CAWLEY, William I (1602-66), of East Street and Cathedral Close, Chichester, and Rumboldswyke, Suss.

Cawley hailed from a merchant family of only moderate wealth, but some civic distinction. His father, a brewer, was three times mayor of Chichester between 1590 and 1613, and was able to develop an estate to match his local standing.47Dallaway, History Western Div. Suss. (1815), i. 156; W. Suss. RO, Add. MS 3062-3; Harris MS 383. At his death in April 1621, John Cawley left lands in Oving, Birdham, Rumboldswyke and Chichester, as well as Sidlesham manor. He provided for his children by leasing property from the dean and chapter of Chichester, including Birdham manor, and a house in East Street, Chichester. He also bequeathed money for William's education at school and university, and for the establishment of a hospital for ‘decayed tradesmen’ in Chichester. William Cawley completed the almshouse in 1626, when the chapel was consecrated by George Carleton, bishop of Chichester.48Notes IPMs Suss. 47; C142/392/128; WARD7/66/149; Acts Dean and Chapter Chichester, 1545-1642, 131, 134, 168, 178, 182, 185, 205, 225; PROB11/137/440; Arnold, ‘Cawley the regicide’, 24-5; W. Suss. RO, Cap.I/12/2, pp. 327-63. William was evidently the first member of his family to attend university, but although he continued with his education after his father’s death, at Oxford and Gray’s Inn, he took no degree and was not called to the bar. Instead, he returned to Chichester, and continued the improvement of family estates begun by his father. In 1625 his marriage brought control of Westhampnett manor.49W. Suss. RO, Goodwood MSS E471-3; Add. MS 3065-7; Suss Manors, ii. 477; Acts Dean and Chapter Chichester, 234. Cawley’s financial security is indicated by the privy seal loan directed to him in 1625 (for £20).50E401/2586, p. 27.

The family’s status in Chichester enabled Cawley to secure one of the borough’s seats in Parliament in March 1628.51HP Commons 1604-1629. He had only one committee nomination at Westminster, but was a ringleader of opponents of the billeting of soldiers in Chichester that autumn. He was summoned before the privy council, but spent only a brief spell in custody.52APC 1628-9, pp. 188, 197. He did not surface in Parliament in the 1629 session.

During the personal rule of Charles I Cawley led a quiet life. Having compounded for a knighthood fine (at £14) he busied himself with extending his estate, and acquired the manor of Rumboldswyke, which became his principal seat.53E407/35, f. 165; C54/2952; W. Suss. RO, Add. MS 9588(10); Harris MSS 93-5, 392. His circle of friends in the Chichester area included Christopher Lewkenor*, Sir Thomas Bowyer*, and Sir John Morley and Sir William Morley*, to both of whom Cawley was a long-standing trustee.54W. Suss. RO, Harris MS 394; Add. MSS 13462-4; Goodwood MS E710; CCC 834; Suss. Manors, i. 14; C54/3985/2. Cawley and Sir John Morley were neighbours in the cathedral close in the second half of the 1630s, when Cawley refused to pay Ship Money (£2 10s. in 1635 and 1636). It remains unclear whether such refusal stemmed from political opposition or uncertainty regarding the jurisdiction over the close, which was disputed between the town and the county.55W. Suss. RO, Cap.I/4/10/13/1, 13, 20.

Long Parliament 1641-2

In elections at Chichester in the spring of 1640, Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, reasserted his authority over the city and secured the return of his clients Edward Dowse* and Christopher Lewkenor. In the autumn elections Cawley may have supported the candidacy of his friend Sir William Morley, who was returned for the borough alongside Lewkenor. Cawley himself attempted to gain a seat at Midhurst, despite the borough’s long-standing reputation as a Catholic stronghold. Thomas May*, who had represented the town earlier in the year, took one seat, but there was a double return for the second place, involving Cawley and Richard Chaworth*, the Arminian friend of Bishop Brian Duppa. Chaworth’s return was recognised on 6 January 1641, but a challenge was launched on the grounds that Cawley had been the choice of the townsmen, rather than merely the bailiffs. This was successful, and Chaworth was disabled on 15 February, when the Commons recognised Cawley as the borough’s second Member.56CJ ii. 86a; D’Ewes (N), 362.

Cawley’s early parliamentary career betrayed little of his future prominence as a radical republican. He was responsible for coordinating the collection of Protestation returns in Chichester, and with his friend Sir William Morley sent examinations from the county regarding Henry Percy* and the ‘army plot’ (May 1641), which were reported to the Commons by John Hampden*.57West Suss. Protestation Returns, 44; Harl. 477, ff. 70v-71; CJ ii. 147. On 25 May Cawley was nominated to his first committee, to consider a bill to make St Paul’s, Covent Garden, into a new parish.58CJ ii. 156a. But he did not reappear in the Journal until 20 December, when he was named to a committee to consider the bill for disarming recusants, after which he disappeared once again until 22 April 1642, when he was added to the committee for brewers, doubtless because of his personal interest.59CJ ii. 349b, 537b.

Parliamentarian activist in Sussex

As tension increased between Parliament and the king, at some point Cawley withdrew to Sussex. He wrote to Parliament in July to report an attempt by the mayor of Chichester to hinder the implementation of the Militia Ordinance.60C54/3300/27; PJ iii. 224. He had apparently returned to London by 16 September, when he was nominated to the committee for delinquents, but then promptly went back to Chichester in response to reports of an attempt to seize the town for the king. Already Cawley, whose views diverged from those of many in his social circle, was recognised as Parliament’s most loyal servant and ‘chief pillar’ in the city, upon whom the Commons relied for news from the region. 61CJ ii. 769a; An Exact Relation from Portsmouth (1642), sig. A2 (E.112.34). Following the royalists’ capture of the city in late November, however, he fled to Portsmouth. He explained to the Speaker of the Commons (William Lenthall*) that his friend Sir John Morley and the sheriff of the county had declared for the king, and that the region’s prominent royalists, including Sir William Morley, had converged on Chichester to effect the commission of array. Employing a ‘trick’ they successfully commanded the local gentry ‘to repair to Chichester upon pain of death, or of being plundered, pretending Prince Rupert was coming, and that if he were not resisted they were all undone’.62HMC Portland i. 72-4. When parliamentarian commander Sir William Waller* laid siege to the city in December, Cawley’s almshouse, situated just outside the town, formed the base from which his troops launched attacks. After the royalist surrender, Cawley supervised the collection of money for Parliament (Jan. 1643).63The Latest Printed Newes (1642), 2 (E.83.8); Brave Newes of the Taking of the City of Chichester (1642, E.83.36); A True Relation of the Fortunate Sir William Waller (1643, E.84.22); SP28/246, unfol.

From late April 1643 Cawley had a slightly higher profile at Westminster. Although he was appointed to the committee supervising the demolition of superstitious images (25 Apr.), his main focus remained Sussex affairs.64CJ iii. 60a. On 3 May he was charged with writing to Harbert Morley* to undertake an investigation into the activities of John Tufton, 2nd earl of Thanet, who had been involved in the seizure of Chichester.65CJ iii. 67b. He subscribed the Covenant on 6 June.66CJ iii. 118a. Appointed on 12 July to a Sussex commission the details of which do not appear, on the 17th he was with Harbert Morley and others deputed to consider a petition from the county and on the 18th was named to the newly-created county committee.67CJ iii. 163a, 170a, 173a. Apparently by this time a close associate of Morley and of Anthony Stapley I*, he was ordered to liaise with them over Sussex assessment money in the county (25 July), and granted leave to return to home (19 Aug.).68CJ iii. 182a, 212a. Recognised as one of most zealous parliamentary agents, he continued to provide Speaker Lenthall with news from the region, and lobbied for the allocation of £10,000 to fund Sir William Waller’s army (Nov.) on the basis that lack of it would produce ‘a sudden ruin of this brigade’ and necessitate the imposition of free quarter, ‘which the people can ill spare’. Fear of mutiny, Cawley explained, prevented Waller from punishing the vices of his troops; ‘a small sum will rather discontent than satisfy’.69SP46/105, f. 107; HMC Portland, i. 159; CJ iii. 347a.

Cawley was evidently still transacting county committee business in December, and may not have returned to London before 5 February 1644, when he took the Covenant.70CJ iii. 347a, 389a. It is plausible to suppose that his re-appearance was expressly to represent local grievances, as he saw them: on 15 February he was ordered to desire Waller to pay his debt to the county for billeting.71CJ iii. 400a. Having obtained what was probably his objective, he then vanished again from the Journal until the summer. His emergence as a ‘war party’ leader in Sussex, alongside Morley and Stapley I, was recognised both by Parliament, which nominated him a deputy lieutenant (3 June), and by the king, who placed him on the list of those to be indicted for high treason (27 June).72CJ iii. 516a; Northants. RO, FH133, unfol. More of a firebrand than most, Cawley probably masterminded the attempt to discredit those less zealous in the pursuit of war such as Sir Thomas Pelham* and Sir Thomas Parker*, whose cases were referred to the Committee for Examinations on 16 October, to which Cawley was added that same day.73CJ iii. 649b, 655b, 666b. In contrast, his own commitment to the prosecution of the conflict is reflected in his selection to draft a letter to his fellow committee-men encouraging them to expedite money-raising for forces in the southern associated counties (10 Dec. 1644).74CJ iii. 720b.

In the meantime, Cawley’s zeal was revealed to have a religious motivation and was reflected in involvement in other business. On 28 August, he was asked to pass on the thanks of the House to one of the fast sermon preachers, Westminster Assembly member Christopher Tesdale, the incumbent of Hurstborne Tarrant, Hampshire, and a former canon of Chichester.75CJ iii. 609b; C. Tesdale, Hierusalem (1644); Al. Ox. Later he was placed on a committee discussing an ordinance for repressing adultery, drunkenness, blasphemy and other sins (29 Jan. 1645), in addition to being ordered (probably following his own initiative) to bring in an ordinance for creating allowances for three preaching ministers out of the sequestered lands of the dean and chapter of Chichester (6 Feb.).76CJ iii. 609b; iv. 35b, 43a. Appointment to the committee to consider petitions (3 Oct. 1644) was followed by nominations to examine submissions from the Eastern Association (8 Oct.) and from Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire as well as Sussex (24 Jan. 1645).77CJ iii. 649b, 655b; iv. 28b.

With the passing of the New Model ordinance in February 1645, Cawley and Harbert Morley were at the forefront of raising money and men in Sussex for the army (20 Mar., 1 July, 9 Sept.).78CJ iv. 84b, 192b, 267b. Such enthusiasm exacerbated divisions between them and county moderates. Cawley may have drawn particular hostility from communicating to fellow Sussex MP Thomas Middleton* charges of having encouraged a royalist invasion of the county (4 Apr.), while his appointment to the committee to examine the pictures at York House (23 Apr.) – intentionally or otherwise – undermined the position of the county’s lord lieutenant, the earl of Northumberland, as custodian of the collection of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham.79CJ iv. 28b, 99a, 121a; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 531. On good terms from the outset with the county’s sequestrators, Calwey was gaining a reputation for zeal in chasing royalists and delinquents – the vicar of West Thorney, John Cooke, a chaplain to Sir Ralph Hopton’s* royalist army, described as a ‘horrid swearer and drunkard’, was alleged to have been treated with ‘potent violence’ by Cawley’s men – and for obtaining compensation for his friends.80SP20/1, pp. 23, 42, 114, 127; SP23/223, p. 867; SP23/176, p. 257; Walker Revised, 355. But there were also suspicions of corruption, since some of his friends were themselves royalists – as was his father-in-law, William Walrond or Waldron of Wells.81CCC, 963. Although he sequestered Sir John Morley (July 1644), Cawley certified that he had taken the Covenant and acknowledged his former errors.82SP23/103, p. 125; Add. 39474, f. 28; Walker Revised, 358.

It was against a backdrop of faction-fighting that Sussex faced the problem of the clubmen in the summer and autumn of 1645. In July Cawley, recognising that both the Committee of Accounts in London (chaired by William Prynne*), and its sub-committees in Sussex, were overwhelmingly dominated by political Presbyterians, lobbied for reform of the latter, and hoped to introduce two of his associates from the sequestrations committee.83SP28/252i, f. 22; SP28/255, unfol. Until December he also refused to submit his accounts for audit, appearing to confirm suspicions of financial impropriety regarding the estates of Sir William Morley.84CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 211; SP28/252i, ff. 32v-33, 34v, 35v, 37v, 38; SP28/246, unfol.; SP28/252i, f. 34v; SP28/255, unfol. On the other side, the earl of Northumberland had exerted his influence in May by ensuring that his nephew Algernon Sydney* was made governor of Chichester, instead of Anthony Stapley I.85HMC De Lisle and Dudley, vi. 440; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 355. Northumberland complained to his deputy lieutenants on 14 August that the county committee was overstretching its authority, that ‘men of so base a condition as renders them unworthy of such trusts’ were in positions of power, and that ‘the endeavours are to gain the affections of the people by the unnecessary oppression and insolent behaviour’.86Add. 33058, f. 71. That Cawley and Morley and their committee allies had support in the House is indicated by references to correspondence to and from them in September and October, and by the acceptance of their request to appoint Cawley as governor of the garrison at Cowdray House.87CJ iv. 267b, 279b, 280b, 318b; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 151; Bodl. Tanner 60, ff. 251-55v; W. Suss. RO, Cowdray MS 4935, f. 56. But he was obliged to confess to Robert Scawen* at Westminster, that ‘we can neither raise men or money for Sir Thomas Fairfax’s* army’, and to seek further authority to dole out exemplary punishment to the clubmen.88HMC Portland i. 289.

Faction 1646-8

In January 1646 Cawley launched a complaint in the Commons about Presbyterian leader Walter Long*, the visible tip of the iceberg of continuing controversy over his accounts.89CJ iv. 400, 402a. Between then and October there was no sign of his attendance in the Commons. He was busy fighting it out with Prynne and the Accounts Committee, who accused him of ‘raging and [being] passionately bent against us’, and seeking with his allies to intimidate them.90SP28/256. Presented by the committee with a steep surcharge of £900 for money he was alleged to owe to the state, Cawley strenuously rejected their case, blaming his enemies among its members and repeating his call for reform, but he was equally firmly resisted.91CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 211; SP28/246, unfol.; SP28/252i, ff. 32v-33, 34v, 35v, 37v, 38, 71v, 292, 294v, 301v, 302v; SP28/253a, pt. 1, ff. 1, 6; SP28/255, unfol.; SP28/256, unfol.; SP28/260iii, ff. 362-64v. Although Cawley enlisted the support of Sir William Waller and of John Masters, marshal of the Chichester garrison, Prynne countered by producing further proofs and a second surcharge (20 July), complaining that Cawley had ‘powerful influence’ at Goldsmiths’ Hall, and that he was endeavouring to ensure that ‘our employment may fall to the ground’.92CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 447, 471; SP28/253a, pt. 1, ff. 8v, 11; SP28/252i, ff. 307, 311v; SP28/256. Cawley was granted a list of the witnesses against him, so that he could cross-examine them (Sept.), but in December his petition was rejected by Prynne’s committee because of the tyrannical behaviour of his friends among the sequestrators.93SP28/252i, f. 320; SP28/253a, pt. 1, f. 30. This dispute between Cawley and Prynne took on a further dimension in May 1647, when the two clashed over presentation to the previously sequestered living of Westbourne in Sussex: Cawley promised a stipend of £110 a year to Lewes Hughes, who was first admitted, but Prynne subsequently obtained it on behalf of his younger brother, Thomas Prynne.94Add. 39349, ff. 151-2; LJ ix. 166a. However, Cawley eventually triumphed over Prynne: after Pride’s purge he assisted in the creation of a new committee of accounts, which then cleared him of all charges of financial impropriety.95SP28/258, f. 448; SP28/253a, pt. 2, f. 145v.

Still one of the more prominent members of the Sussex committee, in the autumn of 1646 Cawley briefly resurfaced in the Commons.96SP28/246, unfol; E179/191/394, 399, 400. He was doubtless an Independent nominee to the committee considering the petition of commanders and officers in London (15 Oct.), while his appointments to consider further instructions to county administrations regarding the sequestration of delinquents’ estates and to investigate the petition of Reigate MP Sir William Monson*, Viscount Monson of Castlemain [I], reflected his existing or local concerns (29 Oct.).97CJ iv. 694b, 708a, 709a. Added belatedly to the privileges committee on 16 December, he was then absent from the parliamentary records until August 1647.98CJ v. 15a, 278a.

While the Presbyterians were resurgent in Westminster, Cawley appears to have concentrated again on Sussex affairs. In January 1647 he was engaged in undermining a plot to free prisoners in Chichester.99SP23/246, f. 25 Although he had joined the commission of the peace in 1644, like most Independents in his county it was only now that he became a regular attender.100SP23/246, f. 25; W. Suss. RO, QR/W60; Suss. QSOB 1642-1649, 82, 131. He also promoted religious Independency. With Anthony Stapley I he was a benefactor of John Robotham, whose application for ordination as a minister in the fourth London classis had been rejected, securing him the living at Rumboldsyke, where Cawley was lord of the manor. He obtained £20 a year for Robotham from the Committee for Compounding, out of the estate of John Ashburnham*. Robotham was later to be a preacher at a Congregational church in Stepney, and when he was ejected from his living in 1660, he was suspected of being a Baptist.101J. Robotham, The Preciousness of Christ (1647, E.1137.1); ‘John Robotham’, Oxford DNB; Calamy Revised, 413-14.

Even after the collapse of the Presbyterian coup in August 1647 Cawley’s attendance at Westminster seems to have been spasmodic. After being appointed to consider repealing ordinances made during the Independents’ absence (18 Aug.), and to the committee for absent Members (9 Oct.), he disappeared from the records for nearly three months.102CJ v. 278a, 329a. It is likely that he was present in the Commons on 3 January 1648 for the Vote of No Addresses to the king, for the next day he was named to the committee for grievances (4 Jan.).103CJ v. 417a. Another sign of his commitment to religious affairs came in his nomination on 10 January to the committee to consider the repair of churches.104CJ v. 425a. He was presumably about the Commons around 8 March, when he was appointed to the committee considering the claims of the Presbyterian former commissary-general in Sussex, Henry Peck*, and 17 May, when he joined other Independents to investigate the Presbyterian rioters who had threatened the House the previous day.105CJ v. 484b, 562b. Thereafter, Cawley went to Sussex in an effort to prevent a royalist uprising similar to that in Kent. The fact that one of its putative leaders was Edward Heath, son of Sir Robert Heath†and brother-in-law of Sir William Morley, probably complicated Cawley’s response.106Add. 2978, ff. 235-8.

Pride’s Purge and the Rump

The threat of royalist insurgency having subsided, from November Cawley was once again in evidence at Westminster. That month he had two appointments – added second after Cornelius Holland* to the committee to discuss an ordinance related to the troublesome Presbyterian hero John Bastwick (1 Nov.), and deputed with Henry Shelley* to expedite the Sussex assessment (25 Nov.) – but it was only after Pride’s Purge that his parliamentary career really took off.107CJ vi. 67a. 88a. On 20 December he took the dissent to the vote of 5 November for continuing negotiations with the king.108PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, pp. 473-4. In the three weeks from the 15th he received an unprecedented ten committee nominations: at this point he was patently part of what was intended to be a new broom. As well as joining John Lisle* and others in considering how to counter the protests of secluded Members (15 Dec.), Cawley was among those drafted in to fill gaps in important standing committees such as those for complaints (16 Dec.) the Committee for Advance of Money (6 Jan.), and the Army Committee (6 Jan.).109Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 38 (12-19 Dec. 1648), sig. Ddd4v (E.476.35); CJ vi. 97b, 98b, 107b, 110a, 113b; SP19/90, f. 159. In addition, he was nominated to decide how to proceed against the king (23 Dec.), and to devise the high court of justice which would try him (3 Jan. 1649).110CJ vi. 103a, 110b. He was named one of the commissioners for the trial and, although he missed the first four meetings (10–15 Jan.) following service at the Sussex quarter sessions (8–9 Jan. 1649), thereafter he attended all 14 meetings and all four sessions of the trial in Westminster Hall (20, 22, 23, and 27 Jan.), and signed the death warrant.111Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 1379; Suss. QSOB 1642-1649, 162; Muddiman, Trial, 76, 88-9, 96, 103, 197-228.

Cawley’s initial flurry of activity was not sustained at the same level after Charles’s execution, but for a while his involvement remained greater than heretofore. His 12 committee appointments between February and November indicate above all a commitment to re-modelling local administration and the universities and to pursuing and punishing delinquents (8 Feb., 19 Mar., 23 Mar., 7 Apr., 4 May); on 2 November he was added to the Committee for Compounding.112CJ vi. 134a, 167b, 171a, 181b, 201a, 318a. An indication of his likely approach is given by his conduct in Sussex, where he was adept at seizing and disposing of property, and zealous in collection of taxes. He warned that any who failed to pay were to have their goods seized, distrained, and sold; their doors, boxes, and chests broken open.113CSP Dom. 1649–1650, p. 158; SP28/291, unfol. Appointed also to Commons committees investigating Presbyterian ministers (3 Feb.) and promoting the gospel in New England (13 June), he was added – with a belatedness that may be indicative of others’ scepticism as to his readiness to engage constructively with wider religious reform – to the Committee for Plundered Ministers (5 Sept.), where his attendance was infrequent.114CJ vi. 131b, 231a, 290a; SP22/2b, ff. 4, 39, 75, 81, 259, 267, 269, 271, 289, 291, 326, 330; SP22/3, f. 566. However, in February 1652 he did supply evidence to support the committee’s case against the minister and Seeker, William Erbury, for blasphemy and heresy – a sign of the limits of his radicalism.115Clarke Pprs. ii. 233. Cawley seems to have been more prominent on the committee for regulating the universities, which worked with the Committee for Plundered Ministers in settling a godly ministry.116CJ vi. 201a; LPL, Sion L40.2/E16, passim.

Notwithstanding the interest in the conduct of Parliament itself suggested by his nomination to the committee considering the pensions it bestowed (19 Sept.) and the opinions on the conduct of war in Scotland indicated by his nomination to consider submissions from Sir Thomas Fairfax* and his officers (4 Oct.), after joining the Committee for Compounding on 2 November Cawley again disappeared from the Journal, this time for three months.117CJ vi. 298a, 302b, 318a, 360a. During 1650 his name was mentioned only five times, of which two were nominations to investigate information laid against potential delinquents (9 Feb., 30 July) and one was a reiteration of his membership of the committee to regulate the universities (19 Sept.).118CJ vi. 360a, 448b, 469b. If he was disillusioned by the conservatism of the Rump, and disinclined to participate in its work, the victory at Dunbar on 3 September, and the wave of republican enthusiasm which followed it, may have reinvigorated him: he was soon appointed to committees to consider the poor laws (9 Oct., with Harbert Morley and Cornelius Holland) and reform of legal proceedings (25 Oct.).119CJ vi. 481a, 488a.

But there was then a further hiatus. He does not appear again until, probably on the back of the same enthusiasm, he was elected on 10 February 1651 to the third council of state.120CSP Dom. 1651, p. 44; CJ vi. 533a. During its nine and a half month life he received only four committee nominations in the Commons – although, as well as those providing for preaching in St Albans (5 Sept.) and a thanksgiving day for the victory at Worcester (19 Sept.), these included the important committee for removing obstructions in the sale of church lands (10 Apr.).121CJ vi. 558a, 605a; vii. 12b, 20a. In contrast, Cawley attended the council regularly, being present at just over half of the 249 sittings, and probably viewing it as a better arena for achieving his objectives. Once again he was most prominent in apprehending delinquents and deserters, in examining prisoners, and in matters relating to the army and its finance.122CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 56, 63, 67, 82, 148, 341, 393, 426, 450; E101/67/11b m.70; Add. 63788B, ff. 81-82v.

Towards the end of the year the political pendulum swung again towards conservatism, ensuring that Cawley was not returned to the fourth council of state. From December 1651 he was slightly more in evidence than he had been latterly in the Commons, above all on committees dealing with the sale of royal and forfeited lands, and related matters.123CJ vii. 46b, 86b, 112a, 154b, 189a, 190b. With Sir Henry Mildmay* he acted for the first time as a teller on whether to include Sir John Pakington* in the bill for compounding, but they were roundly defeated by Thomas Scot I* and Denis Bond* (3 Nov. 1652).124CJ vii. 209a. Following the eclipse of Morley’s friends (if not Morley himself) over their advocacy of the Dutch war, in November Cawley was elected to the fifth council of state, receiving 42 votes – which placed him 16th in the poll.125CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 505; CJ vii. 221a. Initially zealous, he attended all 23 of its meetings in December, and about half of the 53 meetings in January and February. His most important appointments were to the committees for the admiralty (15 Dec. 1652) and foreign affairs (17 Dec.), while in the Commons two of his four appointments (25 Jan., 2 Feb., 10 Feb., 1 Mar. 1653) once again related to the sale of the king's property and lands forfeited for treason.126CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 28, 38, 152; CJ vii. 250b, 253b, 257b, 263b. After early February, however, Cawley’s assiduity evaporated: he was present at only five of the 24 meetings of the council in March, and at none of the 12 meetings in April. He played no visible part in political affairs in London in the weeks prior to Oliver Cromwell's* dissolution of the Rump, returning instead to the county and the commission of the peace, where his appearances at quarter sessions had been rare in the previous few years.127E. Suss. RO, QO/EW2, ff. 13, 17v, 21, 28v, 44v.

Retirement 1653–9

Cawley’s political profile was even lower during the protectorate. Unlike many other dissidents in the county, of various hues, Cawley did not join the active opposition to Oliver Cromwell. He was willing neither to serve on the commission of the peace nor to seek a seat in Parliament. On the other hand, he was vigorous in purchasing property, and having been prominent in organising the confiscation and sale of delinquents’ lands, exploited such sales to enhance his own estate.128E113/13, unfol. In February 1652, for example, he purchased Wartling manor from the trustees for the sale of lands forfeited for treason.129C54/3687/3. He also exploited his contacts with the commissioners for compounding for help regarding a farm purchased in 1637 from Sir Thomas Bowyer*, which had subsequently been sequestered.130CCC 834. Funds from army debentures enabled Cawley in March 1651 to purchase the manors of Oldbury and Seabeach.131E121/4/9/63. As in earlier years, Cawley may have been attempting to help Sir William Morley, the former owner of these properties.132C54/3577/9; VCH Suss. iv. 146; Add. 5690, f. 49. He was still in contact with his old royalist friend, and remained a trustee of the Morley estates throughout the 1650s.133Suss. Manors, i. 14. In addition to these major property deals, Cawley engaged in extensive speculation in the company of both his son, William Cawley II*, and another Sussex MP, Richard Boughton*.134W. Suss. RO, AMS 12763; Goodwood MSS E1154-5; Add. MS 884; C54/3545/1; C54/3578/14; C54/3582/5, 12; C54/3586/30–31; C54/3588/12; C54/3676/16; C54/3710/27; C54/3715/10; C54/3814/41, 46; C54/3856/15; C54/3904/9; C54/3944/22; Suss. Manors, i. 43; ii. 376; Preston Manor, Brighton, Thomas-Stanford collection, WS/BG/3. His second marriage, in November 1651 at St Giles Cripplegate, London, may have cemented some London commercial connections: his bride, Mary Parkes, was later described as the sister of one Ford, a ‘beer brewer’ living in that parish.135St Giles, Cripplegate, par. reg.; SP29/67, f. 114.

Recalled Rump 1659-60

Within a week of the recall of the Rump in May 1659, Cawley returned to Westminster. Unprecedentedly, he was named to 22 committees in the five months before sittings were ended by the army on 13 October: their frequency and scope suggests that finally he had perceived an urgency in enacting reform through Parliament. He was connected in a more sustained manner with a radical agenda through nominations to committees for relief of prisoners of conscience (13, 20 May) and prisoners for debt (18 July), as well as for probate of wills (14 July) and for commercial or social matters like representations from commissioners and miners in the Forest of Dean (1 June), conservation of the River Thames (8 Aug.) and establishing a common market in Lincoln’s Inn fields (12 Aug.).136CJ vii. 650b, 659b, 670b, 717b, 722a, 751a, 757a. He rekindled an involvement with naval affairs (preservation of timber, 13 May; petition of shipmasters, 7 June), with money-raising (8 June, 1 and 19 Sept.) and with sequestrations (8, 26 Aug.), being selected to peruse the bill for bringing in further proceeds of sales of land forfeited for treason (13 Aug.).137CJ vii. 673b, 676b, 758a, 769a, 772a, 780b. But among his other appointments were nominations to consider high political matters like the declaration explaining changes of regime (20 May), measures for indemnity and oblivion to assist those who had laboured in the parliamentary cause (21 May), the management of the militia of London (25 May), a pension for the deposed protector, Richard Cromwell* (25 May), and the proposed new Engagement to the government (6 Sept.).138CJ vii. 661a, 661b, 663a, 665a, 666a, 752b, 774b. In a second outing as a teller, on 3 June he partnered Valentine Wauton* against the appointment of John Fountain as a commissioner of the great seal, but was convincingly defeated by seasoned civilian republicans Sir Arthur Hesilrige* and Robert Reynolds*.139CJ vii. 671b.

There was a five-week gap in Cawley's visible activity in the Commons from 8 June to 14 July, the day he was awarded chambers in Whitehall.140CJ vii. 676b, 717b; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 28. This may be accounted for by his presence in Sussex, assisting with the quelling of insurrection, but on 30 September, 11 days after a committee nomination, Cawley incurred a fine of £20 for absenteeism.141CJ vii. 774b, 780b, 789b. After sittings ended on 13 October, it is unclear whether he attended the meetings in London held by Hesilrige and his friends, or whether he went to Portsmouth with Harbert Morley. Cawley was apparently back at Westminster by 30 December, four days after the assembly reconvened, when he was named to a committee to address the cases of those illegally imprisoned by the army during the ‘interruption’ of Parliament.142CJ vii. 800a. A week later he was among those nominated to adjudicate on responsibility for the official record of the dissolution of the Rump in April 1653, and subsequently, among work of lesser moment, collected appointments to committees revisiting important questions including the Engagement (10 Jan.), enfranchisement and eligibility for public office (11 Jan.), the direction of the army (13 Jan.) and militia (25 Jan.), and the composition of the common council of London (9 Feb.).143CJ vii. 805a, 805b, 807a, 811a, 822b, 838b. Restored to his lodgings in Whitehall, for a few weeks he may have wielded influence to an extent previously undreamt of, but after 15 February, when he had a final nomination to a committee with Hesilrige (to whom he may now have been closer) to investigate a scandalous paper in circulation, he vanished from the Journal.144CJ vii. 843b; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 305, 363. By this juncture, a week before the Secluded Members were readmitted to the House, it was probably obvious that events were moving beyond the control of those who had participated in the regicide.

Restoration and exile

Evidently aware of the likely return of the king, and of the probable fate of those who had signed Charles I’s death warrant, Cawley prepared for the worst. In the last week of March he completed his final task as trustee of the Morley family estates, assigning his share in Selsey manor to William Morley of Halnaker, son of Sir William, and appointing an attorney to wind up the business.145W. Suss. RO, Add. MS 13466-7; Goodwood MSS E715-7; C54/3985/2. As he must have expected, he was excluded from pardon and indemnity, and faced arrest and trial.146LJ xi. 32b, 52b, 101-2. Sometime in May, therefore, Cawley fled abroad in a French boat with another of the regicides, Sir Henry Mildmay*.147Diurnal of Thomas Rugg ed. W. L. Sachse (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. xci), 85; CCSP v. 35. In his absence his estate was seized by John Ashburnham*, and parts of it claimed by former delinquents from whom he had acquired it, like the bishop of Chichester.148CRES6/2, pp. 580-1; LR2/266, f. 1; CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 290, 338.

As a regicide, Cawley was sought by the government of Charles II. In January 1663 they were watching his wife, who was lodging in Red Cross Street, Cripplegate with her brother Ford, and known to be in contact with the wives of other fugitives.149CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 13. In May Cawley was reported to be in Normandy.150CSP Dom. 1663-4, p. 144. But the news was out-of-date. Having made his way to Geneva, where he joined other exiles, Cawley found himself no more welcome than his friends and moved on with them in 1662 to the greater safety of the Swiss confederation, going to the Pays de Vaud – first to Lausanne, and then in April 1663 to Vevey with Edmund Ludlowe II*, Lisle, Holland, William Say* and Nicholas Love*.151Ludlow, Voyce, 195-6, 304-5; Bodl. Eng. hist. c.487, p. 965. Writing later that year – as Cawley alias Johnson – to the exiles’ friend Johann Heinrich Hummel, dean of Bern, he attributed his failure to pay his respects in person to the Bernese authorities who ruled the Pays to ‘a wide and incurable rupture in the intestines with a spice of the stone’. His sense of a guiding providence overseeing the ‘stripped and peeled exiles’ and his righteous contempt for the ‘profane and scandalous ministers’ and ‘dumb dogs’ back at home were uncompromising.152Staatsarchiv, Bern, BIII/63/32; Ludlow, Memoirs, 479–81. Apparently rasher than his friends in showing himself in public places, he survived more narrowly than they several assassination attempts, but died in January 1666, on the brink of what he had anticipated as the year of Jesus Christ’s return and apocalyptic ‘deliverance’. Ludlowe, who related the exiles’ experiences, arranged for Cawley’s burial at St Martin, Vevey, obtaining details of his coat of arms from his family in England to place on the memorial stone.153Bodl. Eng. hist. c.487, pp. 998, 1000, 1029, 1090, 1107, 1374, 1395; MI, St Martin, Vevey, Vaud. While Cawley’s eldest son and namesake, who had failed to make good his election to the Convention, continued to contend with the financial consequences of his father’s attainder, his younger son John accumulated preferments in the Church of England, becoming archdeacon of Lincoln in 1667.154Al. Ox.

As his post-Restoration letters underline, while his engagement with parliamentary proceedings was patchy and modest, Cawley was nonetheless an unequivocal political radical, driven by religious zeal, albeit accompanied by an acquisitive streak. To his enemies he was a man of ‘base condition’ who respected neither property nor status, and he could be an uncompromising enemy of malignants and delinquents. Yet he also incurred suspicion in Sussex and in London by remaining loyal to long-standing friends on the opposite side of the political, if not the religious divide, and to the Morley family in particular.