Page:VCH Sussex 1.djvu/616

 A HISTORY OF SUSSEX dismiss their respective armies. From their lack of pikes and firearms these irregular forces were called clubmen. In Hampshire this anti- war movement began about the end of August, and soon spread into Sussex, where one Aylen, a Mr. Peckham, and ' some of the Fords ' were the ringleaders. The movement was warmly taken up in the villages of the south-west, especially round Eastergate and Walberton, and at Midhurst and Petworth. The clubmen to the number of about six hundred met on Runcton Down on Wednesday, j September, and arranged for a further muster on Bury Hill close to Arundel on the following Monday,^ Instructions were sent to Colonel Norton to march into Sussex, where he was to be reinforced by i,ooo horse and also by the county trained bands, if their fidelity could be relied upon.^ Meanwhile Captain Morley, then governor of Arundel, sent Major Young with a small force to fall upon the clubmen in their headquarters at Walberton, which they did before daybreak on Sunday, 2 i September. This particular force was scattered, two ' malignant ' ministers and a few others captured, and a man who tried to summon aid by ringing the church bell killed.^ But the rising was not so easily quelled, and on 26 September Colonel Norton reported that he had put down the Hampshire clubmen successfully, and added : ' I hope this will be a warning to Sussex ; if not we shall be ready to serve them the like trick.' * Yet on i 3 October William Cawley complained that by reason of the clubmen's insurrection it was impossible to raise either men or money for Sir Thomas Fairfax's army, as they would not suffer any to be impressed, ' sending sometimes a constable or tithing-man with the blood running about his ears,' so that out of sixty-seven to be levied in the rape only twenty-seven had been secured and sent to General Crom- well at Winchester, while of ^(^4,000 due less than >rioo had been brought in.^ He therefore requested that powers might be granted for the arrest of the ringleaders and the disarming of all ; the conferring of which powers no doubt terminated the trouble. The year 1 648 saw a recrudescence of Royalist activity in Sussex. Early in June a petition of the knights, gentry, clergy and commons of Sussex was presented to the twe Houses, desiring that the king might be treated with, the army paid off and disbanded, and no garrisons main- tained.* The Royalists in the neighbourhood of Horsham supported this by threatening armed reprisals against all who had not joined in this petition, and emphasized their threats by putting a strong guard over the Horsham magazine and refusing to allow its removal to Arundel. By 29 June the Cavaliers at Horsham had begun to arm and collect forces but Sir Michael Livesay's regiment of horse was ordered up from Kent and took the town with little trouble.^ The insurgents, = Cal. S.P. Dom. Chas. I. dx. 128, 139. ^ The True Relation. 6 Ho. of Lords MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), vii. 30. 7 Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), i. 465. » Ibid. p. 719. » Cal. S.P. Dom. Chas. I. xvi. 60, 61. 526
 * A True Relation of the Rising of Clubmen in Sussex, li.M. pressmark E302 (i8).
 * Hist. MSB. Com. Rep. x. (6), 163. ^ Portland MSS. (Hist. MSS. Com.), i. 289.