Page:VCH Surrey 1.djvu/498

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A HISTORY OF SURREY surprising them at night in the town. 1 Holland was taken and Dalbier killed at St. Neots. The former was executed. Buckingham and Peter- borough escaped abroad. So ended the last real fighting which has taken place in Surrey, and the last serious skirmish of the Civil Wars south of the Thames. The Surrey strong places were rendered still more inde- fensible than they were before, and Livesey's Kentish men were quartered in west Surrey, south-west of Guildford in Compton, Chiddingfold, Witley, Thursley and thereabouts, where perhaps Royalist feeling was suspected. They remained for nine months, and behaved so badly that the inhabitants petitioned the general, Sir Thomas Fairfax, to remove them, and they were accordingly sent to Northamptonshire April 16, 1 649, in pursuance of an order signed by Cromwell ; while on the same date Fairfax issued an order warning officers to preserve discipline in the county, but adding that some disorders were perpetrated by per- sons pretending to be soldiers who were to be looked after by the justices. 2 The rising gave the opportunity for forfeiting the property of more delinquents in Surrey, and some troops and companies of soldiers were raised to be paid out of the proceeds. Rich's regiment, which had helped to suppress the Surrey rising, did its next notable service on December 6 of this year when it was employed with Pride's foot to coerce the House of Commons. Sir Richard Onslow, member for the county, and Sir William Waller, who had been the foremost agent in keeping Surrey for the Parliament, were among the members arrested by the soldiers in this act of violence to prevent the accommodation ardently desired by five-sixths of the country. The reform of the Parliamentary representation of the county was proposed, as was that of all others, by the Agreement of the People, the manifesto of the genuine Republican party, presented to the remnant of the Long Parliament shortly before the execution of the king, but not accepted by them. The number of representatives was to be cut down to two for Southwark and five for five electoral divisions of the county. This constitution never actually came into existence. In the Nominated or Barebones Parliament of 1653, Samuel Highland and Lawrence Marsh who sat for Surrey were both reckoned among the extreme or fanatical party of that assembly. 3 When the Instrument of Government actually made a reformed constitution under the Cromwellian monarchy in December, 1653, Surrey had ten members assigned to it, two for South- wark, one for Guildford, one for Reigate and six for the rest of the county. The last were elected by the whole county, not for districts, but after the collective fashion which the French call scrutin de listed 1 Report in Duke of Portland's MSS. i, 478.

  • Manning and Bray, iii. 674. The original papers on the matter were communicated to

Manning by Mr. William Smyth of Godalming, whose family lived at Peperharow in 1 649. Whitelocke gives a petition from Surrey against free quarters in February, 1 6489, but it is apparently not the same petition, and dealt with other matters, such as the appointment of magistrates and the abolition of tithes as well as with free quarters. 3 See list in Gardiner's Commonwealth and Protectorate, vol. xi. ch. xxviii. 4 This remained the system of election till 1658 when Richard Cromwell altered it, LudMs Memoirs, Firth ed. ii. 48. 420