He was first a monk of the order of St. Benedict; passed to the profession of a Dominican; then became a Carmelite, and preached the gospel in hair and sackcloth round the country; then became an Anchorite and so continued twenty years; was made Bishop of Dromore by the Pope; then quitted his bishoprick; came into these eastern counties, and went abroad in the neighbourhood barefoot, preaching, teaching, and dispensing alms; and died in Lowestoft, January 15th, 1491, at the age of a hundred years.
In the church there are many Monuments, the inscriptions of which will interest and amuse the reader; some are simple narrative, others are written in the inflated style peculiar to the age in which they were composed; most of them tell their own tales, it is not necessary, therefore, to transfer them to our pages. One, however, very short, begs to be noticed; it is found in the middle aisle; a small brass simply bears the initials,
On the stone which bears this brass, there was formerly the effigy of a person standing in a praying position, with an inscription underneath, but these brasses are all stripped from their matrices. This is most probably the index to the grave of Robert Inglesse or Ingloss, Esq., who died in 1365, and was buried in this church. This, from its antiquity, is worth a special notice.
“In the churchyard are a few flowers and much green grass; and daily the shadow of the church spire, with its long tapering finger, counts the tombs, representing a dial plate of human life, on which the hours and minutes are the graves of men.” Here is the tomb of John Barker, Esq.; [50] the resting place of Sir J. E. Smith, the celebrated botanist; the grave of the Rev. James Alderson, a dissenting minister; and the dust of the Rev. B. Ritson, an estimable clergyman: here, all ranks and conditions of men mingle their undistinguishable dust; here, are high and low, rich and poor, together; here, it seems as though all strifes are hushed and discords forgotten—one stone, however, close to the wall, on the west side of the churchyard, lifts its querulous head to perpetuate the remembrance of a family disagreement; it is raised to the memory of Charles Ward, and informs the visiter, who goes to meditate among the tombs that his heart may be made better, that “it is not erected by Susan his (i.e. Mr. Ward’s) wife; she erected a stone to John Salter, her second husband, forgetting the affection of her first husband,” it moreover begs that “no one may disturb his bones.”
At the east side of the churchyard and towards the northern corner, may be found two or three versions of the sailor’s favourite epitaph, wherein “Boreas’s blasts” are very powerful ingredients.
The other building in which worship is conducted in the Episcopalian mode, is St. Peters Chapel, which is a neat building, in the street leading from the south part of the town to the Beccles road. The first stone was laid on the 6th of August, 1832, by the Rev. F. Cunningham, the vicar of Lowestoft. The building was consecrated by Dr. C. Sumner, Lord Bishop of Winchester, on the 15th of August, 1833.
Church rates are not levied in this parish, the lands belonging to the church being amply sufficient to keep it in repair. This being the case, those unseemly feuds, which frequently arise in parishes where this obnoxious tax is imposed, do not trouble the inhabitants. Suckling wishes it to be understood that “church rates have been occasionally raised,” and quotes only one instance, and that, as far back as 1716: the memory of this might as well have been buried in the “tomb of all the Capulets.”
The deceased Vicars of note, are Scroope, before mentioned; William Whiston, who succeeded Sir Isaac Newton at Cambridge; John Tanner, brother of Bishop Tanner, who purchased the impropriation; Robert Potter, the translator of the three great writers of greek drama.
2. The Independents have long had a place of worship in the town. Before the erection of their present chapel in 1695, they worshipped in a barn, situated in the Blue Anchor lane, where the Rev. Mr. Emlyn, a learned man, was for a short time minister: since that time there has been a long succession of ministers, and the congregation has experienced many vicissitudes. The chapel has, within the last few years, been altered and greatly improved, and has now a very respectable appearance. It is situated in the High street, near the old market plain.