|
|
Pre-
1539 | Please click here to look back at times before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. |
| 1539 | Prior to the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Abbot of the Abbey of St Edmund upheld the King's law and imposed, and collected, taxes in the whole of the area later to become West Suffolk. The Abbot also sat as a peer in Parliament. The last abbot, John Reeve, was given a pension, and may have lived his remaining days in this house in Crown Street. He died within a few months of the surrender of the abbey.
During the time of the abbey any form of local self determination by the townspeople of Bury existed solely through the Candlemas Guild and later the Guildhall Feoffment Trust.
The property of the Abbey of St Edmund was surrendered to the Crown on 4th November 1539 but much of the wealth had already been confiscated in the previous year. After the dissolution in 1539, the rights of the Abbot returned to the Crown. The government of the town was largely ignored by the new owners of the abbey lands and privileges, and any joint actions continued to be carried out through the Guildhall Feoffees, largely without any formal legal backing. Over the next hundred years local government would replace the Abbots' Rule, but religious differences would cause bitter divisions in the country.
However, the town had now lost the use of the great library of the abbey, the access to the several hospitals which the monks had run, the grammar school was closed, and the various charities and good works of the monks were suddenly gone. The poorest in society would suffer most from many of these changes.
Unlike many other towns in England at this time, Bury was growing and prospering. It did this largely independently of the Abbey's decline and eventual closure. It was getting a steady stream of immigration into its cloth trade, and Gottfried believed that its population had by this time regained its pre-plague levels. In 1340 the population was about 7,150, falling to 3,000 by 1440. It was back at 7,000 by 1540.
Local agriculture was highly productive, depending on Bury for its market, and as a marketing centre for onward distribution. The wool and cloth industry was booming, again using Bury market for distribution nationally and internationally. The Netherlands trade was particularly important. The local gentry were happy to be involved in town affairs. | | 1540 | At Hengrave Hall, Sir Thomas Kytson died. He was a rich wool merchant, trading in Flanders, and had built Hengrave Hall from 1525 to 1538. The house was left to his wife, Margaret, and his only son, also called Thomas, was born soon after his death. | | 1541 | More old church ceremonies were banned, including the Boy Bishop ceremonies widespread in Suffolk each December.
In the sixteenth century the town of Haverhill continued to flourish. It obtained a royal connection on 27th January 1541, when the parsonage, lands and right to appoint clergy were granted to Henry VIII's fourth, and recently divorced wife Anne of Cleves.
Anne of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII, arrived in England in 1539 and married the King in 1540, though the marriage was never consummated. By July she was officially divorced. In January 1541, she was given the parsonage house at Haverhill and the right to appoint clergy. She also received a large amount of property in Sussex, Essex and other counties. She never came to Haverhill, preferring to live at Lewes, Sussex. It is probable that the parsonage given to Anne was burnt down in the fire in Haverhill in 1667. The house which today bears her name and is probably the finest building in the town today, was built in 1480, and did not become a vicarage until much later. It seemed to acquire the name of Anne of Cleves House as late as 1967, when it was put up for sale by an enterprising estate agent. It was recently occupied by American security firm HID Corporation Limited, but was on the market again in 2002. | | 1542 | Since 1500, prices had been increasing. However, the level of inflation rose dramatically around 1542 and would remain high for another 10 years. Some people believed that the continued enclosure of land for sheep farming reduced the supply of arable crops and thus pushed up prices. The Earl of Hertford, (later Lord Somerset) tended to be against enclosure and was lenient when enclosure fences were torn down by dispossessed farmers and labourers.
To make matters worse there were a series of droughts in the 1540's, and the resulting food shortages pushed prices up further. In 1542 the Thames dried up to a trickle, followed by widespread crop failures and many small farmers were forced out of business.
| | 1543 | The dry weather continued and rivers dwindled even further. A fire at Reepham in Norfolk consumed one church and most of the High Street, as the river was nearly dry and there was no water to extinguish it. Throughout the region starvation became a threat.
Copernicus published a theory that the earth revolved round the sun, having studied the planets through a telescope which he had built. | | 1544 | Many of the former monastic lands came on the market as the King began to cash in on his new assets. He granted John Eyer, Receiver General in the County of Suffolk over 50 parcels of monastic land and property. This grant included all the rents due on the land and included the right to carry on collecting the old hadgovel rents, or ground rents, first granted to the monastery of St Edmund at least as far back as the Norman Conquest, and possibly earlier. Hadgovel was paid on property inside the town walls, while the farmland outside the walls was subject to a payment called Landmole. Hadgovel seems to have been one penny a measure of land per year, while Landmole was one penny per acre per half year. Thus the tenants on land merely got a new landlord, they did not get set free of their old duties. Many of these dues had been the cause of civil unrest under the rule of the abbey, and these burdens were now to continue, but now paid to secular landlords.
Eyer was one of many who profited from the patronage of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, a barrister born in Bury, who also became a great post-reformation land owner in the area. When we use the term grant, this is not meant to mean that it was given away for free. Nearly all such monastic land was, in reality, sold to the highest bidder, or to those who were in the know. Eyer had to pay £675 8s 10d for this land plus parcels in the three neighbouring counties. Bacon himself acquired St Saviour's hospital and because it was by now in bad disrepair, used it for building materials for his new house in Redgrave.
In 1544 both of Henry VIII's daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, were reinstated to the royal succession. | | 1545 | Having taken over the possessions of the monasteries and abbeys, the various guilds and chantries in the country were dissolved and their possessions confiscated by the Crown. The Candlemas Guild was therefore dissolved but the Feoffees continued with their secular work. They tried to maintain hold of as many of their endowments as possible when the Guild was dispossessed. | | 1546 | Other monastic properties in and around Bury were granted to John and Andrew Manfield, and other disposals continued through to the 1570's. Eyer in particular began to sell off many of his scattered holdings and over the next 50 years there was much buying up of newly available property by adjacent owners in order to consolidate holdings and redevelop larger properties. The Abbey had by and large held on to anything it owned, making it difficult for much property exchange to take place until after 1539. | | 1547 | The plate of the parish churches of St Mary's and St James was sold in an attempt to buy back the land and properties of the town guilds and chantries confiscated by the crown two years earlier.
Henry VIII died on January 28th 1547 at the age of 56, having reigned over 37 years. He left only one young son, King Edward VI, who became king aged 8 years. King Henry's break with the Roman Church and the dissolution of the monastic system had been the greatest social upheaval in hundreds of years. In his will, he appointed a Council of 16 equal ministers to rule during Edward's minority. However, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, declared himself Lord Protector of the Realm.
There was an increase in the reformation of church practices. All images and shrines were banned as were processions and elaborate church equipment. Services were to be in English.
Edward Seymour soon promoted himself to Duke of Somerset, and unwittingly made himself the focus of discontent, as he at first seemed to tolerate the enclosure riots and sympathised with the protestors' grievances. | | 1548 | The Seymour brothers Thomas and Edward were hungry for power. Thomas was jealous of his brother Edward who had made himself Lord Somerset. Katherine Parr married Thomas who thus became stepfather and guardian to Elizabeth. He was 40, she 14. After Katherine Parr died following childbirth, Thomas Seymour wooed Elizabeth.
In May, Lord Somerset granted a pardon to rioters in Cornwall who had risen up in the last months of the old King's reign against the enclosure of the commons. Anti-enclosure riots were spreading nation-wide and several other pardons were granted. Rioters grew bolder as they began to get their way. | | 1549 | Thomas Seymour was arrested after killing one of the kings dogs in strange circumstances in the King's apartments, and suspicion also fell on Elizabeth. In March 1549 Somerset signed his brother's death warrant.
By 1549 anti-enclosure riots were commonplace amidst the economic and religious turmoil of the times. Events were moving faster than the Council of Ministers could address any reforms, such as the commissions on enclosures.
In Cornwall there had been several tense years when the religious reformation was pressed home too harshly. A rumour in 1549 that a new English prayer book was to brought in at Whitsun, caused a rebel camp to be set up. This was the Book of Common Prayer, a first national imprint of Protestantism. The rebels laid siege to Exeter in July and Lord Somerset sent a force to contain the situation. The situation was looking grim when another major rebellion appeared in East Anglia.
It started in Wymondham in July when enclosure fences were torn down, and the mob turned to the fences of Robert Kett, a 57 year old well to do merchant and landowner. Kett listened to them and even helped them tear down his own fences and then led them on to attack those of John Flowerdew, an old enemy of Kett's. On July 9th they decided on a 9 mile protest march to Norwich, circling the city to rest overnight at Bowthorpe, 2 miles north west of the city walls. They pulled down the fences of the "town close", or former common of Norwich. A few days later they had moved to Mousehold Heath, an area of high ground to the east of the city of Norwich honeycombed with chalk and flint mines, but overlooking the city. Almost by accident a great rebel camp was set up here, and new recruits poured into it.
By mid-July another camp was set up a Ryston, just outside Downham Market. Soon a camp was established at Brandon, another at Bury St Edmunds, and on 14th July a major camp was set up outside Ipswich. The Ipswich camp was quickly moved to Melton, near Woodbridge.
Unlike the Cornish rebels, the East Anglians favoured the new English Prayer Book and adopted its use. They also issued proclamations and set themselves up as an alternative local government to that available from the gentry. The rebels, however, still saw themselves as supporters of the crown, but were vehemently against the excesses of the landed gentry. They drew up a list of 29 demands, many of them to do with enclosure of common land and the current high prices. Unfortunately the official response was high handed and only caused to provoke the rebels to stiffen their resolve. When the lists were rejected by the Crown the city of Norwich decided to have no more to do with the Great Camp, and shut its gates, and manned its walls. So on July 21st, the rebels attacked Norwich and succeeded in storming it next day. They returned to camp with prisoners, arms and looted supplies.
On 31st July the Royal Army finally arrived although only 1,500 strong, and were allowed to retake the city of Norwich, where they were harried by various skirmishes. Following the death of Lord Sheffield in one battle, the army withdrew to Cambridge. On August 17th a rebel force took Lowestoft in their second or third abortive attempt to capture Great Yarmouth, the second largest town in Norfolk. By now, a much larger Royal Army, of over 10,000 men, was mustered in London under the Earl of Warwick, John Dudley, and by 24th August they were at Norwich.
Although the actual site of the rebel camp at Bury St Edmunds is no longer known, it is believed to have been the major rebel centre for West Suffolk. It was probably abandoned either as the Earl of Warwick's army approached from London, or because the Suffolk gentry managed to placate them without the antagonisms which provoked the camp at Norwich.
When Warwick broke into Norwich, there followed a great deal of street fighting back and forth until the rebels retreated to bombard the city for 2 days from Mousehold Heath. Some 1,500 Royalist cavalry reinforcements arrived. The rebels now moved to the plain at Dussindale for a final battle about 2 miles east of the city centre on 27th August. Robert Kett probably had 10-15,000 men and around 20 cannon. Warwick had 6,000 trained men, mostly cavalry men, largely foreign mercenaries, with another 6,000 left holding Norwich. He had fewer cannon but more experienced gunners, and he had 200 hand gunners. Once the rebel field guns were destroyed by the royal artillery, the cavalry spearheaded the victory. About 3,000 men died, mostly rebels. Robert Kett was captured next day as was his brother William.
In the next few months, Lord Protector Somerset was overthrown and replaced as head of the Great Council by the Earl of Warwick, the victor of Norwich.
On November 26th the Kett brothers were sentenced to death and on 7th December, William Kett was hanged at Wymondham and Robert Kett was hanged on the walls of Norwich Castle.
The memory of "camping time" and the savage reaction to it by the authorities left widespread resentment in East Anglia for years to come. The area would continue to raise radicals and dissenters for years to come. | | 1550 | Since the Dissolution in 1539, the monastic grammar school at Bury had been closed and dispossessed. The townspeople had to petition the crown to get a replacement school lawfully established. Finally, in 1550, King Edward VI founded a new grammar school at Bury. From 1550 to 1665 this school was probably situated on the site of Ancient House in Eastgate Street.
King Edward VI was a strong Protestant, and was also responsible for the destruction of many books surviving from monastic days on the grounds that they contained superstitious images and ideas from the Papist era.
The site of Bury's Abbey was leased by the crown to Sir Anthony Wingfield, a Suffolk man. He had been Sheriff of Suffolk and Norfolk in 1515-16, and a member of Parliament for Suffolk in 1529-35.
The climate has not always been just as we experience it today. We all know about the Ice Age which was thousands of years in the past, but from about 1550 to around 1850 there was a cooler period, sometimes called the Little Ice Age. Prior to this time there had been a warmer period, called the Medieval Warm Period, from about 800 to about 1300.
After the mid 1500's there were colder winters than we are used to today, with great hardship for man and beast. | | 1551 | In 1551, the people of Haverhill petitioned the King that the old St Marys church (previously referred to as St Botolphs) at Burton End be abandoned, and it was pulled down. Nothing of the original Burton End settlement now remains, though an excavation carried out in 1997 by the Hertford Archaeological Trust, uncovered many ancient skeletons and funeral relics.
May 12th 1551 "...Whereas the inhabitants of Haverhille, Suffolk, have informed the King that of the two churches in that town that the one called the Overchurche is too small to hold all the parishioners and is difficult to access; whereas the other church called Netherchurch (St Marys) is large enough for all and conveniently situated, that the inhabitants are not able to repair and maintain two churches and the Netherchurche shall then be the parish church of the whole town, and its rector shall have the tithes and profits previously enjoyed by the Rector of the Overchurche."
There is a plaque in the St James's Church at Bury recording that King Edward VI contributed £200 for the completion of the work on the nave, which had been going on since 1503.
In London, the Earl of Warwick, John Dudley, made himself Duke of Northumberland. | | 1552 | A second new Prayer Book was introduced. Church vestments were banned and alters were replaced by tables. | | 1553 | By 1553 the 15 year old King Edward VI was dying of TB. He was an enthusiastic Protestant and, on his deathbed, disinherited his Catholic sister Mary to avoid his reforms being reversed. The English church was totally reformed by now, both in the destruction of statues and decorations, and in the forms of worship. The legality of this act was questionable, and many people thought it the result of a plot. King Edward VI died on July 8th.
This was a time of intense rumour and speculation. Lady Jane Grey was the daughter of a cousin of the king, only 15 years old, and was born in the same month and year as Edward VI. She was the daughter of Henry Grey, the Duke of Suffolk. His wife was Frances Brandon, a cousin of King Edward VI. It was said that John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, was behind the plan to replace Mary by Lady Jane. His son Guilford had been married to Lady Jane only two months previously, and now he ordered the Tower of London to be fortified, and was expected to seize Lady Mary. It was also rumoured that the king had died on July 6th, but the news was suppressed by Northumberland for two days, while he put his plans into effect.
Mary, a mature woman of 37, was at home in Hunsdon in Hertfordshire when news of the king's decision arrived, but rather than obey the summons to what she believed was imprisonment, she fled to Cambridgeshire. On 9th July she wrote to the Council in London asking for their allegiance as the true Queen. From there she went to the home of the Duke of Norfolk at Kenninghall in Norfolk. Norfolk had been imprisoned by both Henry VIII and Edward VI, because of his Catholic beliefs. His properties at Kenninghall and Framlingham had been passed to Mary.
On 11th July the Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, Sir Thomas Cornwallis, with other local nobles, joined Ipswich Town Council in declaring Lady Jane Grey, the Queen of England. The people of the town were much less enthusiastic, and there were some disturbances. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was not popular in East Anglia, having been involved in the bloody suppression of Kett's protest camp in 1549, when he was the Earl of Warwick.
On 12th July, Mary moved from Kenninghall to the great castle at Framlingham. The Sheriff, Cornwallis, now relented his position and joined Mary's side.
By 14th July Norwich declared for Mary, and a throng of local nobility joined her at Framlingham. Mary Tudor was the rightful Queen in the eyes of much of the country, and poor manipulated Queen Jane was to reign for only nine days. Sir Henry Bedingfield had marched from Norfolk to Framlingham. Most of the East Suffolk nobles now supported Mary. They even turned the naval ships laying in Orwell Haven to cut off Mary's escape, into her supporters. Some 10,000 men were now in Framlingham to support her cause, camped in and around a small town of usually only 600 people.
At this time the Duke of Northumberland's army had left London and was marching to confront Lady Mary, via Cambridge. |
| |
|
Mary was proclaimed Queen on July 19th 1553 by the Privy Council in London. With Northumberland's army out of London they could see that she had widespread support, and admitted they had been in error. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the city proclaimed Mary the true Queen along with the Duke of Arundel, by public proclamation. They now put out a reward for the capture of Northumberland. Northumberland's army was now refusing to proceed past St Edmundsbury because of the size of the army waiting for them at Framlingham. Many were deserting Queen Jane's cause.
The Duke of Suffolk was now vigorously turning against Jane, despite the fact that she was his daughter, and even tore down her banner with his own hands, said she was no longer queen, and ordered his men to disarm.
The population of London went wild with joy at this news.
On 20th July many of the Council, including Arundel, had ridden to Framlingham to pledge allegiance to Mary, and to beg for forgiveness for ever supporting Jane. Sir William Waldegrave was there from Bury in her support, and even protestants like Edward Withipoll of Ipswich were now in Framlingham to pay court. By now, Northumberland's army had reached Bury, and the Framlingham army was mustered to attack them. In the event Northumberland retreated, and a smaller band went in pursuit of him and any supporters they could find.
On 24th July Queen Mary left Framlingham to proceed with a large company to London. They took the road to Saxmundham, turned towards Parham, and headed to Ipswich. The Queen stayed overnight at Humphrey Wingfield's house in Tacket Street. After a day's rest, they rode to Colchester. Over the next few days they travelled to Boreham, Ingatestone Hall, and on to Havering, where Lady Elizabeth, Mary's sister, came to pledge loyalty. Elizabeth was only 17, and must have felt in some danger as she was just as Protestant as Edward VI had been.
Mary entered London as Queen on August 3rd, 1553. On 10th August she released some of the prisoners held in the Tower who held Catholic beliefs, notably Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, and Stephen Gardiner, the former Bishop. Thomas Howard was made Lord Marshal, and by the end of August, he had presided over the trial and execution of John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland.
Queen Mary would reign for only five years until 17th November 1558. She came to the throne on a wave of popular support, but would leave it almost universally despised. She now set about a Catholic revival, while promising freedom of worship. Within days the churches in the City of London had alters and crucifixes installed. Nicholas Ridley was thrown into the Tower, and Stephen Gardiner replaced John Ponet as Bishop of Winchester. Stephen Gardiner also became her Lord Chancellor. He was a devout Catholic, and was the son of a Bury Clothmaker. Like Nicholas Bacon, also of Bury origins, he probably helped the town by minimising the impact of the dissolution of the guilds, and helped the feoffees.
Many prominent protestants now left the country, all within a matter of three weeks. In a few more weeks many prominent men throughout the land were replaced in public offices by Catholics. Queen Mary replaced all of the religious provisions of both Henry VII and Edward VI's reign. Churches were ordered to re-equip for Catholic worship and the old services reinstated.
Queen Mary's sister, Elizabeth was noticeably protestant and tried to avoid attending Mass and Mary became intensely suspicious of her.
By November, Mary wanted to marry Philip of Spain amidst general public protest. Parliament had recommended an English Lord, the Duke of Devon, but the queen favoured the suggestion of the Emperor Charles V, that she should marry his son Philip, the heir to the throne of Spain.
| | 1554 | In January, Sir Thomas Wyatt raised an army of 4,000 men in Kent in an attempt to stop the Spanish marriage, and in protest against the removal of the reformed faith. They reached London where they met the Duke of Norfolk defending the city. Many of Norfolk's own troops went over to Wyatt's side. Queen Mary herself turned out to rally Londoners to her cause, and confronted the rebels at Charing Cross, where Wyatt and many of his supporters were arrested. Within a few weeks Wyatt's protest had failed.
Mary was now convinced that a crack down was needed, and hundreds of Wyatt's followers were hanged. In February Lady Jane Grey was executed along with her husband, Guilford Dudley, and the Duke of Suffolk, Henry Grey, her father. The Queen's sister, Lady Elizabeth was sent to the tower under suspicion of supporting this revolt. She was there eight weeks in fear of execution. Sir Henry Bedingfield then took her to Woodstock Park under lock and key for a year.
By April, Thomas Cranmer, (previously Archbishop of Canterbury), Nicholas Ridley, (lately Bishop of London), and Edward Latimer were under arrest, along with other lesser clergy, like the Dean of Hadleigh, who resisted the introduction of the Mass.
In August Queen Mary married Philip, "the Prudent", of Spain in Winchester Cathedral. He would become King of Spain in two years time. | | 1555 | By 1555 the second Parliament under Mary passed laws which restored the Roman Catholic Church officially in England. All the laws which had been passed to remove the authority of the Pope were now repealed. But of more significance was the decision to restore the medieval penalties for heretics who who continued to oppose these changes.
Queen Mary's Lord Chancellor was Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester and a Bury man who helped the town retain or re-acquire monastic lands seized directly by the crown. Gardiner had overseen the laws which reintroduced burning at the stake for protestants.
This change was to result in Queen Mary being remembered as Bloody Mary for her persecution of Protestants. The burning of heretic Protestants now got underway. A church court could pass this sentence, and the victim was then handed to civil authorities to carry out the sentence. |
| |
|
In February Dr Rowland Taylor, the Dean of Hadleigh, was burned to death on Aldham Common. He was the first of the Marian Martys, (as they are known), to die in Suffolk. Nationally, over 300 people would die in this manner before Queen Mary herself died. Twelve were martyred in Bury, and their memorial stands in the Great Churchyard. About 30 Suffolk people were martyred in total.
The martyrs were not just church officials, or prominent citizens. For example, James Abbes, a shoemaker from Stoke by Nayland, was burned at Bury in August, 1555. In September 1555, Thomas Cobb, a butcher from Haverhill, suffered martyrdom at the stake at Thetford for his Protestant faith.
By December Stephen Gardiner, the Chancellor and Bishop, was dead. Few of the common people would mourn him.
An Act of Parliament was passed to give parishes the responsibility to maintain the roads in their areas. The Highway Act of 1555 placed responsibility upon the parish highway surveyor, who was unpaid, but probably did his best with scarce resources. | | 1556 | In February 1556, Latimer and Ridley were burned at the stake in Oxford. Thomas Cranmer followed them shortly afterwards.
Women could also suffer this fate. For example at Ipswich, in February 1556, Joan Trunchfield, a shoemaker's wife, and Anne Potton, a beer maker's wife, were both burned to death on the Cornhill.
Philip of Spain now became King Philip of Spain when Charles V abdicated. | | 1557 | In June, war was declared on France. Philip, now King of Spain, had finally drawn his wife, Mary, and England, into his father's war with France. One outcome of this was that in December, the English ruled town of Calais was overrun by the French army. This was England's only safe base in France, and was a bitter strategic and emotional blow. Calais was a symbol of the triumphs of the Black Prince and Henry V.
Despite war and hardship from poor harvests, the burnings continued. At St EdmundsBury, three people were burned in June, 1557. They were Roger Barnard, a labourer from Framsden, Adam Foster, a tailor from Mendlesham, and Robert Lawson, a linen weaver from Bedfield.
In November, Thomas Spurdance, described as a royal servant, from Crowfield, was also burned at Bury.
In Bury, William Tassell conveyed the Angel and the Castle Inns on the site of today's Angel Hotel to the Guildhall Feoffees to provide on income for various charitable purposes in the town. Specifically his deed stated that the income was to be used for the maintenance of the two parish churches, St James's and St Mary's, for setting forth soldiers, and for the relief of the people of the town. The Feoffees kept it until 1582, then re-acquired it in 1606. It was finally sold off in 1917 to raise funds. | | 1558 | In August 1558 there were more burnings at Bury St Edmunds. All four of the victims were from Stoke by Nayland, Robert Miles, a shearman, Alexander Lane, a wheelwright, John Cooke, the sawyer, and James Ashley.
Three more Protestants were killed at Bury in November, only days before Bloody Mary herself was to die in her bed. They were Philip Umfreye, a tailor from Onehouse, and from Stradishall, John Davye, a shearman, and Henry Davye, a carpenter.
Within a month or two of her marriage to Philip of Spain, there had been announcements that the Queen was pregnant. No child was born, and there were further such announcements over the short years of her reign. By 1558 it was instead believed that the Queen was suffering from a fatal dropsy, which today may have been diagnosed as ovarian cancer. Parliament had always refused to name Philip as a successor King of England, and so in November, as Mary lay dying, she named Elizabeth as her successor. Philip, now King of Flanders, as well as Spain, tried to maintain his hold on England.
Mary had come to the throne on a wave of popular support, but she died hated, on 17th November. Vast cheering crowds greeted Elizabeth to London. Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne and reigned for forty-four years.
Queen Elizabeth immediately began to once again dismantle the trappings of catholicism in the churches and reintroduce Protestant forms of service. | | 1559 | Queen Elizabeth I was crowned in the grandest style. She had two hurdles to overcome, both assumptions in peoples minds. These were that no woman could be as good a ruler as a man, and that no ruler could be as great as Henry VIII. Following the reign of Bloody Mary, John Knox had even written pamphlets to say that a woman could never be a fit ruler.
Tobacco was introduced from the new world. | | 1560 | On 14th February, 1560, Queen Elizabeth in consideration of £412 19s 4d. paid by John Eyer, Esq., granted him (inter al) "All that the site, circuit and precinct of the late dissolved Monastery of Bury, otherwise called "Bury St Edmunds" amongst the specified lands and buildings being the Dorter Court, the Garners, the Abbot's Stables, the Gate House the Great Court, the Pallaies Garden, the Lecture Yard, Bradfield Hall, the Pond Yard and the Vine." The ashlars were sold by the cartload for building material, but most of it had probably already gone.
John Eyer lived for many years in the Abbey precincts in a grand mansion. | | 1561 | By 1561 Queen Elizabeth had again fully changed the appearance of English churches and services back to protestantism. Many noble families were caught up in the changes of the last twenty years, coming in and out of favour as the state religion changed. A number of important Suffolk families kept the Roman Catholic faith, the most notable being the Howards who were Dukes of Norfolk. Others were the Bedingfields, the Sulyards of Haughley Park and the Rokewoods of Euston and Stanningfield. Sir Thomas Cornwallis had been controller of the household to Queen Mary, but now retired to Brome in Suffolk.
At Hengrave Hall, Margaret Kytson died, to be succeeded by her son, Thomas Kytson, the younger. Thomas was a friend of the Duke of Norfolk, and at this time also came under suspicion for this association.
On the other hand there were even more families of a Puritan persuasion, a faith that continued to grow. |
| |
|
| 1562 | Lord Keeper of the Queen's Privy Seal Bacon wrote to the Feoffees to say that he would refuse to help them get a charter as there had been too many incorporations granted already! Nicholas Bacon was a barrister who was born in Bury and became Solicitor to the Court of Augmentations, acquiring much monastic land, including the manor of Redgrave, in the process. | | 1563 | Tolls of Bury's markets and fairs were leased by the crown for 21 years to Thomas Andrews. | | 1569 | In July another popular rebellion broke out at Lavenham. A weaver called John Porter was a local ringleader and his grievance was against the newly rich merchants. Suffolk dyed cloth was no longer wanted on the continent and although some big clothiers were still rich, there was no longer the guaranteed work for the small weavers and spinners of fifty years before.
The Feoffees had to find money to buy back from the Crown some further property recently confiscated on the grounds that it had been unlawfully concealed from the confiscations of 1545. These included the Guildhall in Guildhall Street and the Guildhall of the Guild of St Thomas à Becket in Eastgate Street. This latter building, possibly today called Ancient House, was let rent free to the Governors of the Grammar School. | | 1570 | By 1570 the Guildhall Feoffees were repairing town gates and bridges and carrying out many duties which would otherwise have fallen to the Town Corporation if one had existed. They even provided a town pillory. They seem to have been known as the Alderman, Dye and brethren of Candlemas Guild into the 1570's, despite the Guild's dissolution in 1545.
In 1570 the William Barnaby alms houses were on the site of Jankyn Smyth's College of Jesus founded as a residence for the parish priests of St Mary's and St James'. In 1570 they were owned by William Barnaby who conveyed them to the Feoffees. Barnaby himself lived in the manor house at Great Saxham. After the reformation men of good will who would previously have left money to the church or for "superstitious" purposes, now left it to help the poor.
The Feoffees even felt it necessary to finance a Town Preacher in Bury, and Puritan ideas led to a rise in religious discussion groups, and the clergy were as likely to be criticised as anyone else, for not being Godly enough. These ideas would gain more and more ground to the middle of the next century. | | 1572 | The Feoffees set up an almshouse at St Peter's Hospital, which later became a House of Correction to handle penniless troublemakers. This was the hospital which was founded by Abbot Anselm for infirm priests, and stood in Out Risbygate opposite the site of today's West Suffolk College. Later it moved to Bridewell Lane. | | 1573 | Despite his lack of help with incorporation in 1562, Sir Nicholas Bacon, who had been one of the Feoffees for years, was elected Alderman. Bacon was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, a Bury man who was also an important national figure. | | 1575 | There are records which begin in 1575, of the Feoffees paying surgeons to care for the poor. | | 1578 | Queen Elizabeth I was in the habit of undertaking Royal Progresses through the kingdom. This kept her in touch with people and ideas, and allowed her to favour the compliant and snub the disaffected or fanatical adherents to religious extremes as she saw it. It also allowed her to save money by living richly at other people's expense.
In 1578, she made a progress from London to Norwich and back. Her route brought her through Haverhill, and north to the Bury St Edmunds area. In preparation for her visit, the Feoffees refurbished the town gates and made other improvements around the town. She is also reputed to have spent some time in the former Abbot's Palace in the abbey grounds, owned at this time by Sir Thomas Badby. |
| |
|
At Bury she knighted Thomas Kytson the younger, he having by now persuaded her that he supported her rule and her religious policies, having been previously under suspicion for Catholic extremism.
On her progress back from Norwich, the Queen stayed at Hengrave Hall for four or five days from August 27th, as Kytson was now of a suitable rank to receive her. The stay was a notable one, outdoing many others by its lavish hospitality and entertainments. The Queen travelled with over 1,000 staff and had 400 waggons pulled by 2,400 horses. The cost of accomodating and feeding such a host must have been prodigious.
This was the end of royal patronage of Bury for over 300 years, until Edward VII's visit in 1904. | | 1579 | Thomas Badby, who now owned the site of the old abbey, gave the Feoffees of Jankyn Smyth's bequest the building at the bottom of Honey Hill which had been the monastic grammar school. It was to be used as a Shire House for the assizes and county Quarter Sessions to be held in the town. The Shire Hall still stands partly on this site. By about 1584 we know that the Assizes were held in the town at the new Shire House, having now moved into town from their previous site at Shirehouse Heath. | | 1580 | The Feoffees set up a House of Correction for sturdy beggars and incorrigible rogues in Master Andrewes Street in Bury, off Churchgate Street. Taking its name from the Bridewell, or House of Correction, the street soon became known as Bridewell Lane, a name still in use. | | 1582 | On 24th February Pope Gregory XIII announced that the Catholic world was to adopt a new calendar, named the Gregorian calendar. The Julian calendar, named after Julius Caesar and in use since 46BC, had been gaining one whole day every 128 years. As a result there was a difference of ten days between solar time and official time. This difference was made up later in the year by making 5th October 15th October. In addition, Pope Gregory fixed the various months with unequal numbers of days and used leap years to keep the system in step with solar time. The new year was to start on 1st January. This edict did not cover this country and the system was not adopted here until 1752. In England the new year continued to begin on Lady Day, 25th March.
There was no hope of adopting any calendar of the Pope's while Puritans like the rector of Cockfield had any say. In 1582 John Knewstubb called a secret conference of 60 East Anglian clergy to discuss what parts of the prayer book they would accept or reject.
By now, the Guildhall Feoffees appointed a town surgeon every year to provide medical care to the poor in Bury. In 1582 the town surgeon was assisted by "a woman surgeon of Colchester." | | 1583 | The Guildhall Feoffees raised money to build "a very fayer large house for cornesellers ... wherein they may stand to their great ease very commodiously in the heat of summer and also in time of rainy and cold wet winter." The exact site is not known. It is believed to have burned down in the great fire of 1608.
More and more Puritans were questioning the legitimacy of the established church. The most extremely outspoken were often jailed. By 1583, the Reverend John Copping had been on remand for seven years. Later he was jouned by Elias Thacker, but their preaching so undermined good order in the jail that something had to be done. They tried to get a writ of Habeas corpus, but at the trial the prosecution associated them with some seditious graffiti recently found in St Mary's. He obtained the death penalty, which was carried out at Tay Fen. In Whiting Street there is a memorial to John Coppin and Elias Thacker, hanged in 1583 for distributing puritan literature, and supporting independency. | | 1584 | Over 50 Suffolk ministers were suspended for refusing to conform to the official Protestant Church of England teachings including a refusal to wear the surplice. Puritanism continued to spread, despite official persecution.
In Bury, since the Dissolution of the abbey, the town had fallen under an increasingly oligarchic administration by the capital burgesses. The inhabitants complained to the crown and a commission was appointed to look into how the feoffees were administering the town lands. Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Robert Jermyn and four others, were chosen for the task. They found that the feoffees had ignored the terms of the bequests they administered. They had accounted to themselves and not to all the burgesses, and they alone had been appointing their successors, which was a job for all the burgesses. They were found guilty of maladministration and peculation. | | 1585 | Radulphas Agas was a mapmaker and surveyor from Sudbury. In 1585 he was commissioned to make a report on the once famous town of Dunwich. Agas found that by this time about half the medieval town had disappeared beneath the encroaching seas. This had started with a great storm in 1286, which eroded the cliffs and deposited tons of silt in the harbour channels. By 1328 the port was useless due to silting up, and by 1342, about 400 houses had been destroyed by wave erosion. | | 1587 | Mary, Queen of Scots was executed for treason.
Thomas Bright died in Bury and left money to help clothe a large number of Bury's poor. | | 1588 | The Spanish Armada was defeated by Sir Francis Drake.
Despite Sir Thomas Kytson's promises to Queen Elizabeth to observe the new religion, both Thomas and his wife Elizabeth were included in a list of recusants compiled in 1588. They lived at Hengrave Hall. | | 1589 | Plague revisited Bury in 1589, and as usual, attempts were made to isolate the victims. Tents were set up, and families sent off to live in them. Plague was a summer time sickness, and perhaps tent life was better than being boarded up in your own home, as often happened in the next century.
Thomas Badby had acquired the building which housed the old abbey school, roughly where the Shire Hall stands today. In 1589 he left the building to the town to use as a courthouse. From this origins the site has remained a public building and centre of justice ever since. Also see 1579. | | 1590 | From 1586 to 1591, Sir Nicholas Bacon built himself Culford Hall on its present site. This probably replaced an earlier hall nearby.
By the 1590's Suffolk Puritanism was so strong that about a third of the clergy had been reported for refusing to wear the surplice. The surplice itself had been a Church of England simplification of the original Catholic vestments. Puritan clergy were installed by Puritan patrons of their livings like Sir Robert Jermyn of Rushbrooke and Sir John Higham of Barrow. These two men alone controlled 15 benefices. | | 1592 | John Wilbye came to Hengrave Hall as Chief of the Minstrels. He would stay there for 36 years, and during this time would write two books or sets of Madrigals. He became famous for these works, dedicated to the Kytson family of Hengrave. | | 1594 | The Feoffees appointed 31 Overseers to to distribute out - relief to the poor in their own homes, as distinct from the indoor relief given in almshouses. This was abad year for the poorer classes as prices were unusually high. The Feoffee's had to spend £80 to buy wool for the poor to card and spin, and thus meet some of the costs of their own relief. They also paid £60 for coal which was distributed to the elegible poor. | | 1595 | The markets and fairs, tolls and other rights at St Edmundsbury were leased by the crown to Sir Nicholas Bacon. | | 1596 | Bartholomew Gosnold came from a well to do family who had lived at Otley Hall, eight miles north of Ipswich, for over a hundred years. It is said that he was brought up hearing stories of red indians brought back by the likes of Martin Frobisher and Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1596 he sailed to the Azores with the Earl of Essex and in 1598 they made a fortune when they captured a Spanish ship. | | 1599 | Alderman William Smart of Ipswich died, and left his collection of monastic documents to Pembroke College, Cambridge. This collection included 110 manuscripts from the abbey at Bury. Around 260 Bury Manuscripts are thought to still exist today, the bulk of them at Pembroke College. |
| |
|
| 1600 | At about 1600 to 1601 a group of notable townspeople led by Thomas Bright of the Guildhall Feoffees, met and agreed to share the costs of petitioning the crown for a grant of incorporation. They agreed to contribute £68:5:0 each. In August 1601 Sir Robert Jermyn wrote a letter to Sir Robert Cecil to object to any incorporation for Bury St Edmunds.
Sir Nicholas Bacon assigned his market lease at Bury to Sir Robert Drury of Hawstead. | | 1602 | Bartholomew Gosnold of Otley Hall in Suffolk, put together an expedition to found a colony at Cuttyhunk. He named the area the Elizabeth Isles after the Queen and also named Martha's Vineyard after his daughter. He also discovered and named Cape Cod. The colony failed after 12 weeks due to lack of food and they returned home. | | 1603 | Good Queen Bess died and King James VI of Scotland became James I of England, the first Stuart to rule England. James I would reign until 1625.
Thomas Bright would make seven journeys to London and one to Royston, where James I frequently stayed, over the years from 1600 to 1603 in pursuit of the granting of a Charter for Bury. | | 1604 | A new lease of the market rights was made for 40 years to Sir Robert Drury by the Crown. James I ended the war with Spain which had been ruinous to the manufacturing trade, although agriculture had grown by leaps and bounds to become highly profitable. | | 1605 | A failed attempt to blow up Parliament became known as the Gunpowder Plot. Bury St Edmunds and its surrounding countryside still held many Catholic families, many of them officially recorded as recusants, that is they refused to attend Protestant services. It was not unusual to install priest holes into their grand houses in which a travelling priest could hide in the event of a visit from the authorities. Nicholas Owen of Oxborough Hall in Norfolk was the architect of many such installations. At Coldham Hall in Stanningfield, Ambrose Rokewood had such a priest hole in his house. He was a rich young Catholic with a reputation for his stable of fine horses. Somehow, very late in the Gunpowder Plot, he was persuaded to supply the plotters with swift horses for their escape. The plot was discovered on November 5th 1605, and by the following January the plotters, including Rokewood were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason.
Ipswich had been appointing Puritan town preachers since the time of Queen Elizabeth. The most notable of these was to be Samuel Ward, the son of John Ward, the Puritan preacher from Haverhill. At the age of 28, Samuel was appointed Town Preacher for Ipswich on 1st November, 1605. His uncompromising views on how the Reformation should be carried forward were fully supported by Ipswich town and corporation, and he remained in this post until his death in 1640. | | 1606 | In April 1606 the King granted Letters Patent to the town of Bury St Edmunds, setting up a corporation of 37 members.
The charter acknowledged that Bury was already a borough "by prescription", as follows:
"Whereas our town of Bury St Edmund's, in our county of Suffolk, is a burgh, or ancient and populous town,: and whereas also the inhabitants of the same burgh or town, in times past, have had, used and enjoyed, divers liberties, privileges, customs, franchises, freedoms and prerogatives, as well by reason of divers Charters and Letters Patent, as by reason of divers prescriptions and customs,in ancient times, used within the same town or burgh: and......"
Whether these were just a catch-all form of words to cover all possibilities is not all that clear to us today. However in the book, "The English and Welsh Boroughs", the author ranks Bury with other Boroughs by Prescription. Nevertheless, this charter put the matter beyond doubt, and created the corporate body of "Alderman and Burgesses of Bury St Edmunds, in the county of Suffolk."
There were to be 12 Capital Burgesses, 24 Burgesses of the Common Council and 1 Alderman, roughly equivalent to the Mayor of today. This document is known locally as the Charter or First Charter. In November the Borough Council received a grant of arms, but no motto. The town was free to choose its own motto as it wished. The current motto was not apparently in use prior to 1850. The Corporation could elect four Justices of the Peace, called Assistants, pass bye-laws and appoint a Town Clerk and a Recorder. The towns' first Alderman was Richard Walker, and he was entitled to be preceded in processions by two Sergeants-at-Mace carrying Maces of gold or silver adorned with the royal coat of arms. Over half the members of the new Corporation were existing Guildhall Feoffees. Lobel reported that at least 20 of the 29 appointees were the same men who had fattened on the embezzled profits of the town lands, and who were now endowed with a new legitimacy.
Monastic rights which had passed to the crown were now passed to the new corporation. They were allowed their own Justices of the Peace and gaol delivery, and exemption from interference of any royal justice. The alderman and capital burgesses controlled the assize of wine, bread and ale, and the sale of all food and drink. They were to act as clerk of the market, and fairs. A fair was to be held yearly in Easter Week, with a court of Piepowder.
The new corporation moved the town courts from the market Toll House into the Guildhall. The five essentials of being incorporated were:- perpetual succession, the power of suing and being sued in the name of the corporation, power to hold land, possession of a common seal, and authority to make bye-laws.
The borough did not get the power to hold its own Quarter Sessions until the Charter of 1614.
In December, 1606 Bartholomew Gosnold once again sailed with an expedition which he had planned for three years at Otley Hall, Suffolk and for which he had recruited the settlers, and raised the finance. Gosnold recruited 105 settlers and 55 crew. Forty of the settlers were from East Suffolk villages around Otley. However, from the beginning there were problems when the royal patent required Christopher Newport to be made Admiral to lead in the biggest of the three ships. Gosnold was only made vice-admiral sailing the Godspeed. There was a mutiny on the voyage as the sailors wanted Gosnold to lead, and three men were sentenced to death, then held in irons from February 1607 to July. One of the prisoners was called Captain John Smith from Lincolnshire. | | 1607 | Bartholomew Gosnold's three ships arrived in America, finally sailing 50 miles up the James River in Virginia to set up James Fort. Today's Jamestown would be set up a few years later further down the river.
Some say that upon a vote, taken while Gosnold's supporters in chains could not participate, Gosnold's cousin Edward - Maria Wingfield was elected governor. Others say that there were sealed orders from the crown nominating the governor and council.
The triangular fort was attacked by Indians, but severe illnesses also broke out, so that on August 22nd, Batholomew Gosnold died, and his role was largely forgotten.
The colony still suffered from internal strife and Wingfield was deposed and replaced by John Smith, who has for many years been regarded, perhaps wrongly, as the founder of Jamestown.
The Borough made its first byelaws in 1607, as allowed under the charter of 1606. These included byelaws "For the better ordering of the market" and "For usage of the Faires and Markets by strangers". Hogs and swine were forbidden to roam free in the streets, householders had to clean the gutters and street outside their houses, keep the road outside free of obstructions and hang out a lantern every night to light the street from November to February.
Margaret Statham has pointed out that 27 of the new bye-laws related to the activities of Bakers in the town. They could have a company, society or fellowship, provided it was approved by the corporation. This may have been passed to legitimise the existence of the old Guild of Bakers, first set up by 1180, but we do not know if it had survived the dissolution or not. Now its members had to be Freemen of the Borough, and as before, had to keep to the rules, or Assize, of bread making.
Bye laws also covered the activities of Linen Weavers, and like the bakers, any fines levied were divided into three parts. One third went to the Corporation, one-third went to the company of weavers or bakers as appropriate, and one-third went to the poor of the town.
Another bye law said that plays could not be performed in inn yards without a license by the travelling players of the time. Inn yards often had purpose built galleries to allow spectators to enjoy such entertainments. | | 1608 | There was a serious fire in Bury in 1608, and the old market hall was burnt down. The fire started on 11th April in Eastgate Street in the malt house of a Bury Maltster called James Randall. A malthouse might use fire to help dry the grain and then to promote germination. A negligent servant was blamed for letting things get out of hand, and the resulting blaze burned for 3 days spreading up Northgate Street, into Looms Lane, into the Market Place, possibly ending at Woolhall Street on one side and the Suffolk Hotel on the other. The Market Cross, built in 1583, and Toll House also burned down. This event proved the vulnerability of the old timber and thatch houses which still predominated in most towns in the land. Some 160 dwellings and 400 outhouses were destroyed, worth about £60,000.
The new corporation quickly added a new byelaw to the 132 passed in 1607. Thatch was prohibited as a roofing material in the town as it was blamed for allowing the wind to spread fire and "disperse itself into so many places".
The King now granted the Town a second Charter which dealt with matters to help recovery from the fire, but included what they had always wanted, : the Market rights and tolls. This Charter cost over £300 and the Feoffees agreed to finance this cost.
Following the fire, James I's second grant of privileges to the Borough contained what was technically only the reversion of the 1604 lease to Sir Robert Drury for the tithes, fairs, markets and other rights. This is often referred to as the Market Charter, but because of the existing lease all the tolls and rights still went to Sir Robert! The alderman and burgesses also received the farm called Almoners Barns, the gaol and fire damaged toll house, both located on the Cornhill at the foot of today's Woolhall Street, the market cross and bell, the right to appoint the gaol keeper, and the right to collect landmol rents. This charter also gave the town a considerable amount of timber to help with the rebuilding. This charter is described elsewhere on this website. |
| |
|
The market cross on its present site was built soon afterwards with an open ground floor and was used as the corn exchange. It was needed to replace the Market House built in 1583, and destroyed in the fire. It is shown in this view as it appeared by abot 1699. Although referred to as a cross, it was a substantial building, with steps to the upper floor.
| | 1609 | The Town Clerk of Bury, John Mallowes, and his brother Edward were assigned the unexpired part of Sir Robert Drury's interest in the property leased to him. They also agreed to move the fish market to some other convenient place.
The Reverend Richard Cradock was made Rector of Barrow. In 1633 he would have a granddaughter called Mary who, as Mary Beale, would become the first professional woman portrait painter. | | 1610 | The Alderman and other members of the corporation acquired the assignment of Sir Robert Drury's lease as trustees for the Corporation. The price they paid was £2,000.
By this time the Toll House had been re-built following the fire and was converted into the Market House or Market Hall. Later it was called the Wool Hall and wool was sold here in great quantities up to the 19th century. Woolhall Street takes its name from the old Wool Hall.
The cloth trade was under pressure from competition from the new continental lightweight fabrics. At Bury the corporation allowed the clothiers to incorporate themselves into a society to try to regulate the trade and improve their lot. Events quickly overtook them, as the Broadcloth the Bury weavers had produced with great success since medieval times was fast going out of fashion.
The Feoffees opened a Poor House in Whiting Street. | | 1611 | The King James, or Authorised, Version of the Bible was published, and is still printed today.
Ipswich corporation put up, or 'adventured', £100 towards the cost of ships to sail to Jamestown, in Virginia to help the colonists get established. | | 1612 | The colony had hung on at James Fort in Virginia through severe illness and deprivation for several years, but eventually the fort was abandoned and the survivors moved down river. As luck would have it they met a supply ship and re-established Jamestown down the river. John Smith became famous as the man saved from death by Pocahontas and the first viable English speaking American colony was therefore established here by Suffolk men 13 years before the Pilgrim fathers arrived in the Mayflower. |
| |
|
| 1614 | The Town received a final Charter from James I which gave it the right to send 2 MPs to Parliament, and to hold a court of quarter sessions. The Court of Record was now extended from £50 a case to £200, and a Court Leet set up for dealing with items of good order such as weights and measures. There was also a new right to have a Coroner. Every retiring Alderman would be the Coroner for one year.
The borough could already hold a Court of Pie Powder since 1606, from the French for "dusty feet", which regulated the business affairs of the market traders. The town could now have four ceremonial maces instead of two. For these rights the town paid a fee farm rent of £57-13s-4d. At last Bury had become a fully functioning self-governing borough with the powers it needed to run its own affairs. In gratitude to James I, they had his portrait painted and hung it in the Guildhall. The three charters are depicted laying on a table with the inscription, "Creavit, ditavit, amplificavit."
The two MP's were to be elected solely by the 37 members of the corporation, but for many years those chosen would be effectively the nominees of the Duke of Grafton and the Marquess of Bristol. In monastic days it was the abbot who represented the area in Parliament. In 1614 the first two MP's were Sir Thomas Jermyn and Robert Crane.
Any earlier benefactions given to the Alderman and Burgesses in monastic times were confirmed to the new Corporation. Therefore, the churches of St James and St Mary now also came under the corporation's wing. They claimed the same episcopal exemptions won by abbot Baldwin, so that the corporation could appoint the local clergy themselves. This right lasted up until 1842, when the corporation sold these rights. Previously, from 1539 until 1614, the right to appoint the clergy had been exercised by the Feoffees of the Town Lands. They had set up a library at St James Church, and this also passed to the Corporation in 1614.
The new court leet appointed constables for the two parishes of St James and St Mary's. These would be the only police force until 1836. This court also brought to task those who failed to carry out duties such as cleaning blocked water courses. Most substantial men of the parish were known as dezoners or deasners, and had to carry out such works near their properties.
The justices also controlled malting and brewing and all leather buckets needed to be approved and registered.
In 1614 the London dyers persuaded the government to ban all undyed exports of cloth. The country's clothiers, including those at Bury had depended upon this export trade and within six years the trade would collapse, and many were bankrupted as they held large stocks they could no longer sell. This hit the town badly, but probably hit the cottage industry in the countryside worse. | | 1615 | Samuel Ward, a puritan preacher from Haverhill, had his first book of Sermons published. There is a school in Haverhill named after him. | | 1619 | The Chamberlain of Bury at this time was one Edward Bourne. His accounts record income from "fines" for admission as a freeman of the town, allowing tradespeople to set up in the town. This was worth £1 a time. Other income was from enrolment of apprenticeship indentures and from fines levied in Quarter Sessions in the Court of Record. Payments included work on the Market Cross and 14/2 to workmen to repair the highways from St Peters into the Risbygate Street.
Another financial officer was the Receiver of Rents, issues and profits belonging to the Almoner's Barns. These old monastic rights passed to the Corporation under the terms of the 1608 charter. As well as rents, he collected tithe wool from Eldo Farm which was paid in kind. £76 came from fairs and markets which were farmed out at this time. The tithe corn was also farmed at a rent of £40. The receiver had to pay some church stipends, and also bought wood for the poor, and in 1619 had paid 5/- for repairs to the common well in Southgate Street. | | 1620 | The Pilgrim Fathers landed in America on the Mayflower. Her Captain, Christpher Jones, was a Harwich man, and the Mayflower herself was out of Harwich. She may have been built in one of the Ipswich shipyards.
By 1620, Haverhill had become well known as a Puritan town. It produced many leading Puritan preachers such as the Ward family (John, his sons Samuel and Nathaniel and his grandson John), the Faircloughs and the Scanderets.
In Bury the corporation erected a new Town Cross, with a Woolhall upstairs. | | 1621 | Elections were held for the new Parliament due to meet in Westminster on 16th January. St Thomas Jermyn, Kt and John Woodford, Esq were elected Burgesses to represent the town of Bury by the 37 members of the corporation eligible to vote. | | 1622 | The harvest was very poor in 1622, and this seemed to usher in a decade of scarcity. The Feoffees had to buy corn at high prices to make into bread for the poor. The corporation tried to ban the malting of barley for beer in order to get grain onto the market for bread, but this only made the supply of grain dry up. They quickly had to abandon this idea.
Not only was food scarce and costly, but many had lost their livelihoods. By 1622 the old cloth trade was ruined. Broadcloth was out of fashion. Lighter and more colourful new draperies were in demand. The new draperies were lighter, and were being being produced by foreign weavers, many of whom had set up in Norwich. Broad cloth was out of style, and Norwich stuff was in. Bury's clothiers had large stocks of cloth they could not sell, and were described as "much decayed in their estates by reason of the great losses they had received."
By an Order made in October, 1622, the Bury Corporation considered that it was "earnestly desired that provision may be made to set the poor of this town on work as well for the preventing of idleness as of a means to set them on work". They resolved that "the trade of making and weaving of stuffs shall be laboured to be brought to this town". They hoped to persuade Flemings, Frenchmen and Dutchman to bring their more modern weaving skills from Norwich to set up in Bury.
Towns previously famous for their cloth like Bury, Lavenham and East Bergholt were reduced to spinning yarn to send to Norwich or to Essex. Hence the cry for new weaving skills at Bury.
Horace Barker has recorded that in this year the almshouses in old St Peter's Hospital were changed into a House of Correction to deal with troublesome paupers.
However at Haverhill, Sudbury and Glemsford they took up weaving the new fabrics and gained some prosperity.
In October 1622, Thomas Warner, a captain in James I's bodyguard, sailed from Kytson Point near Woodbridge, for St Christopher, now called St Kitts. He intended to grow tobacco, and came from Parham in Suffolk. The first crop was destroyed by a hurricane and they left. Next year the French had arrived. Warner became governor of St Kitts in 1627 but the island was sacked by the Spanish in 1629. Warner joined the naval fight against Spain and eventually the area was regained. He died on St Kitts in 1649. | | 1623 | Things were desperate in many parts of the country, and Bury was no exception. The workhouse was established in Churchgate Street, and St Peter's Hospital in Out Risbygate was refitted as a house of correction. The massive growth in poverty and near starvation was met by a growth in workhouse places. | | 1624 | One of the privileges chartered boroughs sought to acquire was the right to appoint their own coroner. Bury had acquired this right in 1614, and appointed a coroner annually, usually in the form of the outgoing Alderman. In 1624 an inquest was held on the body of Robert English, described as a 67 year old "chirurgeon", or surgeon, who died after being kicked by a horse. Unusually for the time the inquest record was written in English.
Bury St Edmunds Borough Council continued to pay witnesses expenses at the town coroner's court up to 1974.
War began with Spain and continued until 1630. | | 1625 | King Charles I came to the throne and would reign until 1649.
In Bury, the Guildhall Feoffees bought Moyses Hall, and it was used for a workhouse, and later as the Bridewell, or jail. | | 1626 | War began with France and continued until 1629.
In 1626 the Feoffees, looking for economy and efficiency, seem to have acquired Moyses Hall. The purpose was to join their Poorhouse, previously located in Whiting Street, and moved to Churchgate Street in 1622, with the House of Correction and a Jail. Moyses Hall and adjacent buildings now performed all these functions on one site.
So, from 1626, Moyses Hall was used as the Bridewell by the the Borough Magistrates. It would later become the Police Station, and so was a lock-up until 1892.
In later years, presumably as the number of inmates grew, the workhouse for St James parish was set up in Eastgate Street, and for St Mary's parish in Schoolhall Street.
The old town jail on the Cornhill, at the top of Abbeygate Street, continued to be used as the County Jail for the Liberty, or what would become West Suffolk. This jail dated back to Abbot Anselm's time, and conditions were very poor.
In 1626 the Governors of the Bury Grammar School bought premises between the Norman Tower and St Mary's Church for use as a Poor Boys School. By 1630, the Haberdon Estate was acquired as an endowment for this new school. | | 1628 | Sir Edward Coke introduced his bill of liberties in the House of Commons, referring to "Magna Carta is such a fellow, that he will have no sovereign." The bill led to the Petition of Rights.
Sir William Hervey was first elected MP for Bury. The Herveys had been squires of Ickworth since the 15th Century but from 1628 the family would continue in Parliament and public life until 1906.
John Felton, a member of a well respected Suffolk family, was implicated in the murder of the Duke of Buckingham. Sir Thomas Richardson was the Recorder of Bury St Edmunds, in the 1620's, and a distinguished lawyer and Judge. He had been made Speaker of the House of Commons in 1621, and in 1628, he made legal history by refusing to allow John Felton to be tortured on the Rack in order to extract evidence from him. Sir Thomas Richardson was the first judge ever to rule that evidence obtained under torture was unsafe and inadmissible in law. | | 1629 | Charles I dissolved Parliament and determined to govern without it. Charles had been king for only four years and at first he managed well enough without Parliament. However,in one regard he was stirring up resentments. He sponsored William Laud's high church teachings against the current mainstream of Anglican sensibilities.
William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury by this time but was reintroducing Roman Catholic beliefs and ritual, seen by many as Popery by the back door. In reality he was probably more against the rising puritan practices than pro-catholic. | | 1630 | The Corporation at Bury conveyed all their property, including the markets, fairs and tolls, to 40 trustees. The reasons for this seem to be unclear, and there is suggestion that they feared the charter was about to be withdrawn. This matter of the ownership of the corporate property became an issue in the 1660's.
Nationally, as well as locally, large scale emigration to Massachusetts began.
The 1630's was a period of continuing religious tension. There was a division between the renewal of high church practices and a continued development of puritan ideas, which rejected elaborate, organised and hierarchical forms of religion.
The Puritans set up the New England Company to help people emigrate to the New World, seeking religious freedom. The first governor of this Company was John Winthrop, Lord of the Manor of Groton and Edwardstone near Hadleigh. He was a lawyer and left many letters and diaries.
In East Anglia, pre-reformation church practices were returning in most areas and influential puritans like Winthrop could not accept this. In addition there was a depression in the area, and in 1630 112 men, women and children left Suffolk including John Winthrop. They travelled to Southampton to sail on the Arbella.
They aimed to arrive in the Spring to sow crops and they took livestock with them. Applicants were selected for their trade or skills such as wheelwright or blacksmith, and family groups usually made up the basic unit.
Thirty Suffolk village names can be traced in the USA, including Haverhill, Clare, Ipswich, Boxford and Groton.
When the State of Massachusetts was set up, its first governor was to be John Winthrop and the second governor was his son, also called John Winthrop. | | 1631 | The harvest failed again in 1631 in West Suffolk. There seemed to be plenty of grain in Norfolk and so the Bury corporation sent a team there to buy enough to sell to the poor at reasonable prices. For thirty weeks this effort continued, with 40 people involved in the project. In the end the costs were all met by voluntary giving by local worthies.
John Winthrop's wife and three children followed him, along with many others from Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex out to Virginia. In all about 800 Suffolk people enlisted with the Company for Winthrop to lead them in eleven ships to Virginia, the New World. They sailed from Plymouth, sixty or seventy to a ship on a three week crossing. | | 1633 | The newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury was William Laud, a man who tried to impose "high-church" rituals and discipline upon the clergy. With such a strong puritan feeling in the Country, this was a great mistake, but he was supported by the King.
At Hengrave Hall, Sir John Gage died, having been the second husband of Penelope Rivers, who had inherited Hengrave from the Kytson line. Hengrave would be associated with the Gage family now for another nine generations. Although Penelope eventually married her third husband, Sir William Hervey of Ickworth, she settled Hengrave on her third son, Edward Gage. | | 1634 | Samual Ward, the puritan town lecturer of Ipswich for 30 years past was hauled before the Court of High Commission for praying informally and criticising Church Hierarchy. Samual Ward was also accused of inciting emigration to New England. | | 1635 | The first public postal service was established in Britain at the end of July 1635. Postage rates varied according to distance and ranged between twopence and eightpence.
The Earl of Suffolk, Lord Lieutenant of the County, instructed the Alderman, Recorder and Deputy Lieutenants of the Borough to prepare a muster roll of all able-bodied untrained men from 16 to 60 years of age. Bury's total was 1,335 men made up of North Ward - 193 men, South Ward - 277, East Ward - 116, West Ward - 426 and High Ward - 323.
Charles I invented a new tax called Ship Money, causing great resentment among the articulate and better off sections of society. A new Bishop of Norwich was appointed, called Matthew Wren, a supporter of Laud's high church ideas. He cracked down on East Anglian puritanism.
One Robert Davers, later to become Sir Robert Davers of Rushbrooke, sailed to Barbados to plant sugar. He was one of 78 aboard the Falcon of London, and was 14 years old, almost certainly of humble status. | | 1636 | The new Bishop of Norwich stayed at Ipswich in 1636 and suspended some of the Suffolk clergy for refusing to accept certain new high church disciplines. Puritan local lecturers like Edmund Calamy at Bury, and Samuel Ward at Ipswich were excommunicated. The Puritan response was that Bishop Wren of Norwich was accused of driving out the god-fearing by his "popish idolatry."
For ten years Edmund Calamy had been preaching to a packed church of St Mary's in Bury. In 1636 the government had felt obliged to issue lists of games, called the "Book of Sports", which could be played on Sundays without necessarily profaning the Sabbath, which included Morris Dancing and May games. Calamy had refused to read out this list in church as he disagreed with it. After being sacked from the church he moved to London and would edit the Soldiers Pocket Bible, a Puritan best seller during the Civil War. | | 1637 | Bury's population was about 6,000 at this time, its numbers swollen by out of work country weavers looking for jobs. The seventh outbreak of the plague since the dissolution occurred in May of this year. It lasted until Christmas and 1637 was Bury's worst ever plague year, but thankfully this seems to have been the last of the plagues to hit the town. The Alderman, Edward Bourne, seems to have died himself within a few weeks of taking up office. As usual the Guildhall Feoffees provided tents so that people could camp out of town in the hope of avoiding infection. This plague cost the Feoffees over £2,000. Over 600 people died, About 10% of Bury's population. Some 439 were cured and 117 suffered nothing more than a serious rash. Some 103 families had been isolated in their own homes.
Those who died on the Risby side of town were said to be buried at St Peter's Hospital, in the St Peter's Pit in a communal grave. Temporary huts were also set up there, as the Grammar School Governors recorded in 1641/2 that these were burned down for public health reasons in that year. The school owned the hospital site at this time, and were paid some compensation for the disruption of having their premises taken over for the duration of the plague.
The first written usage of the name Guildhall Feoffees occurred in 1637, but it may well be that this name had been in popular use before this.
King Charles I was at the height of his power, but he blundered into civil war in Scotland where they did not take kindly to rule from London when sweeping change was introduced. An invasion was planned for 1639. | | 1638 | By 1638 some 6-800 people from Suffolk and 1200 from Norfolk and Essex had sailed to Virginia despite government attempts to keep them at home. These new plantations were very largely successful, "beyond the hopes of their friends, and to the astonishment of their enemies." Religious zeal and a desire for freedom of worship characterised some of the emigrants. | | 1639 | The new war against Scotland was very unpopular. The soldiers mutinied at Bungay and there was a transport strike in Ipswich. Charles I's plan to invade Scotland had to be abandoned. The Scots would soon retaliate.
Francis Pynner left money to the Feoffees to pipe water into the Market Place in Bury to provide a cistern of water to be used in case of fire. Pynner himself had lost all he owned in 1608 when the great fire of Bury swept through the town. | | 1640 | In Suffolk, only £200 of the ship money assessment for the County of £8000, was paid. Rich men like Sir Nathanial Barnadiston were among those who refused to pay up on moral or religious grounds.
Several migrations had taken place from Haverhill and Haverhill in Massachusetts was founded in 1640, originally with the name Pentucket.
The Scots now invaded northern England.
Parliament was recalled in April 1640 and because the King had refused to call it for so long, there was a backlash. Strong parliamentarian candidates were returned, such as Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston of Kedington and Sir Simonds d'Ewes of Stowlangtoft. This became called the Short Parliament when Charles dissolved it in May, after only a few weeks when he refused their terms to finance the Scottish war.
Once the invading Scots had taken Newcastle in the Autumn, the King had no option but to recall Parliament again. After the long Parliament had started in November, 1640, it began to change the face of national religion. Bishops were abolished in 1640. | | 1641 | All superstitious pictures and inscriptions in churches were ordered to be removed and defaced in 1641. Suffolk did not suffer from this until 1644, following the appointment of William Dowsing. In Ireland, 3000 Ulster Protestants were massacred by Catholics who had been disposessed by James I's Ulster Plantations Policy.
At some point before the war the corporation began to fear that their parliamentary leanings may cause the crown to seize their assets. They seem to have devised a plan to vest the corporate assets in the Guildhall Feoffees to place them safe from the king. | | 1642 | The English Civil War began when the King raised his standard at Nottingham.
Charles I was so unpopular that Suffolk gentry in general supported Parliament. In his book "Suffolk and the Great Rebellion 1640 - 1660" Alan Everitt wrote "Few English shires played a more decisive or distinctive role in the Civil War than Suffolk". The County was wealthy and well organised, run by London merchants like Sir Nathaniel Barnadiston who was energetic, efficient and wealthy, yet he was himself ruled by strict religious principles. Every week he could be seen in the markets at Haverhill and Clare and was widely admired in Suffolk.
In Suffolk less than 100 prominent men and their families were supporters of the King and any non-puritan way of religion. They would be in peril as tension mounted. At Long Melford a crowd of "many thousands swarmed to the pulling down of a gallant seat belonging to the Countess of Rivers". At Stoke by Nayland, Sir Francis Mannocke's house was pillaged of all goods and "not his writings spared, nor his dogs".
The corporation at Bury was strongly pro - parliament, but this was not universally the case in the town. Even in Bury there remained influential men believed to favour the King. In August 1642, Parliamentary supporters in the area were worried that the Magazine in this part of the County was in an inconvenient place and the Key in "untrustworthy hands".
Parliament had therefore ordered a group of Suffolk gentlemen to seize the County magazine at Bury when hostilities began. From this group arose the Suffolk County Committee who controlled the area up to 1666.
The County Committee met at Bury to raise and equip troops for Parliament. They included Sir William Spring of Pakenham, but were soon led by Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston of Kedington, probably the richest man in the County at the time. Barnardiston died in 1653, but his committee collected over £50,000 a year from 1642 to 1648 for troops, horse and provisions for Parliament.
During the Commonwealth Stephen Scandarett was to become Haverhill's most influential nonconformist preacher, and a great local opinion-leader. | | 1643 | In March 1643 Lowestoft was occupied by royalist gentry. Cromwell marched from Cambridge with 1000 cavalrymen and took the town without a fight. This was called the siege of Lowestoft.
The estates of royalist sympathisers began to be sequestrated. From 1643 to 1649 this raised £40,917 in Suffolk, a surprisingly high amount, greater than London or Essex, Kent and Norfolk. This was despite the apparently low number of families involved and points to the high value of Suffolk farming at the time, coupled with an efficient administration of seized property.
At some point a fortification was built at Icklingham, just over the River Lark by Farthing Bridge. This type of fort was an earthwork square, but with extended corners to give clear fields of fire, and is known as a sconce. Very little is known of this construction. | | 1644 | During the chaos of war, Matthew Hopkins, the self appointed Witchfinder General went about his business. In Bury he identified 40 victims. Hopkins was a Suffolk man and is believed to have been responsible for 60 executions in the County before he himself was called to account and executed in 1647.
William Dowsing of Laxfield was appointed Parliamentary visitor for Suffolk. His job was to carry out the order to remove religious art from churches in the County. He appointed deputies and they each took troopers to every church.
Dowsing himself visited 150 churches in 50 days. Dr Dowsing visited St Marys in Haverhill and, in his own words, in 1643, 'We brake down about 100 superstitious pictures and seven friars hugging a nun; and a picture of God and Christ; and diverse others very superstitious; and 200 had been broke before I came. We took away two Popish inscriptions with "Ora pro nobis", and we beat down a great stoney cross on top of the Church'.
The Eastern Counties association finally accepted the idea of the New Model Army.
Two committees were appointed to remove anti-puritan clergy in East and West Suffolk. Royalists were referred to as 'malignants' and high churchmen were called 'scandalous'. About 100 Suffolk clergy were evicted. | | 1645 | Suffolk was divided into 14 classical presbyteries to replace deaneries and archdeaconries. Each was run by a committee.
The Rector of Barrow, John Cradock, who had taken over Barrow from his father, Richard Cradock, was made an elder of Hundred of Thingoe. He was of the Puritan persuasion, but seems also to have been an amateur artist. His daughter Mary was born in 1833, and was brought up to appreciate art in the company of local artists such as Nathaniel Thach, Matthew Snelling, Robert Walker and Sir Peter Lely. Thach lived in Barrow and painted miniatures, while Snelling lived at Horringer, also working in miniatures. Walker was a favourite painter of Oliver Cromwell and his parliament, and Lely would later be Court painter to Charles II. Mary would become a famous portrait painter following her marriage to Charles Beale in 1652.
Matthew Hopkins, the self appointed Witchfinder General, was responsible for many trials of witches in various parts of the country. He played upon peoples fears and beliefs until the largest such trial in England at the time took place in Bury St EDmunds.
In 1645 this notorious trial of witches took place in court at Shire Hall in Bury. Neighbours and self appointed searchers had dragged over 120 old women and a few men to Bury Jail. Edmund Calamy had returned briefly to Bury to be one of the judges at the trials. One old man, John Lowes, aged 80, had been the vicar of Brandeston, and seems to have been accused on the grounds of his bad temper, and keeping a ginger cat called Tom. Confessions were wrung from these people by coercion. Lowes was tried with 17 others, found guilty, and hanged. At his trial he retracted his confession to no avail. These trials were adjourned on news of the approach of Royalist troops from Peterborough. There is a report of 50 more hangings, but some of the accused seem to have been sent home.
A woman called Binks was accused of witchcraft and examined by John Stern, the witch-hunter, and Samuel Fairclough, then vicar of Kedington, in Haverhill market place.
The Headmaster of Bury's Grammar School was a royalist sympathiser, Dr Stephens. He was finally sacked for his views as a "notorious malignant" in 1645. He set up his own school in another house, but so many of his old pupils followed him that the Grammar School ceased to be viable.
Parliament had gone on the offensive with its New Model Army and won a decisive victory at Naseby in June of 1645. The 13th Troop of Ironsides were raised by Ralph Margery a yeoman of Walsham - le- Willows, pretty much on his own initiative. To Cromwell, Margery was the ideal Puritan soldier. "I would rather have a plain russet coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than any gentleman," wrote Cromwell about him. | | 1646 | By this time there were a number of minority religions setting themselves up. Baptists, Ranters, Muggletonions, Quakers and Congregationalists all arose around this time.
In Bury there were 8 founding members of a new movement who signed their Congregational Covenant. They were members of the puritan Presbyterian communion who currently controlled the two parish churches of St Edmundsbury. They were called Covenanters at first. Thus the New Independent Church was set up in Bury in 1646, later to be called the Congregational Church.
By the end of 1646 the First Civil War had come to an end. The unpaid royalist army disintegrated and both sides wanted to go home. Royalists like Thomas Staunton of Horringer returned home after the war was over to find his reception hostile and his business ruined. He soon decided to apply himself to merchants affairs and settled in Spain, although he continued in his royalist sympathies. Despite his expressed hopes to give further service to the King, necessity forced him to his own affairs.
Despite a largely puritan population, about 50 well to do Suffolk families remained pro-royalist, notably the Jermyn family at Rushbrooke. Sir William Hervey of Ickworth even raised a regiment for Charles I in the civil war.
In 1646, when an attempt was made to abolish Christmas celebrations, this was seen to be going too far and a popular riot occurred in Bury. | | 1647 | As hostilities seemed to be ending, Dr Stephens was reinstated as Headmaster of the Grammar School at Bury. He had shown that without him the school could not survive, despite his royalist views.
George Fox, a Leicestershire puritan from a weaving family began to preach about his "great experience" of God and his speeches sometimes caused a shaking or quaking in his audience. Thus began the Quaker movement or Religious Society of Friends, who would soon become significant in local history.
Parliament now tried to settle terms with the King and tried to pay off its army as funds had run out. In August the army marched into London to force Parliament to levy taxes to keep them in the field.
At this time the Levellers were preaching religious freedom and condemning the Long Parliament for corruption and tyranny. The army tightened its grip. | | 1648 | The years 1648 - 1649 are known as the Second Civil War. This was a revolt of the provinces against centralisation and military rule. Although it is easy to see it as another Royalist rising, it included many moderate parliamentarians. It was fiercest in regions not paralysed by the effects of the first civil war, such as East Anglia, Kent, South Wales and Yorkshire. The revolts happened sporadically, one by one, and the army easily quelled them.
Colchester was besieged by the Parliamentary army and finally surrendered after a two month siege. At Bury there was a disturbance called a Royalist rebellion, but it is said that it was 600 people dancing round a maypole, and although it was anti-puritan, it was not a serious military threat. Parliament regained the town in two days.
There was an interesting side effect of this action at Bury. Although the local militia had quickly regained order in the town, a messenger had already been sent to fetch the army. When the army arrived, they assumed wrongly that the local militia were the royalist revolutionaries they had been sent to quell. Likewise the militia were called to arms as the approaching army seemed hostile. Both side wore similar uniforms, and it was lucky that a battle was avoided. Thereafter the Parliamentarian Army was ordered to wear red coats, and this was the basis of British army uniform for the next 250 years.
After this riot the Suffolk Committee moved its Headquarters to Stowmarket.
Sugar replaced tobacco as the main crop on St Kitts, and the sugar owners became wealthy from supplying sugar to Europe. | | 1649 | By December 1648 most of Parliament and the country wanted the King back in charge to restore peace and order. A few people, led by the leaders of the army wanted to remove him and install a totally new form of government.
In Prides Purge of Parliament, the army arrested or evicted over half the Members of Parliament. In protest two-thirds of the remainder boycotted the House. Parliament now decided to put the King on trial, but probably only about 17% of MPs were i |
| |
