DOWSE, Edward (c.1582–c.1648), of Petworth, Suss.

The Dowse family had been resident in Hampshire since at least the early sixteenth century; by 1600 they had also acquired substantial property in Wiltshire and high gentry status. Edward Dowse’s uncle, Richard Dowse, married a daughter of Lord Thomas Paulet, son of John Paulet , 2nd marquess of Winchester.17Berry, Pedigrees of Hants, 312. Edward’s father, Thomas Dowse, acquired Broughton manor in 1590, established a school there in 1601, and married one of the Coverts of Slaugham in Sussex, one of the most prominent families in the county.18VCH Hants, iv. 494-5; Hants RO, 5M50/2322, 19M83, 8M82/K1; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Ardingly, 187. When he died in 1601, he bequeathed a sizeable estate in Wiltshire and Hampshire as well as property in London, although Edward received only £100 in debts owing to the deceased.19PROB11/98/265. Dowse’s brothers subsequently assumed prominent positions in both the provinces and at court; three of them, Francis, Gabriel, and Edmund, were knighted by James I.20Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 118, 149, 167. Sir Francis Dowse was sheriff of Hampshire in 1628, while Sir Edmund was cupbearer to queens Anne and Henrietta Maria.21Woodward et al, General Hist. Hants, i. 414; E315/107, f 15v; LR7/80/2; Add. 27401, f. 36; LC2/5, f. 31v; LR5/63, f. 1v.

Having matriculated from Hart Hall, Oxford, in 1597, Dowse stayed at the university to take his MA in 1604.22Al. Ox. Good-looking and accomplished at dance – ‘an Adonis ... chosen to lead the measures before the queen’, according to a reported boast made over 30 years later, he too found powerful patrons.23Add. 70002, ff. 152-3. By 1611, Dowse had entered the orbit of Henry Percy, 3rd earl of Northumberland, imprisoned in the Tower for his part in the Gunpowder Plot. That August Dowse was granted a pass to travel to the continent for three years with Sir William Goring†, son-in-law of Sir Edward Fraunceys†, Northumberland’s steward at Petworth.24CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 67. On his return, Dowse entered Northumberland’s household, as tutor to Algernon, Lord Percy†, attending him at St John’s College, Cambridge, between 1615 and 1618, and thereafter accompanying him to France.25Alnwick, Northumberland MS U.I. : acct. of Edward Dowse 1615-16; Alnwick, Northumberland MS U.I.4: general acct. 1616, unfol.; Alnwick, Northumberland MS U.I.4: Henry Taylor’s acct. 1617 and 1618, unfol.; Household Pprs. Northumberland, 93, 96, 141, 152; HMC 6th Rep. 230b-231a. Once back in England Dowse retained his position within Northumberland’s household, occupying a modest chamber at Syon House and becoming one of the earl’s many creditors.26Household Pprs. Northumberland, 129, 166.

The electoral influence of Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk, may have counted for at least as much as Dowse’s connection to Northumberland in his first election to Parliament in 1625, when he was returned for the Wiltshire seat of Cricklade. Defying expectations that he might speak up as an anti-Calvinist, he appears to have made little impression on the Commons. Nevertheless, he was returned for a second time in 1626, on this occasion for Chichester in the by-election which followed Lord Percy’s call to the Upper House. Once again he failed to make his mark at Westminster.27HP Commons 1604–1629.

In the late 1620s and early 1630s, Dowse lived on the Percy estates at Syon and Petworth, with a pension of £40 a year.28Alnwick, Northumberland MS U.I.4: Brief acct. 1629-30, unfol.; MS U.I.5: General disbursements, 1631, unfol. In November 1628 he informed the earl of Carlisle – Northumberland’s son-in-law and the ambassador at Turin – of his ‘retired living’; he was ‘a mere stranger in court’.29CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 391; SP16/121, f. 44. When Northumberland died in 1632, Dowse was repaid £700 which he had lent to the earl, and received a small bequest.30Household Pprs. Northumberland, 129, 132-3. For the rest of his life he served his old pupil, now the 4th earl of Northumberland, to whom he was both a pensioner and a creditor, and from whom he purchased a small amount of Sussex property.31Alnwick, Northumberland MS U.I.5: general accts. 1632, 1633, 1633-9, unfol.; Henry Taylor’s acct. 1636-9, unfol. In the 1630s, recalling his student days, he was reported to have mocked the earl’s chaplain, George Garrard*, a near contemporary at Oxford, deriding his looks, apparently marred by smallpox, and his relative lack of sexual conquests.32Add. 70002, ff. 152-3. A constant companion to his employer, Dowse accompanied Northumberland on board The Triumph when the earl was appointed admiral of the Ship Money fleet in March 1636.33Add. 70002, ff. 106r-v, 116, 142-3. He probably remained with the fleet until at least the summer of 1637, returning to the mainland when Northumberland assumed the position of lord high admiral.34Add. 70002, ff. 144, 152-3. It is unclear, however, whether Dowse went north with Northumberland during the first bishops’ war.

In the spring elections of 1640, Northumberland exerted tremendous influence at Chichester in order to ensure that both Dowse and Christopher Lewkenor*, one of his retained counsel, were returned to Westminster. Once more, however, Dowse made no discernible impact in the Commons in the three-week session before the Parliament’s dissolution.

By 2 June Dowse, now over 50 years old, was deep in preparations for a belated marriage. Northumberland, who had been appointed general of the king’s forces in the north for the second bishops’ war, reported that Dowse was ‘troubled in conscience’ about deserting his betrothed to accompany him to Scotland.35CSP Dom. 1640, p. 260; SP16/456, f. 11. However, his servant was probably the ‘Capt[ain] Dowes’ who served in Northumberland’s regiment in the north that summer.36Add. 28082, ff. 11-12. In that eventuality, Northumberland predicted, Dowse would delay, or even shy away from, his marriage, but some time over the next few years he did acquire a wife; despite her unusual Christian name, Gresham, her identity and the date of their wedding prove elusive.37SP16/456, f. 11; PROB11/204/156.

In elections to the Long Parliament, Dowse once more benefited from Northumberland’s influence. At Portsmouth the earl’s younger brother Henry Percy* was initially chosen alongside George Goringe*, but on 11 November 1640 Percy opted to sit as knight of the shire for Northumberland, and a new writ was issued.38CJ ii. 26b. Dowse, who had been made a burgess of Portsmouth on the 3rd, was duly returned.39Portsmouth Recs. ed East, 352. On the 28th he was allowed to take communion in the Commons.40Northcote Note Bk. 13. He did not appear in the Journal until 10 March 1641, when he was granted leave to go to the country ‘upon some great occasions’; John Moore* recorded him as Northumberland’s ‘steward’.41CJ ii. 100b; Procs. LP ii. 298. Nevertheless, he was evidently back in the House by early May 1641, when he took the Protestation, and it cannot be ruled out that his primary – and potentially important – function throughout was to be one of Northumberland’s sets of eyes and ears in the Commons.42CJ ii. 133a.

When from the spring of 1642 Dowse attained a higher profile in Parliament, much of his activity was connected with Northumberland’s work as lord admiral.43CJ ii. 626b. On 14 March the Commons accepted a motion by Dowse to reverse a recent decision regarding the appointment of one Captain Burley, on the basis of evidence that Northumberland approved of him, while on 9 April he was named to a committee considering the state of the Savoy hospital and of the Charterhouse, of which Garrard was now the master.44PJ ii. 36; CJ ii. 474b, 519b. Dispatched with navy treasurer Sir Henry Vane II* to the lord admiral regarding the ships which had brought the magazine from Hull (30 May), Dowse relayed a reply from Northumberland about ships deployed to prevent ammunition reaching Newcastle (11 June), and was named with Vane and others to examine one of the navy captains (16 June).45CJ ii. 594a, 619b, 626b. On 1 June, when the Commons ordered Dowse to deliver the examination of one John Morton to Northumberland, they referred to him as the earl’s secretary.46PJ ii. 399.

Probably because of his close ties to Northumberland, in 1642 Dowse supported Parliament – unlike other members of his family, particularly his brother Sir Francis Dowse, who was a zealous royalist.47CCC 1177. On 11 June Dowse pledged to lend £50 to the parliamentarian cause, and on 7 September he took the oath of loyalty to Parliament’s lord general, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.48PJ iii. 474; CJ ii. 755b. Almost certainly it was on account of his patron that he was nominated to the important Committee for Irish Affairs on 3 September.49CJ ii. 750b. The same day he was sent with the much more prominent Member, William Strode I* to Northumberland’s father-in-law, William Cecil, 2nd earl of Salisbury, to discuss the latter’s promise to lend £5,000 for Irish service; it was Dowse who two days later brought in the reply that £1,000 would be forthcoming.50CJ ii. 751a, 752b, 753a.

A thread of service to Northumberland can be detected running through the remainder of Dowse’s parliamentary career. This pertains even on some of the rare occasions when his name was connected with religious issues, which in general seem to have been of relatively little importance to the earl. Around the beginning of the war, when Northumberland was especially zealous for the parliamentary cause, Dowse was concerned with public perceptions of it. Having in early June 1642 drawn the Commons’ attention to the case of Mark Frank, a fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, who had been summoned to appear for his anti-parliamentarian sermon at St Paul’s Cross, on 26 September Dowse was placed on the committee to provide for more reliable preachers at this strategic location.51PJ iii. 18; PJ ii. 328, CJ ii. 606, 768b. Subsequently he was included on a committee addressing the spread of ‘false rumours’ against Parliament (21 Apr. 1643).52CJ iii. 54b. Meanwhile, he was named to the committee reviewing the accounts of money raised for the war effort in the counties (28 Oct. 1642) and the following February drew the attention of the House to the fact that many MPs were yet to contribute, in a motion that was reportedly well-received, although not taken up.53CJ ii. 825b; Harl. 164, f. 287v. He was also nominated to the small committee tasked with liaising with the militia and City authorities to secure the Tower of London (3 Nov. 1632).54CJ ii. 833a.

Over the winter, as Northumberland began to drift towards the peace party and led the parliamentarian delegation to peace negotiations at Oxford, Dowse was less visible in the House, although he was dispatched with a request to the earl on 13 January, and designated on 30 March to send some letters: whether these were missives yet to be drafted encouraging the earl of Essex to implement sequestration proceedings or the earl of Kingston to contribute money, or indeed intercepted letters which had come into his possession, is not completely clear from the Journal.55CJ ii. 925b; iii. 23b-24a. Dowse took the Covenant on 6 June, but only four days later, as revelations surfaced of the conspiracy by Edmund Waller*, and suspicions mounted of Northumberland’s loyalty, he was handed the potentially unwelcome task of investigating a report that the earl’s coach had transported ‘some ladies of quality’ to see (Sir) Hugh Pollarde*, who had been one of the ‘army plotters’ in 1641.56CJ iii. 123b. Northumberland’s prestige to a degree protected him and his immediate entourage, and on the 12th and 13th Dowse received important appointments to pay an admonitory visit to the French agent in London and to consult with the Lords over Irish affairs.57CJ iii. 125b, 127b. None the less, notwithstanding Dowse’s inclusion on the committee discussing sequestration of MPs who neglected the service of the House (28 Aug.), he was otherwise not in evidence between mid-June and mid-November, suggesting that he shared in at least some of the earl’s strategic withdrawal from Westminster in the later summer and autumn.58CJ iii. 220a; ‘Algernon Percy, 10th earl of Northumberland’, Oxford DNB.

Northumberland opposed an alliance with the Scots, but once it was a fait accompli he returned to Parliament to take the Solemn League and Covenant (30 Oct.), and unlike less elevated associates (chief among them Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire*) rapidly regained his previous standing.59‘Algernon Percy’, Oxford DNB. Dowse reappeared in the Journal on 13 November, when he was appointed to a committee addressing admiralty business once more.60CJ iii. 310b. Such work ceased when Northumberland was replaced as lord admiral (7 Dec.), but in the meantime Dowse (presumably on the strength of his sojourns abroad as well as his links to the earl) once again engaged in matters relating to diplomatic residents. On 22 November he was sent to the Spanish ambassador to complain about the ‘resort’ to his house by priests and Jesuits, and was named with Northumberland and Salisbury to a committee of both Houses to meet the French ambassador (the prince D’Harcourt) at Salisbury House to express disapproval of his mission to negotiate between king and Parliament.61Harl. 165, f. 215v; CJ iii. 318a; LJ vi. 302b, 308b-309b. Disappointed in this quest, Harcourt went to Oxford. When on 10 January 1644 Parliament received intercepted correspondence revealing the possibility of a league between Charles and the queen regent of France, Dowse was appointed to the investigatory committee.62CJ iii. 362a.

This constituted one of only two appearances he made in the Journal between 22 November 1643 and 23 March 1644, but as Northumberland gravitated towards the war party and became a leading figure on the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the Commons chamber probably did not constitute Dowse’s sole arena of political activity at Westminster. His other committee appointment during this period was to a committee set up on 24 January to consider the condition, musters and pay of Parliament’s armies. This body, under the chairmainship of Dowse’s close colleague in Northumberland’s household, Robert Scawen*, became a powerful instrument in the war party’s efforts to take control of military operations in England.63Infra, ‘Robert Scawen’; Petworth MS 646; CJ iii. 375b. This provides a context for most of his modest collection of further appointments that year, including committees dealing with repayment of money advanced for the defence of Gloucester (23 Mar.), discharged officers (21 May), the ordnance (26 Aug.) and fund-raising for the ‘City brigade’ (11 Oct., of which Scawen was in charge and to which Dowse was named second).64CJ iii. 435a, 470b, 502b, 607a, 659a, 687b, 688a. In the meantime, having been placed on a committee related to the defence of Sussex and Hampshire (9 May), he gained office in Sussex, where he was added to the deputy lieutenants (3 June) and named a commissioner for the southern association (15 June).65CJ iii. 486a, 516a; A. and O. His prominence in the organisation of Parliament’s war effort, as well as his association with Northumberland, presumably explains why the king included him that month among those he intended to indict for high treason.66Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. It probably also helped him obtain permission to write to the royalist governor of Exeter in pursuit of a debt owed to him (3 Oct.).67CJ iii. 650a.

Dowse was even less in evidence in the Journal in 1645, although a resolution on 3 June that he was to receive the weekly attendance allowance of £4 testifies to his usefulness to Northumberland or to his work behind the scenes, or both.68CJ iv. 161a; SC6/Chas.1/1662 m.10r; SC6/Chas.1/1663 m.8r-d; SC6/Chas.1/1664 m.14d, 15d; E404/517, unfol. While he was named a commissioner for the implementation of the New Model ordinance (17 Feb.), his handful of Commons appointments that year took him in other directions.69A. and O. Named to discuss an ordinance to give powers to the navy commissioners (21 Feb.), he was also placed on committees for the provision of preaching ministers in the north (where Northumberland’s estates were under Scottish occupation, 3 Apr.), to report on pictures at York House (which was in Northumberland’s possession, 23 Apr.), and to regulate Cambridge university (22 Nov.), perhaps in part a recognition of his original scholarly interests.70CJ iv. 57a, 97b, 121a, 350b. On 8 December Dowse received a nomination to examine business surrounding provision for campaigning in Ireland which bore relation to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, but in the final months of the war in England, when Northumberland was particularly active in Parliament, his servant was very little in evidence.71CJ iv. 368b; ‘Algernon Percy’, Oxford DNB. In 1646 he surfaced in the Journal only on 18 May, when he was given leave to go into the country; two days later, when appointed to a committee relating to the revenue of the recently-abolished court of wards; and on 11 November, when placed on a committee to appoint preachers for Chichester.72CJ iv. 549b, 552b, 719b.

That this was Dowse’s final appointment at Westminster may have had something to do with increasing activity in the provinces. He had been placed on the Hampshire county committee in 1645.73Add. 24860, f. 145. By 21 February 1646 he had also been appointed to the Sussex commission of the peace.74C231/6, p. 40. But the critical factor was probably age and illness. His name surfaced twice in Journal during 1647, but only in connection with leave to go into the country (17 Mar.) and an excuse for his absence at the call of the House (9 Oct.).75CJ v. 115b, 330a. On 12 October, describing himself as ‘sick of body’, he drafted his will, leaving to both Northumberland (‘my noble good lord’) and his countess £50 to buy plate. In the absence of children of his own, Dowse endowed four apprenticeships for poor boys and left the bulk of his modest estate to his brothers and to his wife, while one of his nephews received the books from his study at Petworth. He died some time between then and 23 April, when his will was proved.76PROB11/204/156. None of his brothers or their sons sat in Parliament.