PARKER, George (?1620-73), of Ratton, Willingdon, Suss.

George Parker was born into a long line of MPs shortly before his father, Sir Thomas Parker*, succeeded to the family estates. Like his uncle, the parliamentarian pamphleteer Henry Parker, George studied at Oxford and Lincoln’s Inn, the latter of which he entered in 1638. His brother, along with Robert Ashton (son of Sir William) acted as manucaptor at his admission.18L. Inn Lib. Admiss. Bk. 6, f. 151.

Parker does not seem to have participated actively in the first civil war. Like his father, he maintained his associations with royalist friends and kin, including Sir William Campion, his brother-in-law. With his father, Parker signed the safe conduct granted by Sir Thomas Fairfax* at the fall of Boarstall House in 1646 to Campion as its governor.19E. Suss. RO, Danny 114. Parker had been a regular guest at Herstmonceux Castle, the seat of his cousin Francis Lennard*, 14th Baron Dacre, a parliamentarian of very moderate inclination. There he met Campion there on more than one occasion between 1646 and 1647, as well as hardline royalists like Mildmay Fane, 2nd earl of Westmorland, and Sir Edward Filmer.20Essex RO, D/DL/E22, ff. 126, 129-33, 143-5, 150-8, 162, 166, 169-76, 184, 192, 197, 202, 204, 206, 352-3.

In 1648 Parker sided with the quasi-royalist faction in Sussex. On 9 June, with Sir William Culpepper and Thomas Middleton I*, he headed a group of 18 men who delivered to Parliament a petition of the knights and gentry of the county.21CJ v. 591a-b; Perfect Occurrences no. 76 (9-16 June 1648), 334 (E.522.40). The petition’s ‘royalist undertones’ were apparent in the demands for a ‘well grounded peace both in church and commonwealth’ which took account of the king’s ‘most just rights as of the rights of parliament’. In practice petitioners sought remedy for the ‘miserable effects’ of civil war in disbandment of the army after payment of arrears; government by ‘known laws’; reduction in taxation; and the dissolution of the Arundel garrison.22Fletcher, Suss., 291; New Propositions Agreed Upon, (1648), 2-4 (E.447.7). The petition had been drawn up at Lewes on 30 May, with the assistance of George Courthop*, as a ‘direct challenge’ to the county committee from men whose allegiances had long been suspected. The sentiments behind it evidently underlay the disquieting summer of unrest which followed, and a rising at Horsham threatened the very garrison which Parker and his associates wanted to disband.23The Resolution of His Highnesse, (1648), 3-5 (E.451.13); R. T. A Letter from Horsum [1648] (669.f.12.60); Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer, no. 266, (27 June-4 July 164), 998 (E.451.2); CJ v. 614b, 615a, 615b, 618.

Whatever Parker’s activity during the late 1640s, it is clear that he was not fulfilling his obligations at Lincoln’s Inn, where on 3 May 1649 he secured the suspension of moves to seize his chamber on account of his absence from commons for four years. He seems never to have been called to the bar, and eventually in November 1655 he petitioned the society that his chambers might pass to one John Risley.24L. Inn Lib. E1a1 (Red Bks., vol.1), ff. 225v, 246v. Perhaps he acted as a legal assistant to his father-in-law.

By the summer of 1652 Parker had married Mary, younger daughter of Richard Newdigate†, an increasingly prosperous Grays Inn bencher with estates in the midlands. Related to both Cromwell and Hampden, Newdigate had served briefly in the parliamentarian army and was on the commission of the peace for several counties, but he had friends and kin among the royalists too, and having been appointed serjeant-at-law and justice of upper bench in 1654, he was removed the following year after his judgement that there could be no crime of treason against the protector. Restored to office in the later 1650s, Newdigate continued to tread the difficult path of moderate even-handedness in similar fashion to Parker’s father.25‘Sir Richard Newdigate, 1st baronet’, Oxford DNB; Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture, 175-88. George and Mary’s seven children were born between September 1653 and February 1662 at Newdigate’s house, Leaden Porch, Holborn, and baptised at the parish church of St Andrew.26St Andrew, Holborn, par. regs.

Parker’s name surfaced during the interrogations which followed the abortive plot of John Stapley in 1658 to raise Sussex in support of a Spanish invasion.27Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 209-12, 226-7; Fletcher, Suss., 312-15. George Hutchinson confessed that he was under the impression that Parker was engaged for the king, and Parker’s own brother-in-law Thomas Nutt made a similar claim. When Stapley approached Parker, however, he apparently replied that ‘he meant to sleep in a whole skin’ if he could. It is probably fair to say that Parker, while inclined to support the king, was afraid of active engagement.28TSP vii. 89, 94, 99.

The wisdom of remaining tight-lipped about his support for Stapley’s uprising became evident when Parker was returned for the borough of Seaford in the Parliament of Richard Cromwell* in 1659. His activity was minimal, however. Although the assembly met on 27 January, no writ was issued for Seaford until 5 February.29C231/6, p. 423. The only reference to him in the Commons Journal was a resolution on 5 April permitting him leave to go to the country for one month. Cromwell dissolved the Parliament before Parker was due to return to Westminster.30CJ vii. 626a.

Whatever his attitude to the restored Rump, Parker certainly paid his taxes for the militia (16 Aug. 1659).31SP28/335/80. In 1660 Parker became both a justice of the peace and a militia commissioner, and he was returned to the Convention for Seaford.32A. and O.; HP Commons 1660-1690; The Parliamentary Intelligencer no. 17 (16-23 Apr.1660), 260, 270 (E.183.5); Suss. Arch. Coll. xix. 209-10. In this second spell at Westminster, he was named to only two unimportant committees.33CJ viii. 180. That he welcomed the return of the king is apparent from his signing the humble address of the Sussex gentry in May 1660.34SP29/1/89. Nevertheless, his profile does not appear to have risen appreciably with the Restoration, although this may have been partly a consequence of his father living until 1663. He was not counted among Wharton’s friends, and may thus be regarded as having been Anglican royalist in persuasion.35Bodl. Carte 81, ff. 74-7; G.F.T.Jones, Saw-Pit Wharton, (1967), 181. In 1664 he was addressed by Charles II regarding improvements to Newhaven harbour.36E. Suss. RO, Glynde 3162; Suss. Arch Coll. lxiv. 195-6.

Parker continued the expansion of the family estate in Sussex which had been begun by his father and grandfather. In 1651 he obtained the manor of Tremons, but more important was the acquisition of Rodmell in 1662 from Lord Abergavenny for £1,500.37Suss. Manors, i. 237-8; ii. 367, 444; C9/35/49. Dispute concerning the reversion to this manor followed Abergavenny’s death.38C9/35/49. His property deals seem to have been fraught with pitfalls, however, leading to lawsuits over contracts and agreements.39C7/276/17; C7/281/36.

Nonetheless, Parker’s wealth remained substantial. By the time he drew up his will in January 1673, he had only two surviving children; his eldest son had died in October 1665. To his wife, who lived at Jevington for another 35 years until her death in October 1708, he left an augmented jointure of £600 a year, while his younger son Richard received a portion of £3,000. His elder son and heir, Robert, was entrusted to the guardianship of the four executors, including Serjeant Richard Newdigate and his son Thomas, who proved the will. Parker’s close relation to his wife’s family was also reflected in bequests of rings and in the identity of witnesses to the will, who included Mary’s cousin Lettice Bolton and her father’s man-of-business Robert Beale.40PROB11/343/154; Add. 5697, ff. 334v, 336; Suss. Arch. Coll. lxx. 142. Parker died at Ratton on 12 July, and was buried two days later in the church at Willingdon, where his monument still stands.41MI, St Mary the Virgin, Willingdon. Richard Parker married Sarah Chilcot in 1681 and lived in Buckinghamshire. The MP’s heir, Sir Robert Parker† was made a baronet in 1674, the year he married into the Chute family. He served in three exclusion Parliaments.42HP Commons 1660-1690.