POLITICAL HISTORY 



active industry ' request was made to him to bestow on them some 

 small barrels of powder. This request the king was pleased to grant 

 for their encouragement, and in the hope that the youth of other places 

 might be stirred up to follow their example.' 



An event of considerable importance was the decision taken in 

 1636 to appoint separate sheriffs for the counties of Sussex and Surrey.'' 

 The two counties had been under one sheriff from 1242 down to this 

 date, with the exception of the period 1566 to 1571, when they had 

 been temporarily divided, but from this time they remained separate. 

 Another step in the direction of uniformity had been taken in 1584, 

 when the holding of separate sessions in the several rapes was condemned, 

 as a hindrance to business and as ' a thinge so singuler to y'selves as but 

 in yo"" shire onelie we doe not knowe of the like elswhere,' and orders 

 were given for one general sessions to be held for the whole county.^ 



During this period we have several election petitions, showing that 

 corruption and partiality which afterwards played so large a part in our 

 parliamentary history were already rife. It would appear that in 1623 

 the mayor of Winchelsea procured the election of William Finch and 

 the exclusion of Sir Alexander Temple by threatening and illegally dis- 

 qualifying certain voters,* while the mayor of Arundel returned Sir 

 George Chaworth in opposition to Richard Mills by reopening the poll 

 after it had been taken, and continuing it until other voters for whom 

 he had sent came in.° In 1640 Sir John Suckling was accused of getting 

 himself returned for Bramber by threatening the better kind of electors 

 and bribing the others,^ and during the same election at Hastings there 

 was open bribery — an offer, it is said, being made on behalf of Robert 

 Reed that if elected he would give to the poor jTao down and ;Ci° ^ 

 year for life, and would also supply two barrels of powder for training 

 the youths of the town.'' 



The question of ship-money does not play any large part in the 

 political troubles of Sussex, as the county was a maritime one and had 

 no fair ground for complaint against such a tax ; but the endeavour to 

 raise money by irregular means was resented here as elsewhere, and the 

 'loan' demanded in 1626 brought in only ^Ti 20 from the whole county, 

 the people pleading their poverty, but expressing willingness if required 

 in regular parliamentary course to ' strain themselves beyond their 

 abilities.'^ Dissatisfaction with the king's counsellors, and especially 

 with the Church, is also shown in the petition of the freeholders and 

 inhabitants of Sussex to the House of Commons in 1641.* 



When the Civil War, which had been. long smouldering, actually 

 blazed up in August 1642, the sympathies of east Sussex and of the 

 mass of the poorer classes throughout the county were decidedly with 

 the Parliament. In the west, however, the Royalist gentry were strong, 



> Cal. S.P. Dom. Chas. I. Ixxvii. 20. 2 Ibid, cccxxvi. 63. 



3 Had. MS. 703, f. 16. * S.P. Dom. Add. xliii. 62. 



6 Ibid. « Hht. MSS. Com. Rep. iv. 25. ' S.P. Dom. Chas. I. cccxlviii. 45. 



s Ibid, xxxiii. 109. 9 E.M. pressmark 669, f. 4. 



521 



66 



