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The Sussex Regicides, &c. 171 |
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the grounds that most of it had been settled on him at his marriage, and that his wife's father had been sequestrated for loyalty, and himself threatened with disinheritance because he, with tears and prayers, attempted to dissuade his father from " entering the detestable plot" (the King's trial). Of Cawley's wife all we learn is from a letter written by one Robert Johnson, and dated Jan. 7, 1663, stating that " Mrs. Cawley, whose husband was one of the King's judges, and is not yet discovered, lodges at her brother's in Red Cross-street, London, and is intimate with the wives of Ludlow, Goffe, and Whalley." So that at this time at least these unfortunate men were alone in their hiding-places; and it is very doubtful if Cawley ever saw his wife again. John Lisle, his companion, we know, did not; for his wife, Dame Alice Lisle, remaining in England, was sentenced to death by the infamous Jefferies, and cruelly executed—murdered—for concealing in her house some of the unfortunate fugitives from Sedgmoor.
Cawley's property, including some land at Rumboldswyke, near Chichester, still known (says Mr. Blaauw) as " Cawley's Lane," was granted to the Duke of York—afterwards James II., and who, by another turn of fortune, had to taste, in his turn, the bitterness of exile, and died, like Cawley, in a foreign land.
John Downes, Member for Arundel, sat by the side of William Cawley during the whole of the King's trial, and voted and signed the death-warrant with him. He was evidently closely connected with the Cawley family, for, in a petition to Charles II. from Henry, Bishop of Chichester, the Bishop states that since April, 1643, he has been deprived of his whole estate, the chief actor being Henry Cawley (a brother, perhaps, of William) and John Downes. The latter is described by Noble as a Londoner of mean family, which, very likely, he may have been, but his connection with the Cawleys and with Chichester and Arundel would lead to the assumption that he came of a Sussex stock. Certainly he was a Sussex Member, and as such sat on the High Court of |
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