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The Sussex Regicides, &c. 177 |
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We have exhausted the list of the Sussex Regicides proper. Of those Sussex men who sat on the High Court of Justice, but did not sign the death-warrant, Herbert Morley and John Fagg were the most prominent. We have already spoken of the former. After the death of Cromwell, he was one of the most influential officers of the army which held the fate of the kingdom in its hands. His services to the popular cause during the previous conflict with the King had been great; he was the first to form a regiment in Sussex, doubtless out of his own tenants at Glynde and his friends and his constituents at Lewes, of which he was the Member in the Long Parliament, and he rendered valuable service to Sir W. Waller in the siege and capture both of Arundel and of Chichester. In 1643, he beat back the forces of Lord Hopton, who was laying siege to Lewes, and preserved that town to the Parliamentary cause. He assisted his fellow-Sussexian, Col. Norton, at the siege of Basing House, and, as we know by an interesting correspondence between himself and Sir W. Campion, he was with Fairfax when that General took Borstall House, of which Campion was the Governor. His treatment of Campion's young wife was most honourable to him, and, indeed, in every passage of his life he always behaved like a soldier and a gentleman. He sat three days on the High Court of Justice, but refused to sign the death-warrant, and in the ensuing Protectorate he was somewhat of a malcontent, and retired from active life to his house at Glynde.
Writing from Lewes, to Thurloe, in November, 1655, General Goffe, Col. Morley's old fellow-soldier, says, "I intend (if the Lord please) to give Colonel Morley a kind visit this day, his house being within two or three miles. I hope such a civility, whatever he thinkes of my business, will doe no hurt." It appears that Morley told Goffe he would assist him in any matter as a Justice of the Peace, but hinted that in any other things he wished not his name to appear. Col. Morley was returned for Sussex, and also for Rye, in the Parliament which Cromwell called in September, 1654, and which, after it had resolved, by 200 to 60, not to make the Protectorate hereditary, N |
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