POLITICAL HISTORY 



In 1654 the members for the county elected under this scheme 

 were Sir Richard Onslow, General Lambert, Arthur Onslow, Francis 

 Drake, Robert Holman and Robert Wood. To the Parliament of 1656 

 the first four were again elected, with George Duncombe of Albury, and 

 John Blackwell, jun. Sir Richard Onslow was called to Cromwell's 

 House of Lords. 1 Arthur Onslow and Francis Drake sat in Richard 

 Cromwell's Parliament. But meanwhile Parliamentary rule had really 

 been suspended. The insurrections of 1654 had been attempted in 

 several places, but had been nipped in the bud in Surrey by the arrest 

 of Sir Humphrey Bennett. 



In 1655, when, in consequence of the plots and risings of both 

 Republicans and Royalists against the new monarchy, the military 

 power, which really ruled, had to show itself openly, and the country 

 was divided into districts under fourteen major-generals. Surrey was in 

 that controlled by Major-General Barkstead. The high sheriff of Surrey 

 that same year was another soldier, Colonel Thomas Pride, who had 

 * purged 'the Parliament in 1648. He was a member of Cromwell's 

 House of Lords a little later. This control was close and rigorous. 

 Suspected persons were closely watched, and their movements from 

 place to place only allowed on sufficient reason being given. Persons 

 against most of whom certainly no offence was provable were placed in 

 the position of a modern ticket-of-leave man under police supervision. 

 The Earl of Southampton, knights, gentlemen and so on of course appear 

 in the lists preserved ; but how minute was the observation or how wide 

 the discontent is shown by the inclusion of innkeepers, brewers, yeomen, 

 a tailor, a labourer, a bricklayer, a waterman, a bodice maker, a man- 

 milliner, gardeners, cordwainers, an oatmealman, a stone-cutter and so 

 on. z Brewers and innkeepers were perhaps natural enemies of the ruling 

 party. The village inn and the country feasts were centres of malignancy, 

 and as such suppressed or controlled. The repression extended to the 

 victims of popular sports, and the surviving bears of the Southwark 

 bear-pits were put to military execution by the major-general or the 

 sheriff, being ' shot to death by a company of soldiers,' * and the fight- 

 ing cocks had their necks wrung. Southwark was no doubt more 

 orderly in consequence. But it is often more dangerous to interfere 

 with popular amusements than with more serious matters. In many 

 ways the military despotism was doing its best to make the royal 

 despotism forgotten. 



The vagaries of individual opinion were given scope for develop- 

 ment by the Civil Wars, but were by no means allowed to flourish 

 undisturbed. At the very outset of the Commonwealth Surrey had been 

 the scene of a curious exhibition of eccentricity characteristic of the 

 times. The ancient and probably everlasting doctrines of extreme 



1 List given by Manning and Bray, but the writs and returns for 1656 are not extant. The 

 Onslow Papers say that Sir Richard and Arthur Onslow were returned in 1656. 



See Letters and Lists in Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 19,516, 34,013, 34,015, and an article upon 

 them in Surrey Arch Coll. 1899, by A. B. Bax, Esq. 



3 Clarke Papers, iii. 64, R. Hist. S. 



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