifications to sit as an MP.242CJ vii. 847b, 848b. With political Presbyterians in the ascendant, on the 23rd he was among those elected to the council and made custos rotulorum of Surrey.243CJ vii. 849a; HMC 14th Rep. IX, 482.

Resuming previous activity, he was named to the committee preparing a bill to authorise the continuance of customs and excise collections, undermined by the demise of the protectorate, and he reported the favourable response to the delegation sent on 22 February to ask the City of London for an advance on assessments in order to supply the army and navy.244CJ vii. 848a, 848b, 849b. Following the parallel revocation of militia legislation, he was on committees to reconstruct local forces generally (23 Feb.) and in the City and liberties (29 Feb.).245CJ vii. 849a, 856a. His final appointments were (perhaps uncomfortably) to the committee chaired by the combative William Prynne* which addressed policy on the Lords (13 Mar.) and to consider the bill also drawn up under Prynne’s eye for holding a new Parliament on 25 April (14 Mar.).246CJ vii. 872b, 875a.

Following the dissolution of Parliament on 16 March, Onslow retained a position of influence at the centre owing to his membership of the council of state, which he evidently used to promote the return of the king.247HMC 14th Rep. IX, 482. Broghill applied to him from Dublin on the 30th for news of ‘your settlement which all sober men long for and these poor nations so much want’, assuring him that he had ‘a place in the first degree’ among ‘friends in England’.248Add. 45850, f. 20.

But Onslow soon forfeited his pre-eminent place in Surrey. He and his son Arthur had to be content with sitting for Guildford, rather than for Surrey, in the Convention.249HP Commons 1660-1690. Some of his local rivals tried to have him excluded from the Act of Indemnity, citing his conduct at Kingston in July 1642 and his destruction of the powder mills that November, but also alluding to a speech made ‘when the king went to the Scots’ [i.e. in 1646] in which he was alleged to have compared the king to a hedgehog who had wrapped himself in his own bristles.250HMC Dartmouth, i. 3.

Onslow took out a special pardon on 25 November, however, and the moment of danger passed. The friendship of Henry Howard, later 2nd duke of Norfolk, whose family he had assisted so consistently, probably helped, as more modestly did the testimony of clergy he had protected.251HMC 14th Rep. IX, 482; Beaton, No Treason. In August 1661 he was reinstated on the Surrey commission of the peace, where he again became very active, and he maintained his position in his heartland at Guildford, being re-elected for the borough that year.252C231/7, p. 127; C193/12/3; Surr. QS Recs. 1-156; HMC 14th Rep. IX, 483; HP Commons 1660-1690.

Onslow died on 19 May 1664, according to his great-grandson after being struck by lightning, but according to a contemporary as a result of gangrene, ‘caused by the relics of an ague which settled in his thigh’.253HMC 14th Rep. IX, 483; HMC Buccleuch, i.315. By his will of 20 February 1663, which afforded a glimpse of his considerable property, he left generous portions for those of his children as yet unprovided for.254PROB11/314/335. The Parliamentary dynasty continued through his sons, grandsons and descendants.