A HISTORY OF SURREY 



member of the Council, that the county was ill-affected, and that though 

 there was no open outbreak it remained ' in a quavering quiet.' 1 The 

 people were specially incensed against Sir William Goring who was 

 sheriff the next year. On June 30 Sir Christopher More of Loseley 

 was ordered by the Council to assemble and equip as many men as 

 possible, both horse and foot, his friends, favourers, servants, tenants 

 and others, and to hold them ready for immediate service. 2 It is 

 significant that the county levies are not called out, as Henry VIII. as 

 recently as 1545 had called them out for the French war. The people 

 could no more be trusted by the Government than they were in 1381. 

 On July i noblemen and gentlemen only, from all parts, were ordered to 

 repair to the protection of the king at Windsor. 3 At the same time it 

 was proposed to destroy Staines Bridge to hinder a junction of the dis- 

 affected north and south of the Thames. Kingston was probably secured 

 by troops. Chertsey Bridge was out of repair rather later, perhaps 

 broken down now. The inhabitants of Staines protested successfully 

 and the panic passed away. But Surrey men were among those hanged 

 later in the year. As Guildford Castle had proved insufficient to hold 

 all the prisoners in 1381, so now it was complained of as insecure. In 

 the last year of Henry VII. the care of the prison and prisoners had 

 been farmed out to a private person, who took 40 shillings a year and 

 the fees to look after them. 4 If a similar arrangement continued, the 

 keepers might well be unprepared for such an emergency. It had 

 ceased to be the county gaol by Elizabeth's reign. Sir Christopher 

 More, the right hand man of Henry VIII. 's government in the 

 county, died immediately after this trouble, and his son, William More, 

 became a justice, and reigned in his stead as chief administrator of the 

 county in practice, till the end of the reign of Elizabeth. 



At this time the title of lord lieutenant first appears as that of the 

 military commander of a county. The office came into existence under 

 Henry VIII., when his administration in Church and State met with 

 local resistance which needed new machinery of local repression. The 

 Act 3, 4 Edward VI. 5 turned it from an extraordinary and temporary 

 appointment into a regular office, transferring to the lord lieutenant 

 the former duties of the sheriff as summoner and commander of the 

 local levies of his county, for suppressing domestic disorder or guarding 

 against foreign invasion. In 1536 Sir Anthony Browne, father to the 

 first Viscount Montague, commanded, and in the first instance paid for, 

 the Surrey levies when called out for thirty-two days' training. 6 Not 

 being sheriff, he was presumably lieutenant. In 1 549, from his presence 

 at Guildford and from his obvious responsibility for the peace of the 

 county, as shown in the letter quoted above, the Earl of Arundel was 

 apparently lord lieutenant. He seems to have been appointed by the 

 regency on August 17, 1547." 



1 State Papers, Dom. Edw. VI. 1549. * Loseley MSS. June 30, 1549, vi. 3. 



3 State Papers, Dom. Edw. VI. 1549. 4 Surrey Arch. Irani. 1900. 



5 Loseley MSS. December 10, 28 Hen. VIII. vii. 19*. 



6 Acts of Privy Council, n. s. vol. ii. date cited. 



370 



