We meet with the sad doings of this wretch Dowsing in various places in East Anglia. He left his hideous mark on many a fair church. Thus the churchwardens of Walberswick, in Suffolk, record in their accounts:—
| "1644, April 8th, paid to Martin Dowson, that came with the troopers to our church, about the taking down of Images and Brasses off Stones | 0 6 0." |
| "1644 paid that day to others for taking up the brasses of grave stones before the officer Dowson came | 0 1 0." |
The record of the ecclesiastical exploits of William Dowsing has been preserved by the wretch himself in a diary which he kept. It was published in 1786, and the volume provides much curious reading. With reference to the church of Toffe he says:—
"Will: Disborugh Church Warden Richard Basly and John Newman Cunstable, 27 Superstitious pictures in glass and ten other in stone, three brass inscriptions, Pray for ye Soules, and a Cross to be taken of the Steeple (6s. 8d.) and there was divers Orate pro Animabus in ye windows, and on a Bell, Ora pro Anima Sanctæ Catharinæ."
"Trinity Parish, Cambridge, M. Frog, Churchwarden, December 25, we brake down 80 Popish pictures, and one of Christ and God ye Father above."
"At Clare we brake down 1000 pictures superstitious."
"Cochie, there were divers pictures in the Windows which we could not reach, neither would they help us to raise the ladders."
"1643, Jany 1, Edwards parish, we digged up the steps, and brake down 40 pictures, and took off ten superstitious inscriptions."
It is terrible to read these records, and to imagine all the beautiful works of art that this ignorant wretch ruthlessly destroyed. To all the inscriptions on tombs containing the pious petition Orate pro anima—his ignorance is palpably displayed by his Orate pro animabus—he paid special attention. Well did Mr. Cole observe concerning the last entry in Dowsing's diary:—
"From this last Entry we may clearly see to whom we are obliged for the dismantling of almost all the gravestones that had brasses on them, both in town and country: a sacrilegious sanctified rascal that was afraid, or too proud, to call it St. Edward's Church, but not ashamed to rob the dead of their honours and the Church of its ornaments. W.C."
He tells also of the dreadful deeds that were being done at Lowestoft in 1644:—
"In the same year, also, on the 12th of June, there came one Jessop, with a commission from the Earl of Manchester, to take away from gravestones all inscriptions on which he found Orate pro anima—a wretched Commissioner not able to read or find out that which his commission enjoyned him to remove—he took up in our Church so much brasse, as he sold to Mr. Josiah Wild for five shillings, which was afterwards (contrary to my knowledge) runn into the little bell that hangs in the Town-house. There were taken up in the Middle Ayl twelve pieces belonging to twelve generations of the Jettours."