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 



