Crewe.’ His one title to fame is his ‘Discourse of Patronage,’ which, though little more than a pamphlet (it contains only forty-five pages), well deserves to escape oblivion. It gives a very lucid and sensible account of the subject, written with great vigour and eloquence, and closes with an earnest appeal for reform. Its full title is ‘A Discourse of Patronage; being a Modest Enquiry into the Original of it, and a further Prosecution of the History of it, with a True Account of the Original and Rise of Vicarages, and a Proposal for the Enlarging their Revenues. Also an Humble Supplication to the Pious Nobility and Gentry to endeavour the Prevention of Abuses of the Honorary Trust of Patronage, with a Proposal of some Expedients for regulating it, most agreeable to Primitive Pattern; wherein at once the just Rights of Patrons are secured, and the People's Liberty of Election of their own Minister in a great measure indulged. By Z. Cawdry, 1675.’ The little work is divided into seven chapters, which treat respectively of (1) The Original of the Evangelical Ministry, showing the Primitive Church to have been not Parochial, but Diocesan. (2) The Maintenance of the Clergy in Primitive Churches. (3) The Donation of Tithes by Kings and Emperors. (4) The Original of Patronage by Donation of Manse and Glebe. (5) The Original of Impropriation and Vicarages. (6) Mischiefs of Simony. (7) A Supplication to the Nobility and Gentry. The only other publication of Cawdry extant is a single sermon preached at Bowdon in Cheshire, at the funeral of Lord Delamere, better known as Sir George Booth, whose rising in 1659 ‘gave’ (to use the language of the preacher) ‘the first warm and invigorating spring-beam to the frostnipt loyalty of the nation.’
[Ormerod's Hist. of Cheshire; Nichols's Hist. and Antiq. of Leicestershire, ii. 259; Cawdry's Discourse and Sermons.]
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
