East Grinstead

East Grinstead was a small town on the edge of Ashdown forest, whose significance sprang from its role as a centre of the Wealden iron industry, as well as from its proximity to London, only thirty miles away. J.C. Stenning, ‘Notes on East Grinstead’, Suss. Arch. Colls. xx. 132; E. Straker, Wealden Iron (1931), 223-41; H. Cleere and D. Crossley, The Iron Industry of the Weald (1985), 87-99. A borough by prescription, the right of election was in dispute between those who considered that it lay with the burgage holders, and those who claimed that it was held by the inhabitants. In a 1679 decision, the House of Commons ruled in favour of the latter. CJ ix. 587-8. Nevertheless, the town’s population was very small: the hearth tax recorded only 24 names, and in 1678 there were only 33 burgage holders. As a result, the town had long been a stronghold of aristocratic influence, in the shape of the Sackville family, earls of Dorset, who held substantial property in the area. E179/258/16, ff. 4, 10, 11; W.H. Hills, Hist. East Grinstead (1906), 22, 40-1.

This influence was not unchallenged, however: the spring election of 1640 was contested. The first place went without opposition to Sir Henry Compton*, despite suspicions of his Catholicism. Compton’s seat, Brambletye, was only a few miles from East Grinstead, and he had sat for the borough in every Parliament but one since 1601. A longstanding friend of the Sackvilles, he almost certainly enjoyed support from his one-time brother-in-law, Edward Sackville†, 4th earl of Dorset. Suss. Manors i. 129; E. Suss. RO, SPK (Radford Deeds), unbound; Hic 84, 365, 366. In addition, from 1628 to 1644 he served as assistant warden of Sackville College, the hospital established in East Grinstead by the earls. W. Suss. RO, Add. 17841-2; Bodl. Rawlinson B431, ff. 15, 37v; F. Hill, Sackville College (1931), 104. However, there were two candidates for the second seat, John White I* and Robert Goodwin*. Goodwin, who owned at least four burgages in the borough, had represented it alongside Compton in 1626 and 1628, following in the footsteps of his great-great-grandfather a century earlier. C142/568/122; HP Commons 1509-1558. White, on the other hand, was a distant kinsman of Dorset, to whom he had been secretary since at least 1633. CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 36. Possibly both men sought as much to exclude political opponents from securing the seat as to obtain it for themselves. Both stood, and were eventually elected, for other boroughs: Goodwin offered himself at Reigate, where he also had influence as holder of a moiety of the manor; White used Dorset’s patronage to endorse his candidacy at Rye.

In the poll, Compton was returned with 24 votes, while Goodwin received 14 to White’s 13. On 16 April White waived East Grinstead in favour of Rye, but then petitioned the Commons that Goodwin’s election at East Grinstead was invalid because it was based upon the votes of seven inhabitants who were not strictly burgage-holders, because they held them jointly with other men. On 24 April, however, the Committee of Elections reported that Goodwin had provided evidence from sixteenth century indentures to support his case, and the committee recommended, on the evidence of Serjeant Henry Clarke†, that Goodwin’s election was valid. They concluded that inhabitant burgage holders could be counted, even in the event of a contest, and said that while one man could not obtain more than one vote through holding multiple burgages, joint tenants should each have a vote. Furthermore, the Commons resolved that the bailiff, Edward Blundell, should be sent for as a delinquent, for having threatened electors in order to persuade them to vote for White, and for having threatened witnesses attending the committee hearing. CJ ii. 3b, 10b; Aston’s Diary, 46-7, 152-3. The charges may have carried greater credibility because White himself was accused of bribery on behalf of another candidate at Hastings. SP16/448, f. 90; SP16/449, f. 86.

In the autumn elections of 1640 Goodwin once gain appears to have faced competition from nominees of the earl of Dorset, who repeated his attempt to secure both seats. Given persistent suspicions regarding Compton’s religious beliefs, and likely opposition to his involvement in the soap and butter monopolies, Dorset promoted instead the candidacy of his eldest son, Richard Sackville*, Lord Buckhurst, despite the latter’s being only 18, and thus a minor. The earl’s other candidate was probably Sir William Culpeper of Wakehurst, near Haywards Heath. Sheriff of Sussex from 1634 to 1636, Culpeper had been an efficient collector of Ship Money, and although not an active royalist during the civil wars, was to decline service for Parliament in the county. Fletcher, Suss. 206-9, 291, 326.

Buckhurst was elected unopposed. Also returned at Steyning, he opted to sit for East Grinstead on 9 November. CJ ii. 23a. His election was ratified following a report on 16 November from the privileges committee, of which he was a member. CJ ii. 21a, 30a; D’Ewes (N), 36. However, confusion as to whether he or Thomas Leedes* was going to sit for Steyning appears to have persisted until the middle of February 1641. D’Ewes (N), 361. Meanwhile the privileges committee noted that the second place at East Grinstead was in dispute between Culpeper and Goodwin, and it was resolved that neither should sit until the election was determined. CJ ii. 30a; D’Ewes (N), 36. The question was decided in favour of Goodwin on 24 December 1640, and he duly took his seat. CJ ii. 58a; Northcote Note Bk. 110; D’Ewes (N), 188.

On 5 February 1644 Buckhurst was disabled from sitting in the House of Commons as a royalist. CJ iii. 389b; C231/6, p. 20 Following the order of a writ on 12 September 1645, a new election was held on 10 October. CJ iv. 272a. Yet again there was a contest and a double return. The Sackville candidate was a local man and tenant of the earl of Dorset, Robert Pickering, who appears to have been suspected of Catholicism. C219/43ii/208; Comber, Suss. Genealogies Ardingly, 297; Daniel-Tyssen, ‘Parlty.surveys Suss.’, 223-4; CCC 2212-13, 2361; Fletcher, Suss. 101, 284. His opponent was John Baker*, who had been known as a puritan activist in the late 1630s. C219/43ii/207; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 914; CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 386-7. Baker, sheriff in 1643, was recognised as being one of ‘the most active men’ in the county during the civil war. List of Sheriffs (List and Index ix), 141; SP46/105, f. 107. While it is unclear on whose interest Baker stood for election, his zealous pursuit of the war effort suggests that he was aligned with the Independent faction in the county, and with Anthony Stapley I* and Harbert Morley*, rather than with his old friend, the political Presbyterian Sir Thomas Pelham*. The double return occurred amid confusion surrounding the office of bailiff (and returning officer), to which there were two claimants. On 9 February 1646 the Commons resolved that the return made for Pickering was invalid, since the bailiff who had drawn it up, one Richard Cole, had himself been wrongfully elected. The House approved of Robert Bowyer as bailiff instead, and of his return of Baker. Furthermore, Pickering himself was referred to the Committee for Examinations, which was ordered to consider objections raised against him. Nottingham Univ. Lib. Pw2/Hy, 36; CJ iv. 428b, 432a. For the remainder of the 1640s, therefore, East Grinstead was represented by two men who were firm supporters of Parliament, and both continued to sit after Pride’s Purge.

During the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell*, East Grinstead lost one of its parliamentary seats. In the elections to the Parliaments of 1654 and 1656 the Goodwin family continued to overshadow the Sackvilles, whose political power in the borough had become negligible. Robert Goodwin’s membership of the council of Ireland, and his presence in Dublin during the 1650s, precluded him from securing the seat but his family was represented by his younger brother, John Goodwyn*, who had sat for Haslemere in the Long Parliament, and who, despite being a political Presbyterian, had conformed to the republican regime and remained in Parliament during the Rump. In the 1656 elections he was returned for both Reigate and East Grinstead. As Member for Reigate, he was named amongst those excluded under the terms of the Instrument of Government (19 Sept.), but he was readmitted, since on 28 November he was able to express his choice to represent East Grinstead. CJ vii. 425b, 461a.

The restoration of East Grinstead as a two-Member constituency in 1659, together with the general resurgence of royalist sympathies in Sussex, probably enabled the Sackville family to reassert their influence. None the less, having returned from Ireland, Robert Goodwin was elected once again, while his brother secured a seat at Bletchingly. The other seat was taken, probably on the Sackville interest, by George Courthop*, who had been excluded in 1656 when he was elected as a knight of the shire in Sussex. He was a grandson of Sir George Rivers† of Chafford, Kent, a long-serving client of the Sackville family, and after the Restoration was to be a trustee for the former Lord Buckhurst, now 5th Earl of Dorset. Comber, Suss. Genealogies Lewes, 85; C.S. Lomas, The Memoirs of Sir George Courthop 1616-85 (Cam. Misc. xi), 103; CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 190. He was re-elected to both the Convention and the Cavalier Parliament, in company with others promoted by the Sackvilles. HP Commons 1660-1690.