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. 



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