The Duke of Suffolk was now vigorously turning against Jane, despite the fact that she was his daughter, and even tore down her banner with his own hands, said she was no longer queen, and ordered his men to disarm.
The population of London went wild with joy at this news.

On 20th July many of the Council, including Arundel, had ridden to Framlingham to pledge allegiance to Mary, and to beg for forgiveness for ever supporting Jane. Sir William Waldegrave was there from Bury in her support, and even protestants like Edward Withipoll of Ipswich were now in Framlingham to pay court. By now, Northumberland's army had reached Bury, and the Framlingham army was mustered to attack them. In the event Northumberland retreated, and a smaller band went in pursuit of him and any supporters they could find.

Queen Mary would reign for only five years until 17th November 1558. She came to the throne on a wave of popular support, but would leave it almost universally despised. She now set about a Catholic revival, while promising freedom of worship.
The First Statute of Repeal was passed by Parliament which repealed all of Edward VI's protestant legislation.

Within days the churches in the City of London had alters and crucifixes installed. Nicholas Ridley was thrown into the Tower, and Stephen Gardiner replaced John Ponet as Bishop of Winchester. Stephen Gardiner also became her Lord Chancellor. He was a devout Catholic, and was the son of John Gardiner, a Bury St Edmunds Clothmaker. Like Nicholas Bacon, also of Bury origins, he probably helped the town by minimising the impact of the dissolution of the guilds, and helped the feoffees.

Many prominent protestants now left the country, all within a matter of three weeks. In a few more weeks many prominent men throughout the land were replaced in public offices by Catholics. Queen Mary replaced all of the religious provisions of both Henry VII and Edward VI's reign. Churches were ordered to re-equip for Catholic worship and the old services reinstated.

Queen Mary issued injunctions that removed the newly married priests from office.

In August Queen Mary married Philip, "the Prudent", of Spain in Winchester Cathedral. After her marriage the Heresy Laws were revived, and the Second Statute of Repeal aimed to undo Henry VIII's anti-papal legislation. The country was to return to the ways of 1529, but it was too late to undo the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

The martyrs were not just church officials, or prominent citizens. For example, James Abbes, a shoemaker from Stoke by Nayland, was burned at Bury in August, 1555. In September 1555, Thomas Cobbe, a butcher from Haverhill, suffered martyrdom at the stake at Thetford for his Protestant faith. He had denied transubstantiation and said that Baptism was not a sacrament.

Women could also suffer this fate. For example at Ipswich, in February 1556, Joan Trunchfield, a shoemaker's wife, and Anne Potton, a beer maker's wife, were both burned to death on the Cornhill for refusing to renounce the Protestant religion.

Three more Protestants were killed at Bury in November, only days before Bloody Mary herself was to die in her bed. They were Philip Umfreye, a tailor from Onehouse, and from Stradishall, John Davye, a shearman, and Henry Davye, a carpenter.

It is noticeable that nobody from the town of Bury itself was burned as a Protestant heretic. While Hadleigh had a strong Protestant movement, as had Ipswich, it was the Stour Valley and central Suffolk where anti-Catholic feeling was strongest at this time. Haverhill and Stradishall had their martyrs while much larger Bury did not.

Parliament had always refused to name Philip as a successor King of England, and so in November, as Mary lay dying, she named Elizabeth as her successor. Philip, now King of Flanders, as well as Spain, tried to maintain his hold on England.

Mary had come to the throne on a wave of popular support, but she died hated, on 17th November. Vast cheering crowds greeted Elizabeth to London. Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne and reigned for forty-four years.

The Act of Supremacy of 1559 once again made the monarch head of the English church. This has been called the Third Reformation of the English church, counting Henry's as the first and Edward VI's as the second. The Queen made herself Supreme Governor of the Church of England and decreed that her coat of arms should be placed in every church.

The Act of Uniformity authorised a new English Prayer Book, and levied a shilling fine on anyone not attending Sunday church of the new Protestant type. This prayer book was not quite so strict about the doctrine of transubstantiation and a concession was made which allowed crucifixes and some furnishings in church. Some vestments could be worn by priests and the sign of the cross could be made at Baptism. This was protestantism with enough of the old ways retained to appease those who missed the old religion. While this may have helped reconcile the ordinary folk to the new church, it satisfied neither the strong Catholic or the new Puritans.

At Hengrave Hall, Margaret Kytson died, to be succeeded by her son, Thomas Kytson, the younger. Thomas was a friend of the Duke of Norfolk, and at this time also came under suspicion for this association.

Although it covered all the early martyrs, its intent was to concentrate upon the sufferings of English Protestants in the Tudor period under Queen Mary. This page shows the death of Roland Taylor, Rector of Hadleigh and Archdeacon of Bury, who was burnt to death at Hadleigh in 1555.

The Feoffees even felt it necessary to finance a Town Preacher in Bury, and Puritan ideas led to a rise in religious discussion groups, and the clergy were as likely to be criticised as anyone else, for not being Godly enough. These ideas would gain more and more ground to the middle of the next century.

The Pope, Pious V, increased the pressure on England by issuing a Bull which excommunicated and deposed Queen Elizabeth I. This declaration, "Regnans in Excelsis", in effect meant that the Pope declared war on England. After this event Catholicism was regarded as treason in England, and penalties against them were more rigidly enforced.

One such man was John Copping, a local minister near Bury St Edmunds. In 1576 he was brought before the bishop of Norwich's commissary, and committed to prison at Bury, where he was charged with maintaining the following opinions:

• “That unpreaching ministers were dumb dogs:
• That whoever kept saints' days were idolaters:
• That the queen, having sworn to keep God's law, and set forth his glory as appointed in the scriptures, but did not, lay perjured:
• That for six months he had refused to have his own child baptized, because he had determined that none should baptize it who did not preach;
• and that he would not admit a godfather or godmother on the occasion.”

At home, the major issue was the refusal of Catholics to accept the official Protestant religion. This issue was made more dangerous by the presence of Mary Queen of Scots under house arrest in Derbyshire. She could at any time become the focus of a Catholic uprising. East Anglia was prosperous and densely populated, and Norfolk and Suffolk retained a number of important Catholic families. Not only that, but the Bishop of Norwich at the time was Edmund Freake. Freake seemed to be happy to come down heavily upon the Puritans, who were too extreme for the state sponsored religion, but to be reluctant to move against Catholics, who were much more feared by the government.

Therefore it was decided that a Progress up to Norwich would force these issues into the open. In May the first ideas were being discussed at Court. In mid June, Thetford and Norwich were given official notice to expect the Queen in August.

A visit to Melford Hall lasted from Saturday evening of August 2nd until early morning on Tuesday, 5th August, 1578.

On Tuesday, the Queen journeyed northwards to Lawshall Hall, the home of Henry Drury , where she dined, but did not stay overnight. Henry Drury was a Catholic, and although nothing happened while the Queen was at his home, he would later be arrested for his faith.

The Queen had stayed an unusual length of time at Bury, and left that town on Saturday 9th August, heading for Mr Rookwood's house at Euston for the weekend. Edward Rookwood was a Catholic gentleman, and brother to Ambrose Rookwood of Coldham Hall in Stanningfield. This two day visit by the Queen turned out to be a disaster for Rookwood. Usually nothing untoward would happen while the Queen was on the premises, but Lord Chamberlain Sussex berated Rookwood for coming before the Queen and ordered him to leave his own house. The Spanish ambassador would later report that Rookwood had received the Queen with a crucifix around his neck. A search was made of the premises, ostensibly to look for a missing piece of the royal plate, but a statue of the Virgin Mary was discovered, hidden in a hayrick. It was brought to the Queen who ordered it burnt.

On the 15th August, the parishioners of St James, in Bury St Edmunds, sent a petition to Lord Burghley, on behalf of their town preacher, John Handson. According to J S Craig, (SIAH Vol 37, part 3, 1991), it is likely that Handson had been called before the royal council, when in Bury, and indicted to appear before the next assize to answer for the doctrinal views in his preaching. Handson was a more radical Protestant than some more conservative townsmen could accept. There were 63 signatures all testifying that Handson was a true and faithful subject, beset by enemies and false accusations. This letter seems to have gained Handson a reprieve from further official action against him, but he still had enemies in the town.

On 22nd August, the Council had examined several recusants at Norwich, handing out such judgements as they thought fit, including house arrest with local reliable Protestants where they would receive daily persuasion to convert from the Bishop or his man. Edward Rookwood had also been summoned up from Euston, and he was now imprisoned in Norwich Gaol, where he stayed until October. Only Rookwood and Robert Downes were actually held in Norwich Gaol.

On her progress back from Norwich, the Queen stayed at Hengrave Hall for three nights from August 27th. Sir Thomas Kitson had only been knighted when the Queen had been in Bury a few weeks earlier, but he was fabulously wealthy. The stay was a notable one, outdoing many others by its lavish hospitality and entertainments.

At Hengrave the Privy Council met three times, continuing to concentrate on the perceived Catholic threat. They considered a list of 34 names from Suffolk, interviewing a group of them. Nine were sentenced to imprisonment for refusing to conform to the state religion. This was mostly a form of house arrest, in the house of other more reliable citizens. Henry Drury of Lawshall, Michael Hare of Bruisyard and Roger Martin of Melford all refused to conform and were sent to prison in Ipswich. John Daniel of Acton, Edmund Bedingfield of Denham and Henry Everard of Linstead and several others were sent to houses in Bury for their "imprisonment". Others like Edward Sulliard were sent to houses in Ipswich. Later, when Bedingfield was sick, he was allowed to move to Leiston Abbey, and the following year he was allowed to take the waters in Bath. Those in prison were sometimes moved out to private houses, and bailed to avoid the plague.

Robert Browne (1550?-1633) was a prominent Elizabethan Separatist. He was born in Tolethorpe, Rutlandshire, of a wealthy and prominent Northamptonshire family. Browne attended Cambridge University 1570-73. He received a B. A. (1572) from Corpus Christi College (Cambridge). It was while Browne was at Corpus Christi, that he first met Robert Harrison (154?-1585?). Harrison came from Norwich. In 1578 Browne became a member of the household of a Puritan clergyman at Dry Drayton outside Cambridge, the Rev. Richard Greenham. This “preaching minister” was one of those who remained loyal to the Church of England, but clung resolutely to simplicity of dress and worship. Browne preached in the area, but because of his objections to Bishops and church regulations, he refused to ask for a proper preaching license. He left the Cambridge area after about 6 months and Browne was able to persuade Harrison to establish their own Separatist congregation at Norwich early in 1581 based on their own ideas. At Norwich there was a large Dutch and Walloon population, sympathetic to radical Protestant ideas. This group is recognised as the first of what is now called the Congregationalists. Browne was also engaged in preaching at Bury St. Edmunds.

Browne's followers were the so-called Brownists, and they were active in Ipswich, Mildenhall and Thetford, but above all, at Bury St Edmunds. On 15th April, 1581, the Bishop of Norwich, Edmund Freke, visited Bury St Edmunds to assess the situation. He was so concerned that he wrote to Lord Burghley to report on separatist meetings held in this town. The Bishop told of meetings, "to the number of a hundred at a time in private houses and conventicles" to hear Robert Browne preach. The Bishop feared that expression of such radical views to such numbers was "not without danger of some ill event." He found "great divisions amongst the people."

In 1581 the separatist leader, Robert Browne, was put in prison by order of the Bishop of Norwich for his unlicensed and seditious preaching at Bury. By 1591 Browne had returned to the Church of England in Northamptonshire, but his followers kept his old ideas alive. The Congregationalists or Independents would later follow very similar ideas.

Unfortunately the separatist movement had the knock-on effect of reinforcing opposition to much less militant non-conformists. In 1581, town preacher at Bury John Handson had his preaching licence suspended by the Bishop of Norwich.

There was no hope of adopting any calendar of the Pope's while Puritans like the rector of Cockfield had any say. In 1582 John Knewstubb, who was a well known and prominent puritan, called a secret conference of 60 East Anglian clergy at Cockfield to discuss what parts of the prayer book they would accept or reject.

Bury St Edmunds was in the midst of a religious turmoil known as the "Bury Stirs". Certain Puritan leaning Suffolk magistrates like Sir Robert Jermyn and Sir John Higham were frequently in dispute with the Bishop of Norwich, Edmund Freke. Similarly, within the town, there were those inclined towards Puritanism, who considered themselves to be Godly men, who were constantly at odds with the more conservative supporters of the official church doctrines. This enmity led to underhand tricks and misrepresentations, followed by appeal and counter-appeal to the authorities.

James Gayton, the Town Preacher for St Mary's parish, left Bury St Edmunds in early 1582, unable to bear the situation any longer. In June John Handson also left the town, blaming, "the violent and continual practices...of some men's malice."

By August, 1582, both of Bury's town preachers, John Handson and James Gayton, had left the town because of the conservative hostility to their preachings. This caused 174 local men to appeal to the Privy Council to send commissioners to enquire into the matter. Town preachers were paid by contributions from parishioners, and the failure to meet these payments, on the part of some objectors, was the material reason why they had to seek "employment" elsewhere.

One further incident which inflamed the situation involved the royal coat of arms which was displayed in St Mary's church. Some townsmen had organised the painting of part of a verse from Revelations around the Queen's arms. The inscription of part of Revelations chapter 2, verse 19, was taken as a direct criticism of Queen Elizabeth and her church. This graffitto was seen as treason in official quarters, and was to be quoted as evidence against any form of dissent.

This verse seems innocent enough on its own:

"I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first."
but it merely introduces the next verse which goes as follows:

"Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols."

The implication that the Queen is equated with Jezebel makes this inscription much more serious than it first appeared.

The underlying issue was the Reformation itself. How far should reform go? The crown wanted to keep the peace by fixing upon an official form of worship, which it hoped would appeal to all sides. This was supported by the Bishops and the church hierarchy. Those who wanted to go further covered a spectrum of beliefs from merely rejecting the wearing of the surplice or the clerical hat, to those who rejected the idea of a church hierarchy of any description. These were the separatists, or Brownists, who wanted to set up a separate congregation untramelled by the rule of Bishops.

It is fair to say that both sides misrepresented the ideas of their opponents in order to discredit them, and both sides refused to accept the good faith of the other. The Puritans referred to everybody else as "irreligious persons", or "backward men in religion". Bishop Freke in 1581 had referred to the non-conformists as "those given to fantastical innovations" as compared to those who had a "dutifull affection to have Her Majesties proceedings observed", and it was a "vulgar sort of people" who favoured innovation.

The conservative elements within the town who opposed the radical views of the town preachers were mainly the Governors of the Grammar School and the Guildhall Feoffees. Of the 24 Feoffees, only Thomas Badby had broken ranks and signed the petition to the Privy Council on behalf of the town preachers. Although small in number, the Feoffees had power and influence within Bury St Edmunds, and could command a hearing by the highest in the land.

By November John Handson had returned to Bury, persuaded back by his flock who promised to stand by him. On 6th November, they wrote another appeal to Lord Burghley, signed by 144 inhabitants. The appeal said that Handson had returned as he was "sent for by a general consent", but "he will not execute his office" until he was sure of a peaceful reception. The letter claimed the support of 400 parishioners, against "the false accusations of of a few infamous persons who cannot abide the godly preacher of the word."

Because of the general air of dissent and tension in Bury St Edmunds in 1582, the Assize judges avoided a sitting in Bury during this year.

By 1583, the Reverend John Copping had been on remand in Bury St Edmunds goal for seven years. At some point he was joined by Elias Thacker, prosecuted for distributing Browne's pamphlets. Although imprisoned, their preaching so undermined good order in the jail that something more had to be done. They tried to get a writ of Habeas corpus, but at the trial the prosecution barrister associated them with the seditious graffiti around the Queen's coat of arms found in St Mary's Church the previous year. The sentence passed upon them was founded upon the 23rd Eliz. law against seditious libels, and for refusing the oath of supremacy. They acknowledged the supremacy of the queen in civil matters only, not in matters ecclesiastical, thereby subverting the constitution of the established church.

The Judge passed the death penalty, and both men were sentenced to hang at Tay Fen, just outside the line of Bury's ancient wall. The authorities collected together all that could be found of Brown's books, prior to their execution, and burnt them before their eyes. Lord Chief Justice Wray claimed that there were many of Copping and Thackers' opinions in the town, and that the example made of them would act as a deterrent.

Only one man was convicted of arranging for the defacing of the royal arms. He was Thomas Gibson, a Bury bookbinder, who was fined for his part in the action.

A minister was later convicted for claiming that if the executions had taken place a year earlier, there would have been another 500 people in the crowd at the hangings. Clearly by 1583 the reforming zeal had been damped down somewhat within Bury St Edmunds. Nevertheless these ideas were widespread in West Suffolk. At Thetford, the separatist preacher William Dennis was also hanged in 1583.

Meanwhile Browne, the well off and well connected writer of the pamphlets, was free at large while others were being arrested and hanged for selling his books. Browne himself has often been called the father of Congregationalism.

In Whiting Street there is a memorial to John Copping and Elias Thacker, hanged in 1583 for distributing puritan literature and supporting independency. This memorial was erected in 1904 in the grounds of the Congregational Church.

In Bury, since the Dissolution of the abbey, the town had fallen under an increasingly oligarchic administration by the capital burgesses. The inhabitants complained to the crown and a commission was appointed to look into how the Feoffees were administering the town lands. To some extent this was a move by the puritan leaning townspeople against the conservative Feoffees, and, in particular, Thomas Andrews, in revenge for their attacks upon the town preachers.

Thomas Andrews, a conservative Feoffee who had led the legal machinations against the townspeople, died during 1585, and for the first time, there was a proper Michaelmas accounting by the Feoffees. The list of signatories now included Sir John Higham and four men who had petitioned in favour of the town preachers. The "godly" faction had at last gained the upper hand in Bury St Edmunds, and this ascendancy of puritan thought would prevail for decades to come. The town, the Feoffees and the School governors were all now in puritan hands.

Mosse was now supported in his puritan leanings by the majority of the town, unlike the position of his predecessors in the post, just a few years earlier. Illustrative of this sea change in control are the Feoffee accounts, which showed between £2 and £4 a year spent on both parish churches and their ministers from 1582 to 1585. In 1586, after the demise of Thomas Andrews, and the enquiry into Feoffee accounts, expenditure on church and ministers shot up to £50. In 1588 it would rise to £58 and by 1589 it reached a level of £82, where it would stand for another decade.

One of the new Reader's duties was to give the regular Combination Lectures, held on Mondays. These were open to both clergy and to lay people. Mosse seems to have thought that this provision could be improved upon, and he soon extended them.

These land defences were not needed as the Spanish Armada was defeated by Sir Francis Drake. However, the threat of domination by a foreign Catholic power helped to stir up further pressure to be put on Catholics refusing to go to church, who were also seen as potential traitors to the crown.

According to a University of Paris website, Miles Mosse was the son of Miles Mosse of Chevington, and was born in 1558. He was educated at Bury Grammar School and Caius College, Cambridge, gaining his first degree in 1579. In 1585 he became vicar of St Stephens in Norwich. In 1586 he became the Reader at St James in Bury St Edmunds at a salary of £48 a year. He would be Rector of Combes in Suffolk from 1597 until his death in 1615.

Mosse has been credited with producing the most elaborate discussion of usury in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Such a work and the debates it inspired would be reflected in William Shakespeare's play, "The Merchant of Venice", produced in 1619.

To compose an effective sermon, access to books was considered crucial. Mosse cited one hundred and fifty seven authors, prefacing his work with a list of pre-Reformation authorities running into several pages. These books had most likely been in the hands of the great monastery libraries before 1539.

The library of the abbey of St Edmund had long since been broken up, and individual collectors had acquired some of these books. Unfortunately we do not know the source of the books quoted by Mosse, or who their current owners were. Mosse saw that it was essential to build up a new library in Bury St Edmunds for use in the education of local clergy. As he was the lecturer at St James's, (now the cathedral), the new library was instituted at the east end of the north aisle of that church. Mosse generously donated volumes on various topics from his own collection. He continued to donate items, as did other rich local patrons of the church. By 1599 the St James library would hold 138 titles.

J S Craig has suggested that the St James Parish Library was the first parochial library of its kind in the country, as distinct from collections of prescribed texts or school books.

James I had more extreme religious views than had Queen Elizabeth I, who believed in keeping things as moderate as possible in an attempt to keep most people happy. James had a strong belief in witchcraft, and so a new Witchcraft Act was passed which gave the penalty for practising witchcraft to be death by hanging.

Bury St Edmunds and its surrounding countryside still held many Catholic families, many of them officially recorded as recusants, that is they refused to attend Protestant services.

It was not unusual to install priest holes into their grand houses in which a travelling priest could hide in the event of a visit from the authorities. Nicholas Owen of Oxborough Hall in Norfolk was the architect of many such installations. At Coldham Hall in Stanningfield, Ambrose Rokewood had such a priest hole in his house. Coldham Hall had been built by his father, Robert, in 1574.

Ambrose Rokewood was a rich young Catholic with a reputation for his stable of fine horses. Somehow, very late in the Gunpowder Plot, he was persuaded to supply the plotters with swift horses for their escape. The plot was discovered on November 5th 1605, and by the following January the plotters, including Rokewood were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason.

Ipswich had been appointing Puritan town preachers since the time of Queen Elizabeth. The most notable of these was to be Samuel Ward, the son of John Ward, the Puritan preacher from Haverhill. At the age of 28, Samuel was appointed Town Preacher for Ipswich on 1st November, 1605. His uncompromising views on how the Reformation should be carried forward were fully supported by Ipswich town and corporation, and he remained in this post until his death in 1640.

Along with the new workhouse, St Peter's Hospital in Out Risbygate had just been refitted as a house of correction. The massive growth in poverty and near starvation was met by a growth in workhouse and correctional places.

In addition the King levied a "forced loan" on the country without Parliamentary support. In Suffolk, several men were imprisoned for refusing to comply. Among them was Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston, who was, as well as a Puritan, a strong defender of the rights and privileges of Parliament. He was a Suffolk MP from Kedington.

The 1630s were a period of continuing religious tension. There was a division between the renewal of high church practices and a continued development of puritan ideas, which rejected elaborate, organised and hierarchical forms of religion.

Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston appointed Samuel Fairclough, his fiery puritan Rector of Barnardiston, to the living at Kedington, as Rector. The influence of such men made the Haverhill area a stronghold of Puritan values.

Nationally, as well as locally, large scale emigration to Massachusetts now began. In 1628 a group of Puritan investors had set up the "The New England Company for a Plantation in Massachusetts Bay" to help people emigrate to the New World, seeking religious freedom.

From 1611 to 1633 George Abbott had been Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of puritan sympathies. During his reign men like Samuel Ward, Town Preacher of Ipswich, had largely got away with preaching puritanism, offending the Spanish ambassador, attacking the Duke of Buckingham and opposing church ceremonies. This attitude would change in late 1633.

For ten years Edmund Calamy had been preaching to a packed church of St Mary's in Bury. In 1633 the government had felt obliged to issue lists of games, called the "Book of Sports", which could be played on Sundays without necessarily profaning the Sabbath, which included Morris Dancing and May games. Calamy had refused to read out this list in church as he disagreed with it. Puritans thought that the whole of Sunday should be for worship, and that no sport whatsoever should be played on a Sunday. After being sacked from the church he moved to London and would edit the "Soldier's Pocket Bible", a Puritan best seller during the Civil War.

The high churchman, Bishop Wren of Norwich, lost his bishopric in 1638. He had been Bishop of Norwich only since 1635, but had stirred up a hornets nest in Suffolk and Norfolk by his high church reforms. In 1642 he was impeached by the Puritan parliament for his high church ways. When accused of driving good puritans to emigrate, Bishop Wren himself blamed emigration on the low wages caused by the depression in the cloth industry in those areas.

All superstitious pictures and inscriptions in churches were ordered to be removed and defaced in 1641. There was another ordinance to this effect in 1643, but Suffolk did not necessarily suffer from this until 1644, following the appointment of William Dowsing. However, it does appear that in many places the local congregations supported Parliament's Puritan line, and where the local hierarchy were of a similar mind, the people themselves willingly carried out the Parliament's will.

In Ireland, 3000 Ulster Protestants were massacred by Catholics who had been disposessed by James I's Ulster Plantations Policy.

Later in January, on the 25th, Hengrave Hall was also searched by the same gentlemen, and large quantities of arms removed by their 30 attendants. Hengrave was the home of Lady Penelope Gage, the sister of Elizabeth Savage, although the property belonged to Countess Rivers. Lady Penelope protested that the arms and armour had been in Catholic hands for 100 years, "and never yet hurt a finger of anybody", but to no avail. The Gages were prominent Catholics, and Lady Penelope wrote to Countess Rivers of being "daily threatened by the common sort of people".

Even before the war began, Bury St Edmunds was one of only 22 places in England to raise volunteers for the Parliament. Men like Thomas Chaplin, Bury Alderman and a linen draper would become active in the County Committee, as would Thomas Gibbs, a Bury Alderman, and Samuel Moody, another Bury Alderman and a cloth merchant. Such men would have recruited these volunteers.

On August 22nd, 1642, the English Civil War officially began when the King raised his standard at Nottingham. This phase is also called the First civil War, and would last from 1642 to 1646.

Charles I was so unpopular because of ship money, and other arbitrary taxes, that Suffolk gentry in general supported Parliament. When it came to fighting, most of the gentry in Suffolk seem to have done their best to remain neutral, but undoubtedly the activists in Suffolk were a mixture of the puritans and parliamentarians. Ipswich, Lavenham and Aldeburgh were strongly for Parliament. Ipswich fortified itself against the King's fleet.

Gordon Blackwood has shown that in East Suffolk there were twice as many gentry supporting Parliament as supported the King. However, in West Suffolk, their numbers were very even, with only a majority of two in favour of Parliament.

Neither did Catholics fully support the King. Gordon Blackwood showed that of 34 Suffolk Catholic families, only six supported Charles I. Of the 64 Royalist gentry families in Suffolk, these six Catholic families made up a mere nine percent.

In Suffolk less than 100 prominent men and their families were supporters of the King and any non-puritan way of religion. They would be in peril as tension mounted. Riots broke out along the Stour Valley on the Suffolk Essex border. There was much unemployment in the cloth trade at this time, and the anti-enclosure movement both contributed to such riots. Men stood around with time on their hands, and religious and political issues could cover up the desire for revenge and the need for plunder.

One local Royalist who was willing to fight was Colonel Thomas Blague of Horringer. In 1642 he fought for the king at Edgehill, and would fight in many battles.

In September, Brandon was seized by the Parliamentary forces, and a garrison established there.

William Dowsing of Laxfield was appointed by Lord Manchester to be Parliamentary visitor for England in December 1643. He was to execute the ordinance of August 1643 for the defacement of superstitious images, pictures and inscriptions.

Dowsing himself visited 150 churches in 50 days. From 20th December 1643 until 2nd January 1644 Dowsing began his work in Cambridge. He worked in Cambridgeshire until 5th January, 1644 (modern dating), but also on that day he moved to Withersfield. It was his fourth church on that day.
"At Withersfield, we brake down 3 crucifixes and 80 superstitious pictures."

Dowsing arrived in Clare on Saturday 6 January. One of his deputies was Thomas Westhropp, who lived at Hundon. They visited Hundon church that day.

Moving to Sudbury on January 9th, they dealt with three churches there.
"Sudbury, Suffolk. Peter’s parish. Jan. 9 1643. (ie modern 1644) We brake down a picture of God the Father, 2 crucifixes, & pictures of Christ, about an hundred in all; and gave order to take down a cross of[f] the steeple; and diverse angells, 20 at least, on the roof of the church.
40. Sudbury, Gregory parish. Jan. 9. We brake down 10 mighty great angels in glass, in all, 80.
41. Allhallows [All Saints], Jan. 9. We brake about 20 superstitious pictures; and took up 30 brazen superstitious inscriptions, Ora pro nobis, and Pray for the soul etc."

Dr Dowsing visited St Marys in Haverhill on January 6th, and, in his own words,
"We brake down about 100 superstitious pictures and seven friars hugging a nun; and a picture of God and Christ; and diverse others very superstitious; and 200 had been broke before I came. We took away two Popish inscriptions with "Ora pro nobis", and we beat down a great stoney cross on top of the Church".
However, it seems that 200 superstitious pictures had already been destroyed by Haverhill people before Dowsing arrived.

At Clare, also on January 6th,
"We brake down a 1000 pictures superstitious; and brake down 200, 3 of God the Father, and 3 of Christ, and the Holy Lamb, and 3 of the Holy Ghost like a dove with wings; and the 12 Apostles were carved in wood, on the top of the roof, which we gave order have taken down; and 20 cherubims to be taken down. And the sun and moon in the east window, by the King’s Arms, to be taken down."

On 5th February, after crossing Suffolk, he stayed in Bury St Edmunds, where it is suggested that he may have lodged with the Moody family, relatives of Thomas Westhropp. His journal notes that
"Bury St Edmunds, Feb. 5. Mary’s parish. Mr. Chaplin undertook to do down the steps and to take away the superstitious pictures.
James’s parish. Mr. Moody undertook for."

On February 6th he was returning to Cambridge, stopping at some churches en route.
"At Newmarket they promised to amend all", presumably without too much prompting from Dowsing.

Thus in some places he was welcomed by at least some of the people. At others he met some resistance. Dowsing collected a fee from each church for his work of destruction. At Great Cornard the churchwarden, John Pain, refused to pay, and was arrested. Dowsing also noted another reluctant payer:
"Thomas Umberfield of Stoke [Tendryng Hall chapel, Stoke by Nayland], refused to pay the 6s. 8d. A crucifix; and divers superstitious pictures. Feb. 2"

Dowsing continued to travel Cambridgeshire and Suffolk carrying out his mission until October.

In March Lord Manchester appointed a panel of ten men to examine all the ministers and schoolmasters in Suffolk who were defying the will of Parliament or were scandalous in their lives, or were "fomentors of this unnatural war". They also had to administer the Covenant passed in the previous year. Any five of them were authorised to act and certify them to Manchester.

Two committees for scandalous Ministers were thus appointed to remove anti-puritan clergy in East and West Suffolk. Royalists were referred to as 'malignants' and high churchmen were called 'scandalous'. About 100 Suffolk clergy were evicted, including Richard Hart, Rector of Hargrave, and Robert Goodrick, Rector of Horringer. At Barningham the rector Randolf Gilpin had held the living since 1629. He had various disputes with his flock over the tithe arrangements, and they disliked him. He seems to have been evicted as early as 1642, possibly because the local Squire was Maurice Barrow, a man so in tune with the Puritan line that he was appointed to the County Committee for Scandalous Ministers.

In December 1644, a parliamentary ordinance was passed to abolish the celebration of Christmas, the most popular church festival of the year. This law would be largely ignored until 1647 when a further order became necessary.

In August Parliament changed the structure of the Church of England from episcopacy to presbyterianism. They had already abolished episcopacy in 1643, and needed a replacement structure. Each Parish would now be run by a committee. Ministers were appointed and so were lay elders for each parish area.

A Presbytery consisted of the Minister, a number of elders, deacons and in some cases, widows. Each Parish had a Presbytery, the basic unit of church management. Once set up, their main job was to act as a church court for the area, and in due course, to appoint the minister.

In Suffolk the ministers of groups of 12 parishes combined together to consider common matters of government covering the grouping. Each group of 12 parishes was called a "classis". So by November Suffolk was divided into 14 classical presbyteries to replace deaneries and archdeaconries.

Matthew Hopkins, the self appointed Witchfinder General, was responsible for many trials of witches in various parts of the eastern counties. He played upon peoples fears and beliefs until the largest such trial in England at the time took place in Bury St Edmunds.

In August 1645 this notorious trial of witches took place in court at Shire Hall in Bury. Neighbours and self appointed searchers had dragged 124 old women and a few men to Bury Jail.

A woman called Binks was accused of witchcraft and examined by John Stern, the witch-hunter, and Samuel Fairclough, then vicar of Kedington, in Haverhill market place.

The Headmaster of Bury's Grammar School was a royalist sympathiser, Dr Stephens. He was finally sacked for his views as a "notorious malignant" in 1645.