Page:VCH Surrey 1.djvu/480

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A HISTORY OF SURREY action was as completely thrown overboard by this party as ever it had been on the king's side. A few members tried to keep out of the struggle altogether. Generally esprit de corps made the members rather more Parliamentary on the whole than their constituents, or perhaps it would be safer to say than the inhabitants of the counties with or with- out votes. In Surrey Sir Richard Onslow and Sir Ambrose Browne, knights of the shire, were Parliamentarians to begin with. In Southwark Edward Bagshawe and John White were elected in 1 640. The former was disabled for adhering to the king and Mr. White died. Mr. George Thompson and, Mr. George Snelling were respectively elected in their room. Sir Robert Holbourne, member for Southwark in the Short Parliament of 1640, was a Royalist. In Guildford Sir Richard Park- hurst and Mr. George Abbot, nephew to the archbishop, were both Parliamentarians. The latter died and was succeeded by Nicholas Stoughton. In Reigate Lord Monson was a keen Parliamentarian; Sir Thomas Bludworth, or Bludder, the other member, was disabled for adhering to the king and George Evelyn elected in his room. In Blechingley Sir John Evelyn and Edward Bysshe, in Gatton Sir Samuel Owfield and Thomas Sandys, in Haslemere John Goodwyn and Sir Poynings More were Parliamentarian. Sir Samuel Owfield died in the course of the war and was succeeded by William Owfield. Sir Poynings More died in 1649, having forsaken the party, as indeed did others, before the execution of the king. The proportion of 1 2 members to 2 for the Parliament and king respectively at the beginning of the war may be compared with the proportion in the adjacent counties. Middle- sex and Essex were all Parliamentary, Kent was 15 to 3, Sussex was 17 to 11, Hampshire 14 to 6, Berkshire 8 to i, Buckinghamshire 10 to 4. Surrey was by this test rather more Parliamentary than Kent and Buck- inghamshire, less so than Berkshire, decidedly less so than Middlesex and Essex. But it had not so much Royalist feeling as Hampshire and decidedly less than Sussex. Rather more than one quarter of the bene- ficed clergy were deprived as ' malignants,' though many other accusa- tions, false and true, were added to that of their malignancy. At all events the county was from the first almost completely under the control of the Parliament. It was a necessary acquisition. It contained the most important gunpowder mills in the country, at Chilworth, 1 and can- non foundries. It lay between London and the more important cannon foundries of Sussex those at Worth for instance. The furnaces near the southern part of the Weald of Sussex sent their produce to London by sea, not by road through Surrey. One furnace, Mr. Quennell's at Imbhams, near Chiddingfold, which had been Lord Montague's, supplied the king with guns till it was stopped by force, and other ironmasters would have done so if they could, being Royalists. This was the Mr. 1 Sir Richard Onslow is said to have been accused after the Restoration of having ruined the king's powder mills at Chilworth (see art. in Diet, of Nat. Biography) ; but the mills continued making powder for the Parliament. 406