MARLOTT, William (1574-1646), of Ashurst and Shoreham, Suss.

Marlott’s ancestors had acquired Muntham manor in the parish of Itchingfield in the mid fourteenth century, and by the later fifteenth century owned property nearly 20 miles away on the coast at New Shoreham. Despite ancient lineage and service on the commission of the peace, they mostly remained modest gentry. Nothing is known of the youth of this MP, who as the fifth son and youngest child of his father’s first marriage presumably inherited little when his father died in 1601. By 1613 he was married and living in Ashurst (between Itchingfield and New Shoreham), where his only son was baptised and buried that May.18Godman, ‘Itchingfield’, 96-7, opp. 108, 113; W. Suss. RO, STC I/15, f. 137; VCH Suss. vi. pt. ii. 10-11. Thereafter it is sometimes difficult to distinguish his career from that of the son of his elder brother Thomas (d. 1593), William Marlott (1590-1653) of Itchingfield.

Given that William the nephew was only 23 in 1613, however, it is more likely that it was the uncle, William of Ashurst, who was mentioned in privy council papers that year as dealing with pirates in some semi-official (if controversial) activity that took him to Ireland.19PC2/27, f. 42; APC 1613-4, pp. 130, 437-8; CSP Dom. 1611-1618, p. 206. This is the basis for identifying him also as the William Marlott, Marlet or Merlot who was a customs farmer by 1616, and a deputy vice-admiral for Sussex and commissioner to seize pirate goods in the later 1620s.20APC 1615-16, p. 377; Procs. in Parliament 1624 (12 Apr. 1624); CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 572; SP16/59, f. 32; SP16/153, f. 87; PC2/38, f. 457. By 1624 Marlott was based mainly at New Shoreham.21C54/2596/25; C54/2987/24. It was plausibly as a client of the county’s vice-admiral, Charles Howard†, 2nd earl of Nottingham, that he – and not his nephew – was elected one of the borough’s MPs to all four Parliaments between 1624 and 1628.22HP Commons 1604-1629. Confirmation appears to come from a comment in correspondence of April 1628 that Nottingham had been persuaded into a course of action ‘by Mr Marlot of Shoreham (who is a burgess for Parliament for that place)’.23SP16/102, f. 59. At Westminster, in contrast, Marlott made almost no mark, although a speech about customs payments for the transportation of barley reveals the considerable commercial experience he brought to the House.24Procs. in Parl. 1624, 12 Apr.

As a deputy vice-admiral Marlott worked with Nottingham throughout the 1630s, and was involved in the collection of Ship Money in 1637.25E407/35, f. 165; PC2/40, f. 551; CSP Dom. 1631-1633, p. 523; 1637, pp. 112, 314. Meanwhile, he was appointed to commissions for sewers and for charitable uses, and in 1640 for the subsidy.26C181/4, ff. 47, 54; C181/5, f. 70; C192/1; SR. Marlott was once again returned to Parliament to both the Short and Long Parliaments, the decline in the patronage of both the earls of Nottingham and Arundel perhaps enabling him to do so on his own interest.27C219/42ii/33. Once in the Commons, however, Marlott’s parliamentary career was as uneventful as before. The first indication of his presence was in the first week of May 1641, when he took the Protestation.28CJ ii. 133b.

Marlott’s name was then not recorded again until after civil war had broken out. On 1 November 1642 he and Thomas Middleton, MP for Horsham, were the two Members named with others, non-Members, to the committee for Sussex.29CJ ii. 830a. Thereafter he appeared exclusively in a local context, supporting the parliamentarian war effort. He served as a commissioner for the assessment and for the sequestration of delinquents’ estates, as a commissioner for the association of southern counties, and subsequently for the New Model ordinance in Sussex.30A. and O. He dispatched a letter to Parliament from Shoreham on 13 January 1643 relating the circumstances of a shipwreck near Arundel, and in November 1643 signed a letter to the Committee for Advance of Money regarding the assessment of Sir Thomas Farnefold*.31CJ iii. 367a; SP19/90, f. 40. By this time he was also a collector of customs at Chichester.32Bodl. Rawl. A.221, p.232; AO3/300, ff. 5v-6. He was at Westminster to take the Covenant on 27 March 1644, but there is no other sign of his presence that year.33CJ iii. 439a. Some time before September he was appointed to the commission of the peace, but it is unclear whether this indicated some connection to its dominant figures, Presbyterian moderates Sir Thomas Pelham* and Sir Thomas Parker*.34ASSI35/85/1. He does not appear to have been an active magistrate.

Marlott’s inactivity may have arisen from his advanced age: as a septuagenarian he was one of the oldest members of the Commons by the mid-1640s. On 11 September 1645 the Commons granted him the weekly allowance of £4, but although he acknowledged such payments, he soon died. 35SC6/Chas. 1/1663, m.8r-d; SC6/Chas. 1/1664, m.15d; E404/517, unfol. He was buried at Shoreham on 8 February 1646.36Godman, ‘Itchingfield’, 108, 113 Marlott left no heir, and administration of his estate was granted to his widow, who subsequently collected £120 of her husband’s arrears from the Commons.37SC6/Chas. 1/1665, m.17d; SC6/Chas. 1/1667, m.14d. A writ was issued for a new election on 24 July 1646.38CJ iv. 627a.

Marlott’s nephews had espoused the royalist cause, the younger, Thomas, having been taken prisoner by Sir William Waller* at Arundel in 1643.39Godman, ‘Itchingfield’, 95. The elder, William Marlott of Itchingfield, signed the Sussex petition of June 1648, which called for a settlement with the king, and in September delinquency articles were lodged against him.40PA, Parchment coll. box 11; Godman, ‘Itchingfield’, 96. This William died in 1653, and was succeeded at Itchingfield by his son William (c.1620-57), an Inner Temple lawyer with property in Chichester, who was married to a niece of Bishop William Juxon and who by February 1653 was a deputy vice-admiral of Sussex.41  Godman, ‘Itchingfield’, 97, 129; PROB11/227/89 (William Marlett); PROB11/266/395 (William Merlett); Al. Cant.; I. Temple database. No further members of the family sat in Parliament.