COURTHOP, George (1616-85), of Whiligh, Ticehurst, Suss.

The Courthop family could trace their ancestry in Sussex back to the thirteenth century, and although their only previous representation at Westminster was in the Parliaments of Henry V and Henry VI, they were well-established and wealthy gentry.26HP Commons 1386-1521. The family seat, Whiligh, was acquired in 1513, and had been completely rebuilt by the death of Courthop's grandfather, John Courthop, in 1615.27VCH Suss. ix. 255-6; E. Suss. RO, SAS/CO/98. George Courthop was born at Chafford, Kent, the home of his maternal grandfather, Sir George Rivers, longtime steward to the Sackvilles, earls of Dorset.28Suss. Manors, i. 88. Courthop was educated at nearby Westerham school under Mr Walter, before moving in 1628 to Merchant Taylors’ School. He stayed there only briefly – under Nicholas Grey – before transferring to Westminster School, where he studied under Lambert Osbaldeston, later tried in star chamber for his opposition to Archbishop William Laud. Osbaldeston’s moderate episcopalianism may have appealed to Courthop, who did not approve of the Laudianism of Dr John Bancroft, master of University College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1632.29Mems of Sir George Courthop, 103-4.

Courthop graduated in 1635, but although he remained in Oxford for another 18 months, he did not take his MA. He departed for the continent in October 1636 as the travelling companion of his Sussex neighbour, Lord Dacre (Francis Lennard*). The pair spent two months in Paris, before travelling along the Loire valley to Angers, where they parted. Thereafter, Courthop had a series of companions – many of them prominent gentlemen from Kent and Sussex. At the recommendation of his friend William Campion of Combwell, Kent, Courthop spent about a year at Loudun, where he met Viscountess Purbeck (mother of Robert Danvers or Villiers*), who tried unsuccessfully to convert him to Catholicism.30Mems of Sir George Courthop, 104-9. He then visited Lyon, the principality of Orange, Avignon, and Geneva, where he met Cecil Tufton (brother of Kentish peer, John Tufton, 2nd earl of Thanet), with whom he travelled to Turin in the autumn of 1637. He explored Italy with the prince de Joinville, son of the duc de Guise, and met Richard D’Ewes (brother of Sir Simonds D’Ewes*). From Rome and Naples Courthop went to Messina and Smyrna with Henry Chowne*. With Chowne and Tufton, he visited Constantinople. Thwarted in a plan to go on to Jerusalem when he was suspected of being a Venetian spy, he was forced to pay a hefty fine to avoid corporal punishment. He returned home via Malta, Rome (where he visited the Jesuits’ College) and Loudun.31Mems of Sir George Courthop, 109-36; E. Suss. RO, SAS/CO/53c, 698, 700. Antipathetic to ‘popery’, he told Campion that ‘the devil is as much here as ever he was’.32E. Suss. RO, Danny mss 365, 381. En route through Paris Courthop visited the ambassador, Robert Sidney†, 2nd earl of Leicester, and befriended his son, Philip Sidney*, Viscount Lisle.33Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 136.

Courthop arrived in England at Christmas 1639, and lived at the family’s London house in Leadenhall Street until his father's death in October 1642. He then immediately went to Charles I at Shrewsbury or Wolverhampton, ostensibly to secure a grant of his father’s place in the alienations office. Enlisting the help of his uncle, John Courthop (present as a gentleman pensioner), he succeeded, paying the king £1,300.34Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 136-8. According to his own somewhat confused account, he proceeded – perhaps via Oxford – to London, where he presented his credentials to the former lord treasurer, Bishop William Juxon, who was living in retirement at Fulham, and took up the reins of his alienations post, which he held undisturbed for the next decade.35Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 138-40. The settlement made at his marriage in July 1643 – to the daughter of his stepmother from her first marriage – indicates continuing royalist connections: his trustee was Sir John Cordell (Chowne’s employer), one of the leading royalist aldermen in London. 36Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 145; E. Suss. RO, SAS/CO/c/166-8; SAS/CO/703-4, 706.

Courthop resurfaced in Sussex only after the king's flight to the Scots and the fall of Oxford. Appointed to the commission of the peace, he first attended quarter sessions in October 1646.37C231/6, p. 51; E. Suss. RO, QR/E73; Suss. QSOB 1642-1649, 109. Plausibly, his inclusion was secured by Sir Thomas Pelham* and Sir Thomas Parker*, leaders of the county’s ‘peace party’ which favoured a lenient settlement with the king, as part of a move to counter-balance the influence of the ‘war party’ in local administration. It coincided with the appointments of George Parker* and John Pelham*, who were later, like Courthop, suspected of crypto-royalism. Sir Thomas Parker’s daughter was the wife of Courthop’s old friend Sir William Campion, the royalist governor of Boarstall House, Oxfordshire; during 1646 both Parker and Campion were guests of another old friend, Lord Dacre, who also favoured coming to terms with the king.38Essex RO, D/DL/E22, ff. 143, 156, 167-8.

Active on the bench until October 1648, Courthop sought to further a political settlement based on the Newport propositions.39E. Suss. RO, QR/E74, 75, 77, 81; W. Suss. RO, QR/W59; Suss. QSOB, 124, 137, 145, 152, 156, 159, 165; LJ viii. 596b. Like Sir Thomas Pelham, he signed the Sussex petition which called for a personal treaty with the king, presented to Parliament on 9 June that year.40PA, Parchment coll. Box 11. His opponents in the 1650s would claim that he had been ‘a principal promoter’ of that petition, responsible for ‘many threatenings against all that should oppose or discourage a general subscription’. Having decided to take the petition to London himself, it was alleged, Courthop arranged a rendezvous with ‘other persons of the same party’ at East Grinstead, and ‘there was a guard set by them in that town, to the terror of the honest party of that county’, whose fears had been aroused by the rising in Kent.41TSP v. 283.

Courthop was removed from the bench in the purge that succeeded the regicide. He was listed as eligible to attend the assizes in March 1649, but his name was missing by the following July. His enemies later claimed that he was removed ‘for malignancy and drunkenness’, although the nature of his supposed malignancy is unclear.42ASSI35/90/2, 5; TSP v. 341. During much of the commonwealth he lived a quiet life, proving the will of his uncle, John Courthop, in November 1649, and maintaining contact with the widow of his friend Campion.43E. Suss. RO, SAS/CO/102; Dyke-Hatton MSS 673-4.

By its act for taking away fines upon bills, declarations, and original writs (2 Aug. 1653), the Nominated Parliament effectively removed the alienations office.44CJ vii. 294a. His livelihood thereby undermined, Courthop ‘made application to them to set it up again’ at the opening of the 1654 Parliament, ‘by reason the former government never intended to lose so great a revenue, and what they did was done ignorantly’.45Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 139. The protectorate government duly agreed, and appointed Samuel Bond* (son of Denis Bond*) as receiver.46A. and O. Courthop may have been responsible for placing an advertisement in the government newspaper, Mercurius Politicus, in May 1655, reminding readers of the need to compound for fines in the alienations office.47Mercurius Politicus no. 259 (24-31 May 1655), 5367 (E.841.3).

Courthop's motivation for securing the revival of the office might have gone beyond personal profit. In a once again confused account, which appears to conflate the circumstances of 1642-3 and 1654, he claimed that, faced with having to hold their posts by parliamentary ordinance, its staff had consulted the king, who had given permission ‘to act under them if we could not avoid it’ in order to keep the process going, provided they sent him money. This they did – on at least one occasion by using as a courier Sir William Compton†, a member of the Sealed Knot – until ‘discovered’ by one of their own clerks. For this they received ‘a severe reprimand’, but John Crewe I*, a member of the committee for the king’s revenue, ensured that they ‘got off’, although ‘not without great fear of losing our places, and the committee stopped our salaries’.48Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 139-40; TSP iii. 697.

In an election dominated by what Major-general William Goffe* called the ‘disaffected party’, in 1656 Courthop was returned to the second protectorate Parliament as one of the nine knights of the shire allocated to Sussex under the Instrument of Government.49Mercurius Politicus no. 324 (21-28 Aug. 1656), 7206 (E.497.12); no. 326 (4-11 Sept. 1656), 7235 (E.497.18). Goffe told Secretary John Thurloe* that many `honest people' were `very much troubled' by Courthop’s return, and forwarded a paper expressing local objections, inviting reflection on whether it contained sufficient evidence to warrant his exclusion from Parliament. Opponents cited his role in organising the 1648 Sussex petition, and alleged that he sent money to the king at Oxford, and used the Book of Common Prayer in his house. He lacked the necessary credentials for an MP, ‘being never looked upon as a friend of the public interest, or any way qualified, so as may render him under the character of a person of known integrity’ – facts to which they would testify, ‘if they may be heard at the council’.50TSP v. 283, 341, 382-3; Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 141. For his part, Courthop later claimed that ‘the army men’ present when he was returned fourth in the poll at Lewes Castle recognized in the number of his supporters the negative implications for their own chances of election, and therefore laid accusations against him.51Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 141.

Those same officers were, according to Courthop, responsible for preventing him from taking his seat in the House. Informed by them ‘that there was a petition depending in the council of state that rendered me incapable of sitting’, he ‘went away immediately’ to complain to the protector. Allegedly, Cromwell replied ‘that it was an act of the council’s, and that he did not concern himself in it’. Referred on to Henry Lawrence*, president of the council, Courthop sought a trial to clear his name. Requesting that Cromwell attend the hearing, he pointed out that he was the senior commissioner in the alienations office, which brought in revenue of £16,000 a year. Aware that the trial would be for his life, but safe in the knowledge that the allegations that he had sent money to Charles Stuart ‘were out in the place, though true as to the matter of fact, I was confident it could not be proved’.52Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 141-2.

A hearing planned for 26 May 1657 was delayed, and in the meantime Courthop received valuable inside information from friends at Cromwell’s court. Viscount Lisle reassured Courthop that he ‘need not fear’, since the petition against him was based on resentment at his election rather ‘than anything relating to [his] person’, while William Jessop*, clerk of the council, soon informed him that his accusers had been ‘dissuaded from any further prosecution’. Thereafter, ‘nobody any way interrupting me’, Courthop took his seat in the House, and ‘there ... remained’ until Parliament was dissolved in February 1658, although there is no evidence of his involvement in the work of the assembly, or participation in its debates.53Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 143-5.

While investigations into his case were still pending, early in 1657 Courthop was restored to the county bench, although he was only moderately active.54C231/6, p. 343; ASSI35/98/9; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW3, ff. 34v, 37v, 71v; QR/E113. He made no impression in the 1659 Parliament, to which he was returned as burgess for East Grinstead, and which he failed even to mention in his memoirs. The zeal which Courthop later recalled for the Stuart cause was manifested neither in parliamentary activity nor in royalist conspiracy: in the last years of the commonwealth he was preoccupied by family matters, such as acting as executor to the estates of his cousins Sir Thomas Rivers* and Francis Courthop, and his step-mother and mother-in-law, Dame Elizabeth Courthop.55E. Suss. RO, SAS/SH/581-2; SAS/CO/103, 104; Add. 39479, f. 315.

Re-elected at East Grinstead to the Convention, like most of the county’s leading gentry Courthop signed the ‘humble address’ sent to Charles II in May 1660, welcoming the Restoration.56Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 146; SP29/1, f. 89. Soon after, he was made a deputy lieutenant by Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, and in December he received a royal pardon.57Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 148; SO3/13, unfol. Possibly in gratitude for former service, the king granted Courthop’s request for a place as a gentleman pensioner, although this might have been done out of respect for Courthop’s uncle, John Courthop, who had been imprisoned for his loyalty to Charles I.58CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 31. In this capacity, George Courthop attended the king at the coronation (23 Apr. 1661). He was knighted the following day.59Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 148.

Courthop sat again for East Grinstead in the Cavalier Parliament, but was no more active than he had been in the past; even his attendances at quarter sessions became rarer.60Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 147; HP Commons 1660-1690; E. Suss. RO, QO/EW4, ff. 4, 27v, 71; QO/EW5, f. 41v. Confirmed in March 1661 at the alienations office, he also pursued the life of a wealthy country squire, enhancing his estate with the purchase of property forfeited by the regicide, Sir Hardress Waller*.61CTB ii. 359, 375, 591; C54/4048/1; E. Suss. RO, SAS/CO/303-4, 417, 1089-90; SAS/CO/c/156. He patronized scholars and in 1665 revisited France.62E. Suss. RO, SAS/CO/c/104; Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 150. Ten years later, Courthop relinquished his office to his youngest son, Edward.63CTB iv. 848; 1676-9, pp. 647, 1368; E. Suss. RO, SAS/CO/1333. Reported to be too ill to travel to Westminster in 1678, he lived until November 1685, when he was buried with great pomp at Ticehurst.64Mems. of Sir George Courthop, 154-5; PROB11/383/392. His descendants continued to live at Whiligh until the twentieth century, when they were next represented in Parliament by George Lloyd Courthope, later 1st Baron Courthope, the last of the male line, who died in 1955.65Burke PB.