“That the town had blocked themselves up, all except where they had placed their ordnance, which were three pieces, before which a chain was drawn to keep off the horse. The Colonel surrounded the town and demanded that they should give up the strangers, the town, and their army, promising them their favour, if so; if not, none. They yielded to deliver their strangers, but not the rest. Where upon our Norwich dragoons crept under the chain before mentioned, and came within pistol shot of the ordnance, preparing to fire upon their cannoneer, who fled. So they gained the two pieces of ordnance and broke the chain, and they and the horses entered the town without resistance; when presently eighteen strangers yielded themselves—Sir T. Barker, Sir John Pettus, of Norfolk, Mr. Knivett, of Ashwell Thorpe, Mr. Richard Catelyn’s son, some say his father too was there in the morning. Sir F. Cory, my unfortunate cousin, who I wish could have been better persuaded, Mr. Brooke, the sometime minister of Yarmouth, and some others escaped over the river. There was good stores of pistols and other arms; I bear above 50 cases of pistols. The Colonel stayed there Tuesday and Wednesday night. On Friday night the Colonel brought in hither (Norwich), his prisoners taken at Lowestoft and Mr. Trott of Beccles. On Saturday night, with one troop, he sent all the prisoners to Cambridge. Sir John Wentworth (of Somerleyton), has come off with the payment of £1000.” [85]
We have a short account of these proceedings from the other side, from no less a personage than the Vicar himself, Mr. Jacob Rous, who had evidently taken an active part in the movement. He has left in the Parish Register, this note, dated 1646.
“Reader, whoever thou art, that shall have occasion to use this booke, know that by this means for these two following years it comes to be soe imperfect as thou find’st it. On the 14th March, 1643, Colonel Cromwell, with a brigade of horse and certain foote, which he had from Yarmouth, came to this towne and from thence carried away prisoners. Sir Thomas Barker and his brother, Sir John Pettis, Mr. Knivett, of Ashwell Thorpe, Mr. Catlin, Captain Hammond, Mr. Thomas Cory, with others to Cambridge, and with them, myself, Mr. Thomas Allen, Mr. Simon Canham and Thomas Canham, of this towne, so that for some time following, there was in this town neither minister nor clerke, but the inhabitants weare enforced to procure now one and then another to baptize their children, by which means there was no register kept, only those few hearafter mentioned wear by myselfe baptised in those intervalls when I enjoied my freedom.”
We have in these extracts, I believe, the only original records of this exciting episode in the history of our old town. What became of the “army,” which Cromwell had been led to suppose he would find at Lowestoft we are not informed. The accounts give the impression that the inhabitants of Lowestoft had taken very little part in the movement, and that the preparations were the work of the influential “strangers,” with the concurrence of the Vicar, the Parish Clerk, and a few other leading men. Mr. Mighells, one of the leading merchants of the time, had the credit of saving the little town from the fate in which the gallant cavaliers would have involved it, by appearing on the scene and dissuading resistance to Cromwell’s entrance. After a stay of two nights at the Swan, and the capture of the “strangers” and the few “malignants” among the townspeople, Cromwell returned to Cambridge with his troop and left the little town in peace, without considering it necessary to leave any force to insure its future allegiance to the Parliamentary cause.
The story of this incident has naturally been considerably improved. In a petition to the judges, drawn up some 20 years afterwards, the proceedings of Cromwell and his soldiers were represented as “taking and plundering the town, imprisoning many of their principal inhabitants, and causing others to fly beyond the sea.” The plundering seems to have been confined to the quartering of the soldiers for two nights without payment. Tradition only tells of one case, illustrative of any other plundering, viz.: that of the blacksmith, Frarey, who Mr. Suckling tells us—“was completely stripped of all his goods and obliged to keep his horse in the parlour of his house to prevent it being carried off by the soldiers.” The “stripping of all his goods by the soldiers” consisted probably in their using his iron and tools to shoe their horses, without payment. Why, if bent on further plunder they did not take the trouble of looking into his parlour, the story does not explain. The “many of the principal inhabitants taken prisoners” were the four persons mentioned by Mr. Rouse. The others who “had to fly beyond the sea” were apparently a few of our sea warriors who had served in the King’s navy, and who took advantage of the civil war to start a career of privateering from a Dutch port. We shall hear of their proceedings shortly.
Hostilities between Yarmouth and Lowestoft.
In 1642 the Yarmouth men had the luck to capture a ship sent over by the Queen with arms and ammunition for the King’s army. After confiscating this ship in their Admiralty Court, with the approval of the Parliament, they fitted it out as a man of war, and in 1644 sent it out as a privateer on the side of the Parliament. They commenced hostilities by capturing a “pink” lying in the harbour, of which ‘Captain Allen’ was part owner. This was Mr. Thomas Allen of Lowestoft, who was then one of Cromwell’s prisoners at Cambridge, afterwards Admiral Allen and Sir Thomas Allen of Somerleyton. He had gone over to Yarmouth the day before Cromwell’s visit to change dollars, and it appears that he was captured by some Yarmouth men and handed over to Cromwell. He was released after about two years detention, and in 1645 we find him engaged in active warfare for the King against Yarmouth. The Yarmouth men confined their claim against the pink to Captain Allen’s share, which they sold to Mr. James Wylde, another Lowestoft man, but not a ‘malignant,’ for £35. We are told by Mr. Swinden that
“The Inhabitants of Yarmouth had already suffered very much by losses at sea, their ships, vessels, and goods being frequently taken and carried away by “rovers and pirates” at sea, and others in hostility against the Parliament, whereby the town was greatly impoverished.”
Out of the 23 Yarmouth ships sent to catch cod in Iceland in 1644, 20 were sunk by the “pirates.” To protect their fishermen, Yarmouth, in 1645, obtained three men of war from the Parliament. These ships captured several of the pirate ships, among the crew of which they found several Lowestoft men. These captures brought a letter from Ostend signed by Captain Allen and 11 other Englishmen, including two or three more Lowestoft names, threatening Yarmouth with reprisals if these men were not liberated. The hostilities carried on by these “Ostend pirates” against the Yarmouth fishing boats could not have much advanced the cause of the King. We do not, however, hear of any lives being taken in the encounters, but the loss inflicted upon the Yarmouth and other fishermen must have been very severe, if the following statement in Captain Allen’s letter was anything more than bluster.
“Have we given you thousands of prisoners which we might have indungeoned, nay hanged, but that rebellious ignorance impleaded their escape. Now we can if you compel us make a hundred suffer for one.”