When the queen and council sent commissioners to Norfolk and Suffolk “to enquire into matters of religion,” a supplication was presented “by some good and well disposed men dwelling about those parts,” [27] in which they contended earnestly for the superiority of King Edward’s ritual. “All our bodies, goods, lands, and lives,” say they, “are ready to do her Grace faithful obedience and true service of all commandments that are not against God and his word: but in things that import a denial of Christ, and refusal of his word and holy communion, we cannot consent nor agree unto it . . . We think it no true obedience unto the queen’s highness or to any other magistrate ordained of God under her, to obey in the things contrary to God’s word, although the same be never so straitly charged in her Grace’s name . . . We think not good by any unlawful stir or commotion, to seek remedy . . . But unto such ungodly bishoplike commandments, as are against God, we answer with the apostles, God must be obeyed rather than man. If persecution shall ensue, (which some threaten us with,) we desire the heavenly Father, according to his promise, to look from heaven, to hear our cry, to judge between us and our adversaries, and to give us faith, strength, and patience, to continue faithful unto the end, and to shorten these evil days for his chosen’s sake; and so we faithfully believe he will.”
The queen was alike deaf to reason and regardless of her promise. She answered the remonstrances of those who reverenced the Scriptures more than her command, and valued conscience more than life, with the most fearful torments bigotry and tyranny could inflict. Suffolk furnished its share of victims. Amongst them were, Dr. Rowland Taylor of Hadleigh, and three men who suffered in the town, to which the subsequent records more immediately relate.
CHAPTER II.
Description of Beccles—modern improvements—probable state in the reign of Mary; the scene of persecution—Fox’s account of the burning of three men; their examination; sentence; articles against them; their conduct and treatment at the stake—Remarks.
In point of situation and general appearance, Beccles has been accounted by some worthy to rank as the third town in Suffolk. Towards the west it is skirted by a cliff, once washed by the estuary which separated the eastern parts of Norfolk and Suffolk. [29] A portion of the most elevated ground is occupied by the parish church and church-yard, commanding a view somewhat more expanded and interesting than is common in this part of the county. It overlooks the valley of the appropriately designated river Waveney. The church is a handsome building, said to have been erected about A.D. 1369. Its south porch, of rather more recent date, affords a fine specimen of highly ornamented Gothic architecture. [30a] A massive tower of freestone, erected early in the sixteenth century, stands apart from the church. The other principal buildings, for public purposes, are, a town-hall; a spacious modern gaol; a theatre; an assembly room, to which is attached an apartment used as a public library; a free school for instruction in “writing, cyphering, and learning,” and in the established religion; a meeting-house belonging to the Society of Friends, appropriated to the purpose of an infant school room; [30b] and the meeting-houses or chapels of the Independent, Baptist, and Wesleyan denominations of christians.
The population of Beccles, as stated in the census of 1831, was 3862, and is considered to be gradually increasing. The town possesses the commercial advantage of a communication by water with the sea at Yarmouth and Lowestoft. An extensive tract of marshes, formerly held by the abbot of Bury St. Edmund’s, as part of the manor of Beccles, has long been vested in incorporated trustees for the benefit of the inhabitants. There are also other lands held for charitable uses.
It is probable, that long before the arm of the sea had retired within the humble banks of the Waveney—while Yarmouth was yet a sand-bank, swept by the ocean—the spot in question had become the settled abode of some who found in the adjacent waters a ready means of subsistence. [31] It is generally supposed that the name, Beccles, was adopted with reference to a church which had been built here at an early period. [32] Possibly Sigebert, king of the East Angles, and founder of a monastery at Bury, might select this place, among others, for the establishment and propagation of the Christian faith, which he had imbibed during a voluntary exile in France. [33] The manor and advowson of Beccles were granted by King Edwy, about A.D. 956, to the monks of Bury, and remained in their possession until the dissolution of the religious houses under Henry the Eighth.
In most of its local features, as well as in its commercial, civil, and moral interests, the town has, no doubt, greatly improved since the period to which the close of the preceding chapter refers. Navigation and intercourse with other inland places have been facilitated; and trade, adapting itself to existing circumstances, has been extended. More efficient municipal regulations, and advancing civilization, have contributed to the preservation of order, and led to an extension of privileges to the inhabitants. Considerable progress has been made towards an improved system of prison discipline. [34] Schools, public and private, have, in some degree, tended to raise the tone of society, to soften the obdurate, and to tame the rude. The attachment to cruel, sensual, and frivolous amusements has abated, and a regard to the pursuits of literature and science has become perceptible. Nor can it be reasonably doubted that the exercise of an evangelical ministry in the separate congregation of the Independents, for nearly two centuries, and the labours of Christian ministers of other denominations, have been productive of incalculable moral, intellectual, and religious advantages to the town and neighbourhood.
The aspect of the place must have been very different when Mary succeeded to the crown of England. The parish church and its “beautiful gate,” were then more beautiful than at present. The tower, still the characteristic local feature of the town, was fresh and fair from the hands of the architect. Besides the wealthy abbey, there had been many contributors to the erection of these buildings, who had evinced a zeal in the completion of them worthy the imitation of protestants. But there is reason to believe that to those features a strong contrast was presented in the generally mean appearance, the gross ignorance, and moral deformity of the town. Coarse rushes, produced by the common lands with an abundance sufficiently indicative of an almost worthless soil, furnished the carpet and the covering of most of the dwelling-houses. [35a] Superstition prevailed in the public services of the sanctuary. The “men of wyrship” appear to have been greatly deficient in forbearance and liberality, while a large portion of the inhabitants were boisterously tenacious of civil rights, which they were scarcely competent to manage. [35b] The seal of the late corporation of Beccles Fen bears such a representation of the gaol, existing in 1584, as leaves no room to question the account of “one having hewed himself out of it.” [36]
Prodigal of human suffering as Mary was, it was nevertheless a part of her usual policy to make each instance of capital punishment for heresy tell as extensively as possible. Beccles, the centre of a rural district in which the principles of protestantism had taken root, never to be eradicated, was chosen to be the scene of the first martyrdom by which her agents in the diocese of Norwich sought to terrify her subjects into conformity. The account given by Fox of the occurrence, must occupy a place in these pages. It is intimately connected with the history of nonconformity in Beccles.