POLITICAL HISTORY ley, who had sat for Midhurst and Chichester, saved his Hfe by flying to the Continent. John Downes, member for Arundel, and James Temple, member for Bramber, were sentenced to death, but respited and died in prison. Anthony Stapley had already died, in 1658, and William GofFe, the major-general in command of Sussex and one of Cromwell's House of Lords, escaped to America. Colonel Herbert Morley, although present at the trial of King Charles, did not affix his signature to the warrant. At the beginning of 1660 he was lieutenant of the Tower and was warned of coming events by the Royalist, John Evelyn, his old friend, but being over-cautious missed the opportunity of rendering the king good service, and had to buy his peace by paying ^1,000.' The prime necessity of appeasing the adverse party led alike to the pardon of the lesser offenders and the scanty rewarding of the loyal sub- jects who had suffered so much for the king's cause. Even the institu- tion of the Order of the Royal Oak which had been contemplated by Charles was abandoned, although a list of its intended knights was com- piled. This list includes the following Sussex men : Thomas Middle- ton, Walter Dobell, Edward and John Eversfield, two Lunsfords, members of the same family as Sir Thomas Lunsford, whose fame as a cannibal and eater of children is celebrated in Hiidihras, Henry Goring, John May and Michelbourne of Stanmer.^ Colonel Counter, to whom the king largely owed his escape, received no reward, though some years later his widow was granted a life pension of jTaoo and his son a scholarship at New College, Oxford ; but Captain Nicholas Tettersell, whose part in the escape had been entirely a matter of self- interest, secured an annuity of jTioo for himself and his children.^ It is not much to the credit of the county that it produced the infamous inventor of the Popish plot, Titus Oates. He was the son of the rector of All Saints', Hastings, and himself served as curate there until he had to fly the town, having been convicted of perjury and slander against the mayor. The feeling against the Papists aroused by Oates's pretended revelations was very bitter, and Mr. Bickley was put out of the commission of the peace for daring to throw doubt upon the story, and saying at a sessions dinner at Chichester that Oates had con- tradicted himself two and twenty times in his evidence.* Consequently when the Duke of Monmouth came to Chichester in February 1680 he was received as the Protestant champion with acclamation, bell-ringing, and bonfires, most of the cathedral clergy joining in the welcome, though the bishop, the mayor, and the greater part of the gentry discounten- anced these proceedings.^ ' Suss. Arch. Coll. v. 98-100. ^ Ibid. p. 104. 3 Cal. S.P. Dom. Chas. II. Ixxxvi. 107.
- Ho. of Lords MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), Rep. xi. (2), 146.
» Suss. Arch. Coll. vii. 168-72. The duke's memory was long cherished amongst the populace, and when in 1698 a handsome young fellow, really the son of a Leicester inn-keeper, gave himself out to be the Duke of Monmouth, asserting that James II. had not really executed him, he was readily believed, receiving favours of all kinds from the Sussex yeomen and their wives, and even more than ^^500 in money (ibid. xxiv. 296-7). I 529 67
