POLITICAL HISTORY 



miserably in the mischievous enterprise of stirring up the unfortunate 

 Irish into fanaticism, which was not their previous character, and into 

 rebellion which was unjustifiable because it was hopeless. The Saun- 

 ders, Copley and Gage families were all connected, more or less, and the 

 Copleys in the third generation below Sir Thomas intermarried with the 

 Westons of Button. 



The Westons of Button, new comers of the reign of Henry VIII., 

 are not to be confounded with the old Surrey family of Weston of Albury 

 and elsewhere in the county. Sir Henry Weston, the representative of the 

 Surrey family under Elizabeth, is a probable example of the numerous 

 class who would have been recusants if they had dared, or cared suffi- 

 ciently for anything but their safety and comfort. He was a friend of 

 Copley. His house, as we have said, was searched for a priest. His 

 grandson was certainly a recusant. He himself, after being appointed 

 to a command of levies in 1584, begged to be excused on the ground of 

 business in the north. It is less likely that he, formerly a soldier and 

 certainly not a fanatical Romanist, backed out of the office than that the 

 Government, on second thoughts, preferred to let him honourably retire 

 in order to appoint a man more trusted by their supporters. He was 

 one of the men whose attitude Elizabeth thought fit to wink at. The 

 memory maybe of his young father, who was involved in the fate of her 

 mother, may have made the queen inclined towards him. Lord Mon- 

 tague was another man whose notorious religious attitude did not prevent 

 his keeping trust as well as favour. He had spoken boldly in Parliament 

 against the imposition of the oath of royal supremacy. There was 

 no doubt which way his sympathies lay in religion. He was an 

 extensive holder however of abbey lands, and his political so far 

 outwent his ecclesiastical allegiance as to enable him to sit as a 

 judge of Mary Queen of Scots as well as to take arms against 

 the Armada. Lord Howard of Effingham was not a Romanist at 

 all, and certainly must have taken the oath of supremacy as a Privy 

 Councillor. He sat on several commissions for the discovery of 

 priests and Jesuits. Yet no doubt he would have gone contentedly to 

 mass, as he had done in his youth, if Elizabeth had done the same. As 

 some of the great men were, so were a great number of the Surrey 

 people, not differing from those of many other counties. Political out- 

 weighed ecclesiastical or religious interests. Of the last in the true 

 sense they had little. They were not enthusiastic for services of this 

 kind or of that, but they were supporters of the national sovereign re- 

 presenting national independence. Every year that she maintained what 

 had been so precarious a throne made them still more thoroughly 

 her supporters in the cause of settled government and order. 



Surrey, like other counties, had to arm herself in defence of the 

 Government, and, being a bulwark of London towards the south, was 

 perhaps a more special care to the authorities than some others. 



There was a general obligation upon all persons to provide them- 

 selves with arms for the public defence, and the forces thus available 



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