men long since gone to their rest and their reward; a faithful record of effort, toil, and suffering in a great and good cause; a stimulus to the present generation of Congregationalists, urging them to conduct worthy of their forefathers; a witness to the world that Congregationalism is not an impracticable theory, but a form of Christian life and effort, rich in blessing to any neighbourhood which entertains it, because it is the embodiment of Christian liberty in its largest possible corporate manifestation.

To God, whose truth I have endeavoured to maintain; to Christ, the image of whose church is here reflected; and to the Holy Spirit, who alone can quicken the truth, the church, and the hearts of men, I reverently commend my book.

Wrentham, December 1st, 1877.

J. B.

HISTORY OF CONGREGATIONALISM

AND

MEMORIALS OF THE CHURCHES

IN

NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

NORFOLK and Suffolk have long been distinguished by the zeal for Protestantism cherished and manifested in their towns and villages.

"One of the first sparks of the glorious Reformation of the Church which has enlightened all Europe, as well as many other parts of the world, was struck at the small village of Stradbrook in Suffolk; for Dr. Grosthead, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, a divine of great courage, learning, and piety, and who was contemporary with Wycliffe, and assisted him in his writings against the reigning superstitions and corruptions of the Romish Church, was a native of that parish."

"10

One of the first victims of the Writ "De hæretico comburendo"† was a Norfolk man.

Gillingwater's "Bury," pp. 125, 6.

"The Archbishop, or Bishop of every diocese, had power to convict any for heresy ; this is by the common law." But it was "by the Writ De hæretico comburendo, granted out of chancery upon a certificate of such conviction that heretics were burnt."-Jacob's Law Dictionary.

It was not till after the death of Wycliffe that "our history was stained with the record of any violence offered to a man in his civil interests for the freedom of his judgment in matters relating to faith and worship; for there was no burning statute yet in being. But the clergy, finding their power endangered, and the blind reverence paid to them much lessened by the spreading of these new opinions, were concerned to represent them as damnable as they could, and wheedled that weak prince Richard II. to give assent to

B

Foxe in his " Acts and Monuments," says:

"As King Henrie the fourth . . . was the first of all English kings that began the vnmercifull burning of Christ's saints for standing against the pope; so was William Sawtre, the true and faithfull martyr of Christ, the first of all them in Wyckliffe's time which I find to be burned in the raigne of the foresaid king, which was in the yeere of our Lord, 1400.”

This William Sawtre, "parish priest of the church of St. Margaret in the towne of Linne" (Lynn) appeared before the Bishop of Norwich on the last day of April, 1399, and being examined, said "he would not worship the cross on which Christ suffered, but only Christ that suffered upon the cross;" and being further examined "concerning the Sacrament of the altar, said and affirmed that after the words of consecration, by the priest duly pronounced, it remained very bread, and the same bread which was before the words spoken."

He was prevailed upon to abjure his opinions, on May 25th, in the churchyard of the chapel of St. James in Lynn; and the next day, in the church of the Hospital of St. John, "he sware and tooke his oth upon the holy Evangelists that he would never after that time preach openly and publickely the foresaid conclusions," &c.; but he afterwards repented of his weakness an ordinance bearing the title of an Act made in the Parliament at Westminster, Quinto Regis. One clause of it is as follows:

"Item. Forasmuch as it is openly known that there be divers evil persons within the realm, ' going from county to county, and town to town, in certain habits under dissimulation of much holiness, and without the license of the Ordinaries of the places, or other sufficient authority, preaching daily, not only in churches and churchyards, but also in markets, fairs, and open places, where a great congregation of people is, divers sermons containing heresies and notorious errors to the great emblemishing of Christian faith and destruction of the laws, and of the estate of Holy Church, to the great peril of the souls of the people and of all the realin of England which preachers cited or summoned before the Ordinaries of the places there to answer to that whereof they be impeached, they will not obey their summons and commands, nor care not for their monitions, nor censures of the Holy Church, but expressly despise them. It is ordained and assented in this present parliament that the King's commissions be made and directed to the sheriffs, and other ministers of our sovereign lord the King, or other sufficient persons learned, and according to the certifications of the prelates thereof to be made in chancery from time to time, to arrest all such preachers, and also their fautors, maintainers, and abetters, and to hold them in arrest, and strong prison, till they will justify to them according to the law and reason of holy Church. And the King willeth and commandeth that the chancellor make such commissions at all times, that he by the Prelates or any of them shall be certified, and thereof required as is aforesaid.

But this not being a true Act, the Parliament at the next session resented the imposture, and reciting the words as above, added-The which was never agreed nor granted by the Commons, but whatsoever was moved therein was without their assent, and therefore prayen the Commons that the said statute be disannulled; for it is not in any wise their meaning, that either themselves, or such as shall succeed them shall be further justified or bound by the Prelates than were their ancestors in former times; whereto it is answered Ill plaist au Roy, the King is pleased.' "Thus was this superstitious law repealed, and the forgery of it exposed; yet the craft of the ecclesiastics ordered matters so that the Act of Repeal was never published: nothwithstanding which the Wycliffians increased in number, and their presbyters began to confer holy orders: which so provoked the stout Bishop of Norwich, whom the Pope had before made commander of a croisado in his quarrel, that, soldier-like he swore, if he caught any of them preaching in his diocese, he would burn or behead them."-Review of the case of Judah and Ephraim, Lond.,

1705.

and was treated as a relapsed heretic, condemned by the archbishop of Canterbury, degraded, and handed over to the secular power, and then, by a special decree of the king, consigned to the fire. "We command you as straitly as we may or can . that you do cause the said William to be put into the fire, and there in the same fire really to bee burned, to the great horror of his offence, and the manifest example of other Christians." He accordingly suffered in London.

In the year 1424, John Florence of Shelton, and Richard Belward of Earsham, John Goddesell of Ditchingham, and Sir Hugh Pie, chaplain of Ludney (Loddon), were more than suspected of heresy, and had to purge themselves.

“After this, in the yeere of our Lord, 1428, King Henry the Sixth sent downe most cruell letters of commission by vertue of which we finde in old monuments that, within short space after, John Exeter, one of the commissioners, attached six persons in the towne of Bungay and committed them to William Day and William Roe, constables of the towne of Bungay . . . whose names, through the antiquitie of the monument, were so defaced that wee could not attaine to the perfect knowledge of them all onely three names partly remained in the booke to bee read, which were these: John Waddon of Tenterden, Kent; Bartlemew, monk of Earsham, Norfolk; Corneleader, a married man, William Scuts. These three were in the custody of the Duke of Norfolk, at his castle of Fremingham" (Framlingham).

"Besides these we also finde in the said old monuments within the diocesse of Norfolke and Suffolke, specially in the townes of Beckles, Ersham, and Ludney (Loddon), a great number both of men and women to have been vexed and cast into prison, and after their abjuration brought to open shame in churches and markets, by the Bishop of the said diocesse, called William, and his chancellor William Bernham, John Exeter being the Register therein; so that within the space of three or foure yeeres, that is, from the yeere 1428 unto the yeere 1431, about the number of 120 men and women were examined, and sustained great vexation for the profession of the Christian faith; of whom some were only taken upon suspition, for eating of meates prohibited vpon vigil daies, who, vpon their purgation made, escaped more easily away and with lesse punishment, whose names here follow subscribed."

Then follows "A catalogue of good men and women troubled for suspition of heresie," amounting to the number of a hundred and ten, "some of whom were cruelly handled, and some were put to death and burned," and others were forced to abjure and

do penance. Most of these had received their instruction from William White, a priest, who was a scholar and disciple of Wycliffe, and who in September, 1428, was burnt at Norwich.

Such were the men and women who in after ages became Puritans, and still later, Separatists.

After the lapse of a hundred years, in the reign of Henry VIII., we find Bilney "twice plucked from the pulpit" by monks and friars at St. George's Chapel, Ipswich; accused and examined on thirty-four articles, and finally burnt at Norwich in the Lollard's pit, Anno 1531: and Nicholas Bayfield, formerly a monk of Bury St. Edmund's, burnt for holding heretical opinions. and disseminating the works of the German reformers.†

In 1546, one Kerby, and Roger Clarke of Mendlesham, were apprehended at Ipswich, of whom the former was burnt at Ipswich, the latter at Bury.

It was in this reign the English Reformation commenced, but it started upon a wrong principle. Henry was anxious to cast off the authority of the Pope and to set up his own. The Act of Supremacy was passed 1531, and it gave him unlimited power to alter or to remove, to retain or to exclude whatever in the doctrine or service of the Church he pleased. That Act, as it is the corner stone of the English Reformed Establishment, must not be passed by in silence, especially as to it, and to the principle involved in it, may be traced all the tyrannical proceedings connected with the church for many years after it was recognised as law. The Act of Supremacy was the very “fons et origo mali”—the source and the spring of most of the evils which it is our lot to describe.

"The King our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England, and shall have and enjoy, annexed to the imperial crown of this realm, as well the style and title thereof, as all honours, dignities, pre-eminencies, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity of supreme head

Of these ten resided at Earsham, nine at Beccles, ten were ecclesiastics, one a servant, and one 'The heard of Shepemedow; the rest lived at Harlestone. Halvergate, Seething, Bedingham, Clippesby, Tunstall, Martham, Thurning, Costessey, Ditchingham, Barsham, Wymondham, Rockland, Merton, Mundham, Colchester, Bury, Eye, Bungay, &c. Foxe I., 886--7.

Foxe II., 258-278.