‘4. It is our desire that countenance be not given unto, nor trust reposed in, the hand of Quakers, they being persons of such principles as are destructive to the Gospel, and inconsistent with the peace of modern societies.’
In five years the Yarmouth people had a Roland for their Oliver; the King had got his own again, and he and the Parliament of the day looked upon the Independents or Presbyterians as mischievous as the Quakers; and as to tithes, they were quite as much resolved, the only difference being that King and Parliament insisted on their being paid to Episcopalians alone. In 1770 Lady Huntingdon writes: ‘Success has crowned our labours in that wicked place, Yarmouth.’
Mrs. Bendish, in whom the Protector was said to have lived again, was quite a character in Yarmouth society. Bridget Ireton, the granddaughter
of the Protector, married in 1669 Mr. Thomas Bendish, a descendant of Sir Thomas Bendish, baronet, Ambassador from Charles I. to the Sultan. She died in 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of her life to Yarmouth. Her name stands among the members of the church in London of which Caryl had been pastor, and over which Dr. Watts presided. To her the latter addressed at any rate one copy of verses to be found in his collected works. She recollected her grandfather, and standing, when six years old, between his knees at a State Council, she heard secrets which neither bribes nor whippings could extract from her. Her grandfather she held to be a saint in heaven, and only second to the Twelve Apostles. Asked one day whether she had ever been at Court, her reply was, ‘I have never been at Court since I was waited upon on the knee.’ Yet she managed to dispense with a good deal of waiting, and never would suffer a servant to attend her. God, she said, was a sufficient guard, and she would have no other. She is described as loquacious and eloquent and enthusiastic, frequenting the drawing-rooms and assemblies of Yarmouth, dressed in the richest silks, and with a small black hood on her head. When she left, which would be at one in the
morning, perched on her old-fashioned saddle, she would trot home, piercing the night air with her loud, jubilant psalms, in which she described herself as one of the elect, in a tone more remarkable for strength than sweetness. In the daytime she would work with her labourers, taking her turn at the pitchfork or the spade. The old Court dresses of her mother and Mrs. Cromwell were bequeathed by her to Mrs. Robert Luson, of Yarmouth, and were shown as recently as 1834, at an exhibition of Court dresses held at the Somerset Gallery in the Strand. As was to be expected, Mrs. Bendish was enthusiastic in the cause of the Revolution of 1688, and the printed sheets relating to it were dropped by her secretly in the streets of Yarmouth, to prepare the people for the good time coming. Her son was a friend of Dr. Watts as well as his mother. He died at Yarmouth, unmarried, in the year 1753, and with him the line of Bendish seems to have come to an end. Another daughter of Ireton was married to Nathaniel Carter, who died in 1723, aged 78. His father, John Carter, was commander-in-chief of the militia of the town in 1654. He subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant, being then one of the elders of the Independent congregation. He was also bailiff of
the town, and an intimate friend of Ireton. He died in 1667. On his tombstone we read:
‘His course, his fight, his race,
Thus finished, fought, and run,
Death brings him to the place
From whence is no return.’
He lived at No. 4, South Quay, and it was there, so it is said, that the resolve was made that King Charles should die.
He is gone, but his room still remains unaltered—a large wainscoted upper chamber, thirty feet long, with three windows looking on to the quay, with carved and ornamented chimney-piece and ceiling. A great obscurity, as was to be expected, hangs over the transaction, as even now there are men who shrink from lifting up a finger against the Lord’s anointed. Dinner had been ordered at four, but it was not till eleven, that it was served, and that the die had been cast. The members of the Secret Council, we are told, ‘after a very short repast, immediately set off by post—many for London, and some for the quarters of the army.’ Such is the account given in a letter, written in 1773, by Mr. Mewling Luson, a well-known resident in Yarmouth, whose father, Mr. William Luson, was nearly connected the
Cromwell family. Nathaniel Carter, the son-in-law of Ireton, was in the habit of showing the room, and relating the occurrence connected with it, which happened when he was a boy. Cromwell was not at that council. He never was in Yarmouth; but that there was such consultation there is more than probable. Yarmouth was full of Cromwellites. In the Market Place, now known as the Weavers’ Arms, to this day is shown the panelled parlour whence Miles Corbet was used to go forth to worship in that part of the church allotted to the Independents. Miles Corbet was the son of Sir Thomas Corbet, of Sprouston, who had been made Recorder of Yarmouth in the first year of Charles, and who was one of the representatives of the town in the Long Parliament. The son was an ardent supporter of the policy of Cromwell, and, like him, laboured that England might be religious and free and great, as she never could be under any king of the Stuart race; and he met with his reward. ‘See, young man,’ said an old man to Wilberforce, as he pointed to a figure of Christ on the cross, ‘see the fate of a Reformer.’ It was so emphatically with Miles Corbet. Under the date of 1662 there is the following entry in the church-book: