Through East Anglia in a Motor Car

by James Edmund Vincent

"Memorand. On St. James's Even, there was bonefire, and a tub of ale, and bread then given to the poor, and, before my doore, there were made, three other bonefires, viz. on Midsummer Even, on the Even of St. Peter and St. Paul, when they had the like drinkings, and on St. Thomas's Even, on which, if it fell not on the fish day, they had some long pyes of mutton, and peasecods, set out upon boards, with the aforesaid quantity of bread, and ale; and, in all these bonefires, some of the friends and more civil poor neighbours were called in, and sat at the board, with my Grandfather, who had, at the lighting of the bonefires, wax tapers, with balls of wax, red and green, set up, all the breadth of the Hall, lighted then, and burning there, before the image of St. John the Baptist; and after they were put out, a watch candle was lighted, and set in the midst of the said Hall, upon the pavement, burning all night."

A list of utensils, furniture, jewels, ornaments and relics follows that would make a collector's mouth water, but it may not all be quoted. Thirteen chalices there were, "the best Chalice, gilt," weighing 133-1/2 ounces. Amongst other objects were "a relique of the Pillar that our Saviour Christ was bound to," several examples of the Pax (a piece of metal with the picture of Christ on it, to be kissed by all after Mass, typical of the Kiss of Peace), several silver ships, many rings and jewels, gorgeous coats for "Our Lady," copes and vestments belonging to the Church and like articles in great number, but the list is of immense length. Celebrated in the church were many Cloptons and Martins, and "Sir William Cordell, Knt. of Melford Hall, Speaker of the House of Commons and Master of the Rolls, in the time of Philip and Mary, and Queen Elizabeth," who married Mary, the daughter of Richard Clopton, Esq., of Fore Hall. His epitaph contained the lines—

Pauperibus largus, victum, vestemque ministrans
Insuper Hospitii condidit ille domum.

Here, to avoid insult to those who have Latin, and to afford them an opportunity of laughing at me, while at the same time the unlearned may follow the meaning, let me attempt the rare venture of a translation into English Elegiacs:

Good to the poor was Sir William, a giver of food and of raiment,
And of his own good will founded an Hospital home.

Of the foundation referred to a full account may be found in Sir William Cordell's will (a.d. 1580) recorded in extracts from the Visitation of Suffolk, edited by Joseph Jackson Howard, ll.d. (printed by S. Tymms, Lowestoft, 1867). It included a building, a warden, and twelve almsmen, and it was to be continued—for it had been founded in good Sir William's lifetime—after his death. It was, in effect, the kind of foundation which Anthony Trollope took and gave pleasure in describing; nor, as the long will shows plainly enough, was the benefaction made at his expense of leaving the testator's relations at all pinched for money. In fact, his widow, Dame Mary Cordell, in 1584, "being sikelye in body, and nevertheless of good and p'fecte remembrance," made a will in which she disposed of much property, devoting some of it to this very hospital, and some, almost as a matter of course, to Long Melford Church. Dame Mary was prescient. The will made in 1584 was proved in October 1585.

So thoroughly comfortable were the people of Long Melford in the days of old that the temptation to mention the fact that a "Long Melford" was once a name for a purse is irresistible, because the conjunction is so appropriate. The temptation ought, perhaps, to be resisted because, although the fact has been read and remembered, it appears to be unfamiliar to Suffolk natives, and the source of information cannot be traced. It has eluded fairly diligent search; but the fact has certainly been noticed since this book was undertaken. I can remember no more than that it was a purse of some peculiar make; and it would seem fairly safe to imply that it was of capacious dimensions. Still, as the inscriptions already mentioned show, those long purses were always laid under contribution for the adornment of the church which was Long Melford's pride, and among the most prosperous and the most generous benefactors of it were the Martins or Martyns. The first of them came from Dorsetshire to Melford and was buried there in 1438. How the family made its money the "clothmark" proves; and the Visitation shows how they spread over the county and made their mark in the country. Roger, who died in 1543, was a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn; Sir Roger, who died in 1573, had been Lord Mayor of London; Roger, born 1639, was created a baronet; daughters married into good families all over East Anglia. But it was a tradition of the family that all should be brought back to Long Melford for burial; and it was also a tradition to do something for the church. It was a tradition which lasted till 1851 at any rate, and it may very likely still be held in honour; for we read in "Murray" that there was, at that time, very large expenditure on the chantries chancel by Sir William Parker and the Rev. C. J. Martyn, the patron of the living. Sir William Parker, it may be added, was the owner of Melford Hall, which formerly belonged to the Cordells and, being Elizabethan, was no doubt built by the Sir William Cordell already named, who flourished in the reign of Elizabeth.

At Cavendish, a few miles to the westward, we are at the original home of a family better known than the Cordells or the Martins, and of real note in history. "In the chancel of the Church was buried Chief Justice Sir John Cavendish, beheaded by Wat Tyler's mob. His younger son, John, and Esquire to Richard II is said to have slain this sturdy rebel." So "Murray," but the last statement, standing alone, is merely irritating. What is the sense of saying this, and no more, to a generation taught by painstaking historians to believe that Walworth, the Lord Mayor, struck Wat Tyler to the ground "where he was instantly dispatched by others of the King's attendants"? Of course young John Cavendish may have been one of these attendants; but in any case Walworth was the protagonist, and should have been mentioned at least. According to the just custom of Indian sport the credit belongs to him who gets in the first spear, and in the Highlands the sportsman who lays the stag low, not the gillie who grallochs him, possesses the honour of the day.

The story of the Cavendish family shall not be told here, for it is long, and not free from controversial points, and, of course, they are still in the land and of far greater consequence now than they ever were when Cavendish was their chief home. The glory of the village has waned and theirs has waxed. Of both the next village, Clare, and of the family who gave it their name or took theirs from it, Ichabod may be written without reserve. The Earls of Clare flourished from the days of the Conquest to those of Bannockburn, where the last of the race lost his life, and during that period of nearly two hundred and fifty years they clearly held high sway in these parts of East Anglia. Their great seat was at Clare, in a castle long desecrated by a railway station, the castle itself being built in connection with one of those great and mysterious mounds, like that of Thetford, concerning which the ancients were far more willing than the moderns are to write with assurance. The names of several adjacent places, Stoke by Clare, for example, serve at once to show how wide was the area of the Clare influence and to raise the suspicion that the place was named after them and not they after the place. Not, perhaps, the greatest of them, but certainly the one whose memory has lasted longest, was "Richard, surnamed Strongbow, Earl of Strigul," who came to the assistance of Dermot Macmorrogh, King of Leinster, in 1172. Dermot, it may be remembered, had carried off the wife of a brother Prince, named Ororic of Breffny, who, with the assistance of the King of Connaught, Roderic, had invaded Leinster and had expelled Dermot. Dermot then laid his case before our Henry II, offering to hold his kingdom in vassalage for Henry, if help to recover it were forthcoming, and Henry, being busy in Guienne, but having an eye for the main chance, gave him letters patent authorizing subjects of the Crown of England to assist him in his efforts. At Bristol Dermot met Strongbow, and Hume, citing the not unduly truthful Giraldus Cambrensis as his authority, proceeds: "This nobleman, who was of the illustrious house of Clare, had impaired his fortune by expensive pleasures, and being ready for any desperate undertaking, he promised assistance to Dermot, on condition that he should espouse Eva, daughter of that Prince, and be declared heir to all his dominions." How Strongbow eventually conquered the Irish princes in one great battle, how Henry, jealous of Strongbow's power, crossed to Ireland and made a Royal progress, and how the island was not fully subdued until Elizabeth's time, are more or less matters of history, so far as the history of those days in Ireland can really be ascertained. But the most striking part of the passage quoted is, in these days, the simple confidence with which the historian speaks of "the illustrious family of Clare." How little that confidence would be justified now is plain to me from inquiries addressed in apparently artless curiosity to more than one highly cultivated man and woman about the time of writing. Macaulay's schoolboy, the omnipresent paragon of marvellous memory, would no doubt have known all about this famous family; but it flourished, and perished, so long ago that the "man on the road" is not likely to be hurt by a reminder of the associations properly belonging to that valley of the Stour which was beloved of Gainsborough and of Constable.

On we go through Stoke by Clare, Ridgewell, and Tilbury-juxta-Clare (how these old place-names serve to stimulate historical curiosity!) to another valley, that of the Colne, full of memories of another family, bulking fully as large in the annals of England as the Clares, and lasting far longer. The valley of the Colne, which we follow on our return journey to Colchester, was the De Vere country. They were the Earls of Oxford of course, and in this case there is no affectation of confidence in the standard of average knowledge in the use of the words "of course." Rather are they employed in regret, for a good long stretch of my course might be accomplished at a comfortable canter (or "on my highest gear" over the open road, if this metaphor be preferred), by mentioning only a few of the great occasions between the Conquest and the eighteenth century in which this magnificent House played its part in shaping the destinies of England. Still, by way of kindly relief to the reader, Macaulay's sonorous passage summarizing the grandeur of the De Veres must needs be quoted. It was written by him as the first comment on the list of Lords Lieutenant, who "peremptorily refused to stoop to the odious service which was required of them" by James II, that is to say, the service of revising the Commission of the Peace with the view to retaining upon it only those gentlemen who were prepared to support the King's policy of packing a Parliament in 1687.