Arundel

Borough

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Right of Election:

in the inhabitants paying scot and lot

Number of voters:

over 100 in 1661

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
c. Apr. 1660ROGER BOYLE, Baron Broghill 
 HENRY CAREY, Visct. Falkland 
7 May 1660JOHN TREVOR vice Falkland, chose to sit for Oxford 
3 Apr. 1661ROGER BOYLE, Earl of Orrery83
 FRANCIS AUNGIER, Baron Aungier77
 John Trevor62
10 Feb. 1679WILLIAM GARWAY 
 JAMES BUTLER 
18 Aug. 1679WILLIAM GARWAY 
 JAMES BUTLER 
8 Feb. 1681WILLIAM GARWAY 
 JAMES BUTLER 
1 Apr. 1685WILLIAM GARWAY 
 WILLIAM WESTBROOKE 
12 Jan. 1689WILLIAM MORLEY II 
 WILLIAM GARWAY 

Main Article

Arundel had been represented in the Model Parliament. Its customary privileges were confirmed by letters patent in 1586. The governing body consisted of the mayor and an indefinite number of ‘burgesses’, while returns ran in the name of mayor, burgesses and commonalty. During this period the borough slipped from aristocratic to gentry control. The Howard family, who took their second title from the town and normally resided in the castle, may have been responsible for the return of Lord Falkland at the general election of 1660, and more certainly for his replacement, John Trevor, in May. But the second seat went to Lord Broghill, a connexion by marriage of the Earl of Northumberland, whose Petworth property gave him an interest in West Sussex, and in 1661, as lord lieutenant, he returned both candidates, Broghill, now Lord Orrery, and another Irish peer, Lord Aungier. Trevor stood again on the Howard interest, but was defeated on the poll. In 1662 the corporation was drastically purged with the removal of the mayor and ten burgesses.1

By 1679 the earldom of Northumberland was in abeyance, and the Popish Plot had driven the head of the Howard family, the 6th Duke of Norfolk, into temporary exile. Two local gentlemen of country affiliations, William Garway and James Butler, were returned to the Exclusion Parliaments. In September 1681 the dissenters adopted Butler as prospective candidate for the county. Garway was either too staunch an Anglican or too uncertain a politician for their taste, and they proposed for Arundel John Cooke and [?John] Peachey. No loyal address approving the dissolution or abhorring the ‘Association’ had been forthcoming from the corporation, but they dutifully abhorred the Rye House Plot and congratulated James II on his accession. In 1685 Garway’s local standing ensured his re-election, while Butler was replaced by William Westbrooke, who seems to have been something of a trimmer.2

Arundel returned no thanks for the Declaration of Indulgence, and as a borough by prescription it could not be regulated. In 1688 the King’s electoral agents reported that Arundel was under the influence of the 7th Duke of Norfolk, an Anglican, and his brother Lord Thomas Howard, a Roman Catholic. The electors proposed to choose Garway and Butler. A dissenter, John Lee of Plaistow, had ‘good interest in the town which may be improved, but ’tis supposed Mr Garway will rather choose to join with Mr Butler’, a conformist. ‘What hath been proposed concerning this place is requisite to secure the election’, they concluded darkly; but these proposals were apparently too secret to be committed to paper. Arundel was one of the few constituencies where an election was held under the writ of September 1688. The court candidate was defeated, much to the wrath of Lord Chancellor Jeffreys. Garway was duly re-elected in 1689, accompanied not by Butler but by the Tory William Morley II as senior Member.3

Author: Basil Duke Henning

Notes

  • 1. G. W. Eustace, Arundel, 122-6, 179, 186, 193; Add. 5687, f. 281.
  • 2. CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 473; London Gazette, 13 Sept. 1682, 12 Mar. 1685; London Vis. Peds. (Harl. Soc. xcii), 108; Duckett, Penal Laws (1882), 189, 190.
  • 3. Duckett, 441-2; IHR Bull. xlvii. 42.