A HISTORY OF SURREY Thomas Cawarden, a safe courtier, was elected with Thomas Browne as his colleague. It seems from Browne's first letter that he had been already approached by the sheriff; and Mr. Bydon, who recommends Copley, does so on the ground that he is a friend to Cawarden as if he knew that Cawarden was to be one of the members. Cawarden had sat in the Parliament which had restored the papal supremacy. Charles Howard and More himself sat for the county in the next Parliament. For this first Parliament of Elizabeth we have the names of rival candidates for nomination, the nomination being evidently decisive. In 1586 the Government wished to nominate members en bloc for the county and the boroughs in it. The Council then wrote to the sheriff desiring him to call two or three well-affected gentlemen to join with him, and then to summon the leading people of each constituency before him, and to explain to them that in their 'free election' to the ensuing Parliament it would be well for them to choose if possible the same members who had represented them in the last, as these had proved themselves to be 'wise and well-affected gentlemen.' 1 Most of the constituencies were obedient ; the change of one member at Gatton, and of both at Haslemere, hardly proves those notoriously pocket boroughs to have been independent on this occasion. When in 1597 Sir William Howard, eldest son of the Earl of Nottingham, was called to the Upper House just after his election for the county, the earl wrote to Sir William More recommending his second son, Charles Howard, instead ; and Charles was accordingly elected. 2 The first Parliament however was the critical occasion, when the choice of fit persons was specially desirable to the queen. The repre- sentation was duly arranged. The desired changes were peacefully accomplished, but there is one evident note of anxiety in the orders of the Council at this time. On December 31, 1558, they wrote to Cawarden and others touching the late order for a general muster, 'it is not a thing usuall to have the bishoppes and clergie come to any musters, and yet we well understand that they have of late tyme procured to their possession a greate quantitie of armer and weapons. >s The Council desired particulars of this. Such bishops and clergy as were likely to be recalcitrant were yet in posses- sion of their benefices, and there seems to have been some fear of their promoting a rising. The fear was groundless or the attempt too hope- less. The former alternative is more likely. Nicholas Heath, ex-Lord Chancellor and deprived Archbishop of York, gives an example of a very general feeling. He could not as a minister be responsible for the new policy, but he lived at Chobham in Surrey on really friendly terms with the queen, who used to see and converse with him as a private friend. 1 Loseley MSS. September 19, 1586, vii. 73. 8 Ibid. October, 1597. Compare August 25, 1597, xii. 101, where the earl in the first instance recommends his elder son William. 3 Ibid. December 31, 1558. 378
