POLITICAL HISTORY 



the townspeople, who refused to serve in the ranks, so that the whole 

 burden of the defence fell upon the fifty or sixty officers and gentry. 

 Besides the leaders already mentioned there were taken the Bishop 

 of Chichester, Thomas May, member for Midhurst, forty of Lord 

 Crawford's troop of horse, and the recorder of Chichester, Christopher 

 Lewknore. The interpretation of the terms of surrender caused some 

 bitterness, as it was alleged that Waller had undertaken that the officers 

 should go out of the town on horseback with their swords, and the 

 common soldiers on foot, leaving their arms and colours undefaced ; but 

 he seized the officers as prisoners and robbed them,' stripping them of 

 everything except the clothes upon their backs/ Great injury was done 

 to Chichester by the destruction of the suburbs for the better defence 

 ofthe city and in the attack,^ and also by the victorious troops, who, 

 under Sir Arthur Haselrig, wrought havoc in the cathedral, breaking 

 the organs, defacing the monuments and plundering the treasury. In 

 order to save the city from being plundered Waller demanded from the 

 more wealthy inhabitants a quantity of plate, which with ^^900 worth 

 of plate belonging to the Earl of Thanet, and as much more which the 

 committee had sent to Portsmouth, was distributed amongst the soldiers 

 as ' a month's donative.'* 



During the early part of 1643 little happened in Sussex ; in June 

 orders were issued for the raising of a hundred horse in this county 

 and Surrey for the use of the parliament, and recruiting evidently 

 went on in the villages, as we hear of a riot at West Hoathly fair 

 when Ancient Streater was beating for volunteers and was assaulted 

 and the head of his drum knocked in.^ Nor were the Royalists idle, 

 for in August one Thomas Cotton, ' a dangerous papist,' was brought 

 before Sir Thomas Pelham and other justices and found in possession of 

 a warrant from Sir Edward Ford, the sheriff and now a captain of horse 

 under Lord Hopton, authorizing him to seek contributions of horses, 

 arms, plate or money for his majesty's service." In September Colonel 

 Herbert Morley, the most prominent Sussex parliamentarian, wrote to 

 Lenthall of the danger that Southampton might fall, and that ' this may 

 raise a storm in Sussex, which county is full of neuters and malignants, 

 and I have ever observed neuters to turn malignants on such occasions.' 



At the end of 1643 Lord Hopton was in command of a strong 

 force of cavalry on the western borders of Sussex, and on 23 November 

 a detachment of his horse belonging to Lord Crawford's regiment rode 

 into South Harting and took up their quarters there. The same night 

 400 of Colonel Norton's parliamentarian dragoons also rode into the 

 same village and made a fair bid to capture the whole force of their 

 enemies ; but the six Royalist officers, who were quartered in Sir John 

 Caryll's house, Harting Place, slipping round to the rear of Norton's 



1 Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), i. 84. 



' Ho. of Lords' MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), Rep. vii. 444. ' Ibid. p. 2. 



* Cal. S.P. Dom. Chas. I. ccccxcvii. 99. 



6 Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), i. 709. « Ibid. p. 126. 



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