Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cawley, William
CAWLEY, WILLIAM (1602–1667), regicide, was the eldest son of John Cawley, a brewer of Chichester, who was three times mayor. The date of his baptism, as entered in the register for the parish of St. Andrew's, is 3 Nov. 1602. John Cawley died in 1621, bequeathing his property to William, who became one of the richest and most influential men in Western Sussex. Soon after he had succeeded to his inheritance he expended some of it in the foundation of a hospital outside North Gate, Chichester, for ten poor and aged persons of both sexes. The house was completed in 1626, including the chapel, which was dedicated to St. Bartholomew, and consecrated by the bishop of Chichester, George Carleton. There is a long account of the ceremony in ‘Chichester Cathedral Records’ (liber K).
At the beginning of the reign of Charles I persons possessed of lands to the value of 40l. per annum or upwards were ordered to take up their knighthood under the so-called statute de militibus (6 Edward I). In January 1628–9 commissioners were appointed to extort a composition from all who declined to obey the order. In the majority of cases a composition of 10l. was accepted, but the name of ‘William Cawley, gent.’ appears in the return (Book of Composition in Record Office) as having compounded for 14l.
From the beginning of the civil troubles Cawley was a firm parliamentarian. He was elected M.P. for Chichester in 1627; but this parliament was dissolved in less than a year, and throughout the Long parliament he sat as member for Midhurst. When Chichester was surprised by a party of royalists in November 1642, Cawley brought the news to Colonel Morley, one of the most active of the parliamentary officers, and the successful expedition of Sir William Waller into Sussex followed, in which Chichester was retaken on 29 Dec. 1642, after a siege of eight days. Cawley took the covenant on 6 June 1643, the same day on which it was signed by Selden and Cromwell. He was appointed by the House of Commons one of the commissioners ‘for demolishing superstitious pictures and monuments’ in London, and he was selected to return thanks to the divines who had preached before parliament on the ‘fast day,’ 28 Aug. 1644, for ‘the pains’ they had taken ‘in their sermons.’ Under an ordinance of parliament, made 31 March 1643, he was appointed one of the commissioners for the sequestration of the estates real and personal of those who had raised or should raise arms against the parliament or contribute any aid to the king's forces. On 6 June in the same year the estates of the Bishop of Chichester, Lord Montague of Cowdray, and others were sequestrated under this ordinance, and in February 1644 Cawley was empowered by parliament to pay ‘three able preaching ministers 100l. per annum out of the confiscated estates of the dean and chapter until the revenues of the said dean and chapter in general shall be fixed.’ In 1646 this allowance was augmented to 150l. Cawley was one of the members of the high court of justice appointed by parliament in 1648 to try the king for treason. He attended every meeting of the court and signed the sentence which condemned the king to death. He was made one of the council of state in 1650–1, and a commissioner and sequestrator for Sussex. He bought the manor of Wartling, near Hastings, out of the estates of Lord Craven, and two manors which had belonged to the crown in the parish of West Hampnett, near Chichester. In the Convention parliament of 1659 his son William (not himself) obtained a seat, being elected for Chichester along with Henry Pelham. After the Restoration, 1660, his name appears among those who were absolutely excepted from pardon, and he fled for refuge, first to Belgium, and afterwards to Switzerland, where he died at Vevey on 6 Jan. 1666–7. The place of his burial was not certainly known until a few years ago, when a tomb was discovered beneath the boarded floor of the church of St. Martin at Vevey, bearing the following inscription: ‘Hic jacet tabernaculum terrestre Gulielmi Cawley, armigeri Anglicani, nup. de Cicestria in comitatu Sussexiæ, qui, postquam ætate sua inservivit Dei consilio, obdormivit 6 Jan. 1666–7, ætat. suæ 63.’ There is a tradition that his remains were afterwards transported to England, and buried in the vault under the chapel of his hospital at Chichester. This was opened in 1883, and a leaden case enclosing a male skeleton was found there, but it bore no inscription. His son, W. Cawley, petitioned in 1660 to have the estate of his ‘late father’ restored to him, on the grounds that most of it had been settled on him at his marriage, that his father-in-law's estate had been sequestrated for his loyalty, and that he himself had earnestly entreated his father not to ‘enter the detestable plot,’ meaning the king's trial. The petition, however, does not seem to have been successful, and most of Cawley's property was bestowed on the Duke of York, afterwards James II. Another son, John Cawley, was archdeacon of Lincoln 1667–1709. The memory of his name is still preserved in ‘Cawley Lane,’ at Rumboldswyke, close to Chichester, and ‘Cawley Priory,’ a house in the city which stands on the site of his residence.
A portrait of Cawley has been preserved in his hospital, now converted into a workhouse. It was taken when he was about eighteen years of age, and represents him as a dark-eyed and dark-complexioned refined-looking youth, with laced collar and cuffs.
[Noble's History of the Regicides, i. 136; History of the King-Killers, i. 50; Dallaway's Western Sussex, vol. i.; Journals of the House of Commons; Sussex Archæolog. Journal, vols. v. xiii. xix. xxxiv.; Fleet's Glimpses of our Ancestors, 1st series, p. 164.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.59
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 15 f.e. | Cawley, William: for 1666? read 1667 | ||
| 379 | i | 7-8 | for he was one of the few regicides who read it was his son William Cawley, junior, who |
| 14 | for in 1666 read on 6 Jan. 1666-7 | ||
| 23 | for 1666 read 1666-7 | ||
| 41 | after James II insert Another son, John Cawley, was archdeacon of Lincoln 1667-1709 |