Sussex

In East Grinstead, a borough by prescription, the franchise was in dispute between the burgage-holders and the scot and lot payers. A rental of 1683 enumerates 48 burgages in the borough, held by 32 tenants. The returning officer was nominated by the Earl of Dorset as lord of the borough, who easily controlled the narrower franchise, especially since the establishment of a magnificent set of alms-houses under the 2nd Earl’s will; but the town valued its position as seat of the Sussex assizes, which gave the judges on the home circuit an interest.

In 1660 the ‘commonalty’ of Chichester elected two royalist sympathizers, Henry Peckham and John Farrington, both resident in the city. But the mayor sealed an indenture for Peckham and William Cawley, the son of a notorious regicide, on the grounds that they had the majority of the freemen. Cawley was seated on the merits of the return, but unseated on the merits of the election. The House found that the mayor had ignored 21 precedents in limiting the franchise to the freemen, and sent for him in custody for his wilful error.CJ, viii. 9, 40.

Bramber had no municipal institutions, the constable acting as returning officer. During this period the dominant interest passed from the Bishopp family of Parham to the Gorings of Highden. In 1660 John Byne and Edward Eversfield were returned. The former was the brother-in-law and the latter the cousin of Henry Goring I. In the double return of 1661 Byne was unopposed, but Percy Goring was returned by the constable and 13 ‘inhabitants and burgesses’ and John Parsons, an aspiring lawyer from Steyning, by 15 ‘burgesses’.

Arundel had been represented in the Model Parliament. Its customary privileges were confirmed by letters patent in 1586. The governing body consisted of the mayor and an indefinite number of ‘burgesses’, while returns ran in the name of mayor, burgesses and commonalty. During this period the borough slipped from aristocratic to gentry control. The Howard family, who took their second title from the town and normally resided in the castle, may have been responsible for the return of Lord Falkland at the general election of 1660, and more certainly for his replacement, John Trevor, in May.

The borough of Steyning formed part of the honour of Petworth, of which the 12th Earl of Arundel was steward, and elections necessarily came under Howard influence in the early part of the reign. Election returns were made by the constable and burgesses.

The manor of New Shoreham was owned by the dukes of Norfolk. The borough, which formed part of the manor, was governed by a constable chosen at the court leet of the lord of the manor.Dallaway, W. Suss. ed. Wright, ii(2), pp. 50, 52.

Throughout the Elizabethan period, and for 200 years afterwards, the lords of the manor and borough of Midhurst were the Browne family, Viscounts Montagu. The first Viscount, though a Catholic, remained loyal to the Crown and was a prominent figure both at court and in Sussex. His grandson, who succeeded him in 1592, was not so judicious in the exercise of his religion and was later implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. Guy Fawkes had, in fact, been one of the 1st Viscount’s servants at Cowdray, the family seat adjoining Midhurst.

By the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign the ownership of Lewes was divided between Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk; Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby; Lord Bergavenny, and a Mary Everard of Lewes, who married twice, her husbands being Richard Bellingham (father of Edward Bellingham, the 1572 MP) and George Goring I, the 1559 and 1563 Member, whose son, George Goring II, sat in 1593 and 1601. Goring’s cousin, the lawyer Edward Fenner, sat in 1571.

The manor of the borough of Horsham formed part of the larger manor of Horsham, owned by the Duke of Norfolk. It was held by the bailiff and burgesses as mesne land, directly of the lord of the manor. Local government was in the hands of the bailiffs and burgesses. The two bailiffs were chosen annually at a court leet by the lord’s steward. Election returns were made by the bailiffs, burgesses and commonalty. In 1586, 17 burgesses and 17 commoners were named on the original return.W. H. Albery, Horsham, 39-43, 50-58; C219/30; PCC 42 Woodhall.

The borough of East Grinstead, part of the duchy of Lancaster since the reign of Edward III, formed a ‘liberty of itself without any intermeddling of the hundred’ of that name. According to a 1563 survey of duchy lands in Sussex, the borough had about 50 burgages, six of which were held by Sir Richard (‘Fillsack’) Sackville. Among other Sackville property in the neighbourhood was the manor of Brambletye, which became the residence of Henry Compton II, whose mother married into the family.