A HISTORY OF SURREY Parliament, bought Clandon Lodge about the time of the beginning of the Civil Wars from Sir Richard Weston, the Catholic agriculturist. The Copleys, another recusant family, closely intermarried with the Westons, also parted with their estates at Gatton and Leigh about the same period. The moderate Puritans go up as the old names go down. Arthur Onslow, the Speaker in George the Second's reign, summed up the Parliamentary career and position of his family to his son as follows : ' Sir Richard Onslow . . . laid the foundation of that interest both in the county and in the town of Guildford that our family have ever since kept up to a height that has been scarcely equalled in any county by one family, having been chosen for the county to all Parliaments, except five, from 1627; and to Guildford for every Parliament from 1660, except once for two years upon a vacancy for a friend by our family interest, and sometimes for Haslemere, Gatton and Blechingley, in the same county, once two of our family together for the county, and several times two of them together for Guildford.' 1 Sir Richard Onslow had given his support to the Restoration like other moderate men, but died in 1663 before constitutional struggles re- commenced. His son, Sir Arthur, first married to a Stoughton, another family of the same politics, got into trouble, as we have seen, along with other Whigs at the end of Charles the Second's reign. He died just before the Revolution of 1688. His son, Sir Richard, who had shared his father's troubles, but who had kept his seat in Parliament for Guild- ford under Charles and James, was a knight of the shire in the Convention Parliament which ratified the transference of the crown to William and Mary. Under these sovereigns and under Anne he was continuously so chosen, until in the wave of Tory and High Church excitement in 1710, after the Sacheverell riots, he was defeated. It was said that he might have kept his seat if he had not insisted on standing or falling with another Whig colleague. The defeat was the more telling against his party, for he had been chosen Speaker by them in 1708. The deposition was not for long. With the advent of the Hanoverians the Whigs triumphed again. Onslow had returned to Parliament in 1710 for a Cornish borough, and in 1713 for Surrey again. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer in October, 1714, lord lieutenant of Surrey in 1715, and Lord Onslow in 1716. He was founder of a dynasty of Lords Lieutenant. His son Thomas, who had sat for the county and at differ- ent times for three of the rotten boroughs in it, Gatton, Blechingley and Haslemere, succeeded him as lord lieutenant, and his son Richard also held the same office. But another member of the family was more distinguished than these. Arthur Onslow, grandson of that Sir Arthur who died in 1688, became owner of Ember Court in Surrey. He was knight of the shire, and was elected Speaker to the first Parliament of George II., filling the office throughout the whole of the long reign. His predecessor Compton, Speaker throughout George the First's reign, had done much to raise the conception of the Speaker's position. 1 Onslow Papers in Hist. AfSS. Comm. Report, 14, n, p. 476. 426
