HISTORY OF LYNN. PART III.

History of Lynn from the establishment of the Normans in England to the Reformation.

CHAP. I.

Observations on the Conquest—account of the changes then introduced—their effects on the kingdom at large, and on Lynn and its vicinity in particular.

The conquest of England by the Normans appears to have been no less complete than those which had been before effected by the Romans, the Saxons, and the Danes. The English grandees were generally stript of their possessions, and their lands divided among the conqueror’s chief favourites and great captains, who then became the nobles of the realm, and from whom are descended most of our present great families. This conquest was obtained much easier than any of those that preceded it. A single battle now determined the fate of the whole country, partly, as was before observed, through the defection, intrigues, and influence of the clergy, most of whom were in the interest of the invader, as he was supported by their holy father the Pope, who had distinguished him by such special marks of his favour as, could not fail of attaching them to his cause.

William’s army consisted of 60,000 men; not all his own subjects, (for his duchy could not furnish and maintain such a force) but made up chiefly of adventurers, or soldiers of fortune, who had engaged in the expedition, on the promise of forfeited lands, in proportion to the numbers they brought with them. Accordingly, some are said to have afterward bestowed on them no less than 700 manors, others 5, 4, 3, 2, and 100, or less; insomuch that all the land in England, if we except the royal demesnes, the church lands, and those annexed to the cities and boroughs, were in no more than about 700 hands, whose wide possessions were again distributed among their numerous vassals, according to the principles of the feudal system, which was now completely introduced and established in England. [328]

In consequence of this change, it became a fundamental maxim, and necessary principle of our English tenures, that the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all the lands in his kingdom, and that no man doth or can possess any part of it, but what has, mediately or immediately, been derived from him, to be held upon feudal services. This engrafting of the feudal tenure on almost all the land in the kingdom, is said to have been the most important alteration which our civil and military policy then underwent. [329a] The great lords held their lands of the king, by certain services, as all their vassals held theirs also of them. Thus the king had the whole power of the country closely connected with, and dependent upon himself. This state of things was calculated, no doubt, to secure the kingdom from external danger, and may be considered as laying the foundation of that high military character which England afterwards held among its neighbours.

A vast demesne was now set apart for the king, amounting to 1422 manors, together with many other lands which had never been erected or formed into manors. Besides these he had the profits of all his feudal tenures, his worships, marriages, and reliefs; the benefit of excheats, either upon failure of heirs, or forfeiture; the goods of felons and traitors; the profits of his courts of justice; besides many other casualties, which amounted to an immense revenue; insomuch that the Conqueror, as we are informed, had no less than 1060l. 10s. a day, the annual amount of which, allowing for the comparative value of moneys &c. was equal to several millions (perhaps twenty or more) of ours. [329b] So large a revenue might probably justify the saying of Fortescue, that originally the King of England was the richest in Europe.

We are told, that William’s military tenants were obliged, on all occasions, to furnish 60,000 knights, completely equipped, and ready to serve forty days at their own expence. Every seaport also, in proportion to its ability, was obliged to find, in time of danger, one or more ships properly furnished with men and arms; which, joined with such other ships as the king hired were generally an overmatch for the invaders. [330] Thus we see how powerful and formidable England became after the conquest, in its means of defence and resistance, under its Norman sovereigns.

Whilst we are noticing the changes now introduced into this country, it may not be improper to observe, that the feudal system was a favourite branch of the Norman policy, and which they appear carefully to have established wherever they could get a firm footing. They did so, not only in Normandy and England, but also in Sicily, which they appear to have subdued much about the time of which we are now speaking, and which has groaned under the oppression of that System ever since, even to this day. Of the commencement of that order of things in that island, and its present aspect and bearings, a very recent writer gives the following account, which may serve to cast some light on the state of our country at the period now under consideration.

“Roger the Norman, conqueror of Sicily, and contemporary with our William the First, on his accession to the throne, divided the lands of the kingdom into three portions—One third of these was called the demesnes of the Crown, which are administered by the corporation of the royal towns where they are situated; each town, according to the revenue of its demesnial lands, pays to the king a certain income, besides maintaining the police, roads, &c. &c. and the tribute which each territory pays is called the royal patrimony.—The next third part of these lands was distributed by King Roger among his nobles; some of these were fiefs contained within the territory of the demesnial towns, while others had a town of their own, of which the estate or barony formed the territory. Sometimes townships of these baronial towns have estates belonging to them, which are administered by their corporations, called giurati.—The remaining third portion was either distributed among the bishops and mitred abbots, or served to endow the several Convents, which in an age fertile in superstition were so generally established.

“This distribution of property has remained thus ever since the Norman Conquest; and all the noble fiefs, as they are held by a grant in military tenure, are supposed to belong to the crown, and given to a family and their descendants, subject to military service. This Circumstance supposes an absolutely strict entail, which prevents the sale of fiefs without the king’s sanction; (verbo regio;) it supposes also the indivisibility of the fief—hence the rights of promogeniture, which has reduced the younger branches of families to a most miserable state. Thus the lands of the nobles are entailed in their families. Those of the church are attached to it, and the demesne lands are equally so to the corporations, as above-mentioned.” [331]

Of the orders of Society in Sicily, the same writer says—

“Those princes, dukes, marquisses, and barons, who hold estates which have a town, or sufficient population, are called parliamentary barons, and have a right to sit in the assembly of the nobles: all others are called rustic fiefs, and give no right of this kind to their landlords, though they be decorated with a title.—The next order of men are the clergy, who form a distinct assembly or house of parliament, and consists of archbishops, bishops, archimandrites, mitred abbots, &c. The principal of these are younger brothers of the noble families; so that, in fact, the ecclesiastical house of parliament is tied to the lords.—The next order of men consists of a second rank of nobles, who hold fiefs without burghs, or towns, and who, though they have the same splendid titles, have no seat in the parliament. The next order are the burghers of the different towns; these apply to agriculture, to the church, and to the medical and legal professions: then come the artisans and peasants. These are the peasants of the demesne, and those who are the vassals of the parliamentary lords.”

After noticing the multiplied miseries under which the bulk of the people is involved by this wretched order of things, which forms an insuperable obstacle in the way of national happiness and prosperity, our author informs us, that, according to the original constitution of Sicily, the three houses of parliaments have the faculty of granting supplies to the Crown; but the majority of the two houses (he says) are sufficient; by which means the house of commons, or demesnial assembly becomes totally nugatory, and the lords and ecclesiastics, after generously granting the supplies, throw the whole burden of them on the commons. Whatever remonstrances are made, the matter is left to the decision of those who have done the evil, and the mischief is thus perpetuated: [333] for it seems they never think of yielding in the least to the remonstrances of the commons, or complaints of the people.

In Sicily the feudal system exists without its original energies; and it may be said to exist in its very worst state, so as to spend all its force in oppressing beyond measure the middle and lower orders of the community, or great body of the nation, without contributing to the real benefit of any. The consequence is that the people, for the most part, groan hopelessly under their burdens, and seem perfectly indifferent about the issue of the present contest with France. Yet some people seem to wonder at their supineness, and their not rising as one man in defence of their king and country. They might probably have done so, had their rulers been wise, and left them what would have been worth contending for, or defending. When rulers cease to feel for the people, it is not unnatural or unusual for the people also to cease to feel for them. This, perhaps, will apply to many of the recent changes among the European powers.

Beside the feudal system, our Norman conqueror introduced into this country divers other innovations—One of which was the separation of the Spiritual courts from the Civil; which was effected (says Blackstone) in order to ingratiate the new king with the popish clergy, who for sometime before had been endeavouring all over Europe to exempt themselves from the secular power; and whose demands the conqueror, like a politic prince, thought it prudent to comply with, by reason that their reputed sanctity had a great influence over the minds of the people; and because all the little learning of the times was engrossed into their hands, which made them necessary men, and by all means to be gained over to his interests. And this was the more easily effected, because the episcopal sees being then in the breast of the king, he had taken care to fill them with Italian and Norman prelates. This innovation produced very grievous consequences; so that by degrees the rights and privileges of the English clergy were delivered up into the hands of the Pope, who taxed them at his pleasure, and in process of time drained the kingdom of immense treasures: for besides all his other dues, arising from annates, first fruits, peter-pence, &c. he extorted large sums of money from the clergy for their preferments in the church. He advanced foreigners to the richest bishopricks, who never resided in their dioceses, nor so much as set foot upon English ground, but sent for all their profits to a foreign country; nay so covetous was his Holiness, that before livings became void, he sold them provisionally among his Italians, insomuch that neither the king nor his clergy had any thing to dispose of, but every thing was bargained before hand at Rome. [334]

Another grievous innovation, introduced at the same period, consisted in the depopulation of whole countries for the purposes of the king’s royal diversion; and subjecting both them and all the ancient forests of the kingdom to the unreasonable severities of forest laws imported from the continent, whereby the slaughter of a beast was made almost as penal as the death of a man. In the Saxon times, though no man was allowed to kill or chase the king’s deer, yet he might start any game, pursue, or kill it, upon his own estate. But the rigour of these new constitutions vested the sole property of all the game in England in the king alone; and no man was entitled to disturb any fowl of the air, or beast of the field, of such kinds as were specially reserved for the royal amusement of the sovereign, without express licence from the king, by a grant of a chase, or free warren: and those franchises were granted as much with a view to preserve the breed of animals as to indulge the subject. From a similar principle to which, though the forest laws are now mitigated, and by degrees grown entirely obsolete, yet from this root has sprung a bastard slip, known by the name of the game law, now arrived to and wantoning in its highest vigour: both founded upon the same unreasonable notions of permanent property in wild creatures; and both productive of the same tyranny to the commons; but with this difference, that the forest laws established only one mighty hunter throughout the land, the game laws have raised a little Nimrod in every manor. [335]

Another innovation produced by the conquest was, “narrowing the remedial influence of the country-courts, the great seats of Saxon justice, and extending the original jurisdiction of the king’s justiciaries to all kinds of causes arising in all parts of the kingdom. To this end the Aula-regis, with all its multifarious authority, was erected; and a capital justiciary appointed, with powers so large and boundless, that he became at length a tyrant to the people, and formidable to the crown itself. The constitution of this court, and the judges themselves who presided there, were fetched from Normandy: and the consequence naturally was, the ordaining that all proceedings in the king’s courts should be carried on in the Norman [or French] instead of the English language:—a provision the more necessary, because none of his Norman justiciaries understood English; but as evident a badge of slavery as ever was imposed upon a conquered people.” And yet the nation was obliged to submit to it and bear it, for ages. The former plainness and simplicity now gave way to the abstruseness, chicanery, and subtilty, which have ever since so unhappily characterized our legal proceedings. [338a]

Another of the hateful innovations of the same memorable period was, the introduction of the trial by combat, for the decision of all civil and criminal questions of fact in the last resort. This was the immemorial practice of all the northern nations, but first reduced to regular and stated forms among the Burgundi, about the close of the fifth century: and from them it passed to other nations, particularly the Franks and the Normans; which last had the honour to establish it here, though clearly an unchristian, as well as most uncertain method of trial. But it was a sufficient recommendation of it to the conqueror and his warlike countrymen, that it was the usage of their native duchy of Normandy. [338b] This vile remain of ancient barbarism, and foul disgrace of the legal polity of our ancestors, has long ceased to exist in our island.

As the general changes introduced by the conqueror must have affected the inhabitants of Lynn, in common with the rest of their countrymen, the above sketch of them became necessary, in order to give the reader some idea of the state of things here at and subsequent to the conquest. Before and at that period, as has been already observed, Lynn and its neighbourhood formed part of the possessions of Harold, of Stigand archbishop of Canterbury, and of Ailmar bishop of Elmham. All the possessions of the former, of course were forfeited by the conquest. Those of the two others soon followed; for being both Anglo-Saxons, (or Englishmen,) and deemed inimical to the Norman succession, they were both expelled, and their sees filled by foreigners. Ailmar’s power and possessions here were in right of his see, and of his lordship of Gaywode, which had been long attached to that see: those of Stigand were in his own right, or that of his lordship of Rising, and that of the hundred of Freebridge, which he held, (as well as the lordship of the hundred of Smithdon, and many other lordships,) as a lay fee. His possessions in these parts were bestowed by he conqueror on his half brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux, in Normandy, whom he created Earl of Kent. On his rebellion afterward against William Rufus, he was deprived of them, and they were bestowed on William de Albini, that king’s butler, whose son, of the same names, was created Earl of Sussex [of this more may be seen in the account of Castle Rising.]—Ailmar’s possessions here went to his successor Arfast or Herfast, who removed the see from Elmham to Thetford, in whose successors they continued for many generations.

Most, if not all the great gentry of England, in these parts, and throughout the whole kingdom, at or within a few years after the conquest, were deprived of their power, stript of their possessions, and completely humbled. Great numbers of them lost their lives under the charge of treason, sedition, or other crimes. Those who escaped with their lives were reduced to poverty, and obliged to occupy such humble stations as they could not one day have thought of without disdain. [340] This memorable revolution, (as such revolutions mostly do,) chiefly affected the higher orders. It affected them, indeed, with a vengeance. The middle classes seem to have felt but little of it, at least compared with their superiors. The lower orders felt it still less, or, perhaps, not at all. They were slaves before, and so they continued for several ages after, seemingly without any material change. Nor does their hard condition appear to have been at all ameliorated till after the civil wars broke out between the rival houses of York and Lancaster. The fatal effects of those wars in reducing the numbers of each party, obliged the leaders (as has been before observed) to turn their attention to the lower orders, that is to the real slaves, great numbers of whom were then emancipated, to fill up the thinned and reduced ranks of their respective armies. And this seems to have been the only good that attended those bloody and destructive wars. It certainly proved of great national benefit, although, like the reformation of Henry VIII, it sprung from no virtuous or honourable motive. The proverb says, It is an ill wind that blows no good; and it may be very safely said, that seldom, if ever, have any calamitous occurrences been known, but what have been productive of some real benefit. This, doubtless, is owing to the overruling hand of providence, and ought to be acknowledged as such.

But though the manumission of great numbers of English slaves took place during those bloody and fatal wars, and also in consequence of the politic and wise measures adopted by Henry VII. Yet it does not appear to have been fully or universally effected, or that slavery was then totally eradicated in England. We find that there were here some slaves in the reign of Henry VIII. and of Edward VI. and even of Elizabeth: [341a] and it may be doubtful, if they had entirely ceased to exist here before the reign of Charles I. and the civil war. They abounded in the parts about Lynn for a very long period; but whether as late as in some other parts of the kingdom is rather uncertain. [341b]—In talking and boasting of our great charter, and of the unwearied and undaunted exertions of our ancient barons and patriots to obtain and enforce it, and how careful they were on every occasion to maintain inviolate the rights and liberties of the people of England, we are seldom aware that a great part of the nation was all the while in actual slavery, and not a soul among the whole host of contemporary patriots and redoubtable zealots for freedom, ever once thinking of pleading their cause, or commiserating their sufferings! So also in more recent times have we been congratulating ourselves on our national virtue and ardent love of liberty and justice, while we were every year dragging thousands and tens of thousands of the poor Africans into west-indian slavery!!

CHAP. II.

Further remarks on the revolutionary effects of the conquest throughout the whole kingdom as well as at Lynn—Catalogue of bishops who formerly bore rule in this Town.

The mighty change effected in this country by the conquest must have been felt at Lynn in common with all other places of a similar description. The great and opulent were doubtless the people who felt it most. [342] As to the middle classes, (if such there were that might properly be so denominated,) it must have affected them much less, and the lower orders very little, or perhaps, not at all. The latter were all slaves before, and most unfeelingly treated by their masters and proprietors; and they could but be slaves still; nor is it likely that they met with worse treatment from their new masters. What might not be hoped from the virtue or justice of the Normans, might yet be expected from their policy; for in that quality they seem not to have been deficient; and it may be reasonably supposed that it would induce them to use the numerous slaves they found here no worse than they had been used by their former proprietors. Thus a great part of the nation, and perhaps the greatest part of it, might not be so very materially affected, or injured, by the Norman conquest, as some would be apt to imagine—if indeed it did not prove, on the whole, a benefit rather than detriment to them. [343]

We must not however imagine or suppose that this revolution bore any resemblance to that which took place in this country above six hundred years afterwards, and which has been justly the fond and proud boast of our countrymen ever since. They were scarcely in any thing alike, except in the names of their respective authors. But William of Normandy must not be compared with William of Nassau; for they were two men of very different and opposite characters: the former came over to subdue and enslave the nation, the latter came as the champion and guardian of its rights and its freedom—one came to rob and destroy, the other to succour and to save—one merited the detestation and execration, the other the esteem, the gratitude, and the benediction of mankind.

Of all the English grandees, who were ruined by the conquest, none were more completely undone than the three great proprietors and lords of Lynn. One of them as has been already observed, was king Harold: of his downfall we need say no more. The other two were archbishop Stigand, and his brother, bishop Ailmar. The former seems to have been the elder brother and head of the family, and was probably of noble birth, and of Danish extraction, as the bulk of his vast possessions lay in East Anglia. Carte says, that it appears from the Domesday book, that he had the best estate of any man in England, except Harold and Edwin: there can be little doubt therefore of his being the head of one of the first families in the kingdom. He was lord of Rising, and of the Hundreds of Freebridge and Smithdon, and also, of divers other extensive districts. He is represented as a man of no great learning, but of eminent natural parts, improved by reflection, exercise, and experience, and directed by a clear head and solid judgment. He had the reputation of being endowed with uncommon capacity for business; and we also hear that he was a person of very great weight and power in the country, of which no doubt can be entertained when his immense wealth is considered, and the vast influence, arising from both his temporal and spiritual dignities. That such a man should be marked out as one of the victims of the Norman revolution, was naturally to be expected: his being an Englishman, and so very opulent and powerful, were sufficient temptations to sacrifice him. But he seems to have conducted himself so warily at that critical juncture, that the Conqueror for sometime appeared at a loss how to proceed against him. At last some frivolous or pretended ecclesiastical misdemeanor was found out, for which he was deprived of his spiritual dignity, under the sanction of the papal authority, by two popish legates, at a council held at Winchester in 1070. This appeared a hard and severe measure: but William, as a politic prince, laid the whole blame or responsibility of it on the then Pontiff, Alexander II. Yet he immediately seized on Stigand’s vast estates in East Anglia and elsewhere, and confined him in prison on a very scanty allowance, where it is said he died, of want, in the course of the same year, and so did not long survive his disgrace, or rather his downfal. His great possessions, in and about Lynn, the Conqueror bestowed on his half brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux, in Normandy, whom he created Earl of Kent, and, who then became one of the new masters and lords of Lynn. [346a]

Stigand’s brother, bishop Ailmar, who had still greater power in this town, is supposed to have been deprived, at the same time, and by the same council. It is likely that he too was then immured in a prison, and never released from it to his dying day. Such has often been the fate of men who had attained the highest honours and preferments among their countrymen.—Ailmar was succeeded in the see of Elmham, and in his jurisdiction and possessions at Gaywood and Lynn, by Herfast, one of the conqueror’s chaplains, as Rapin says.—Here it may not be improper, or unacceptable to the reader, to subjoin a List of the names of all the bishops that preceded and succeeded Ailmar, as masters and lords of Lynn, from Felix the Burgundian, first bishop of the East Angles, to Richard Nykke, or Nix, 31st. bishop of Norwich, [346b] who surrendered into the hands of Henry VIII. his authority or dominion over this town, when the name of it was changed from Bishop’s Lynn to King’s Lynn, which it has retained ever since.—Those bishops were,

1. Felix the Burgundian. He was the apostle of the East Angles, among whom his ministry was attended with eminent success, and issued in the conversion of the whole nation: schools were consequently instituted, and numerous places of worship erected throughout the whole country. He was consecrated their bishop in 630, and fixed his seat first, it seems, at Soham in Cambridgeshire, and then at Silthestow, afterwards called Domnoc, and since Dunwich, in Suffolk. He has been represented as very learned and pious. The fame of his uncommon sanctity was so great, that after his death, which happened in 647, he was canonized as a saint, and his festival stands on the 8th of March, in the Romish calendar. (See more of him above at p. 242.)—His immediate successor was Thomas, who had been trained up under the famous Paulinus archbishop of York, to whom he had been appointed deacon. On the expulsion of that metropolitan from his see, Thomas served the same office under Felix, till his death. After presiding five years he died, in 653, and was succeeded by Boniface, who also sometimes goes by other names. He was a native of Kent, a priest of Canterbury, whose archbishop consecrated him, in 653; and dying in 669, he was succeeded by Bisus, or Bosa, who was consecrated by Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury. In his time the diocese was divided into two sees, one of which remained at Dunwich, and the other was fixed at North Elmham, in Norfolk, among whose possessions the demesne or lordship of Lynn and Gaywood was included.—The bishops of Elmham, according to the best account we have met with, were the following,

I. Bedwinus, or Baldwinus. He has been spoken highly of as a man of profound learning and exemplary virtue, and author of numerous works (now lost) which confirmed many in the christian faith. 2. Northbertus, or Northbert, succeeded sometime after 679.—(3) Hedulacus, or Hadulac, filled this see in 731; when Bede completed his ecclesiastical History.—(4.) Edelfridus, or Ethelfrith.—(5.) Lamferthus, or Lameferd.—(6.) Athelwalfus, or Ethelwolph, occupied this see in 811.—(7.) Ulfertus, or Alberth: said to attend at the council of Cloveshoe, in Berks, where King Offa proposed erecting a new bishopric at Lichfield.—(8.) Sibba, or Sibban: he sat in 816.—(9.) Hunferth, or Hunferd: was living in 824.—(10.) Humbert, or Humbrit: it was he who crowned king Edmund, or St. Edmund, in 856, with whom he perished in 870, or 871, in opposing the Danes. He too was canonized.—(11.) Wybred, Wyred, or Wilbred: He was set over the two sees of Dunwich and Elmham, which occasioned their being then reunited: the seat was fixed at Elmham.

Bishops of Elmham after the union of the sees.—(1.) Theodred I. He is reported to have been an eye witness of St. Edmund’s corpse being found uncorrupt, 70 or 80 years after his death.—(2.) Theodred, II. surnamed the Good: He was first bishop of London, and then of Elmham; both of which he held till he died, sometime after 962.—(3.) Athulf, or Adulf: succeeded in 966; or, as some think, earlier.—(4.) Alfric or Alfrid: was one of those who signed and confirmed king Edgar’s charter to the abbey of Croyland. He died in 975, at the close of Edgar’s reign.—(5.) Athelstan, Edelstane, or Elstane: He was consecrated the latter part of 975.—(6) St. Algare, or Algarc: he had been Confessor to St. Dunstan archbishop of Canterbury, and promoted to this see in 1012. He afterwards resigned, and retired among the monks of Ely, where he died in 1021.—(7.) Alfwin, or Elfwin, succeeded the same year. He had been keeper or guardian of the body or remains of St. Edmund, and afterwards removed the same from Bury to London. He was also a violent stickler for the monks, or Regulars, in their furious squabbles with the Seculars. He resigned in 1032.—(8.) Alfric II. succeeded, and died in 1038; and was succeeded by—(9.) Alfric III. surnamed the Little, who is said to die in 1139. [349]—(10.) Stigand; (afterwards archbishop) he had been chaplain to king Harold Harefoot; but having obtained this see by simony, which his vast wealth would enable him easily to do, he was afterwards ejected by king Hardicanute, in 1040.—(11.) Grinketel: he held it in commendam with the bishopric of the South-Saxons, during the rest of Hardicanute’s reign. Under the Confessor, Stigand was restored to favour, and promoted to Winchester, and last to Canterbury.—(12.) Egelmar, Ailmar, of Almar: of whom an account has been given already, as well as of his brother Stigand.—(13.) Arfast, or Herfast, chaplain to the Conqueror. He succeeded at Easter, 1070. In compliance with an order of a council held by Lanfranc, that all episcopal sees should be removed from villages to the most eminent cities or towns in the respective dioceses, Herfast translated the see of Elmham to Thetford. He was by birth a Norman, in great favour with the Conqueror, and chancellor of England. He died in 1084; and in 1085 was succeeded by (14.) William Galsagus, de Bellafago, or Beaufo. He also was one of the Conqueror’s favourites, had been his chaplain, and became chancellor of England. He was, like most of that monarch’s great favourites, a person of immense wealth; which at his death, in 1091, was, by his will, divided between his family and see: and this must have contributed not a little to augment the large possessions that were formerly attached to this bishopric. In his time the celebrated survey, called Domesday, was made, in which, at folio 145, is contained an enumeration of the estates then belonging to the bishopric; and at folio 148, is an account of the lands of the said bishop, either in fee or inheritance. As many of the latter were bequeathed to the bishopric, the revenues of the see at that period may nearly be ascertained. All these were alienated in the exchange made by Henry VIII. [350]—After this bishop’s death the see was removed from Thetford to Norwich.

Bishops of Norwich.—1. Herbert Lozinga, who having, through the favour of Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, obtained, by grant and purchase, certain lands, called Cowholm, commenced the execution of his favourite plan of building a magnificent cathedral, the first stone of which was laid by him in 1096. He erected a palace also for his residence, on the north side, and a monastery on the south side, which he furnished with 60 monks, all which doings were sanctioned by Pope Paschal II. Herbert was also abbot of Ramsey, and lord Chancellor of England; and moreover a most notorious simoniac, for which the pope imposed upon him some heavy penances, in the doing of which he very notably acquitted himself, and gave good proof how well he was cut out for that kind of business.—Besides the large edifices he erected at Norwich, he also built the two great churches at Yarmouth and Lynn; the latter he dedicated to St. Margaret the Virgin, or, as some say, to St. Mary Magdalen, St. Margaret, and all the maiden saints. A priory was also built by him on the south side of this church. These he is said to have undertaken at the request of the people of Lynn; and yet it seems as if those same people were not otherwise very forward in their encouragements to him; for he was obliged to have recourse to a very ungraceful expedient in order to induce them to hasten their contributions:—to all who would subscribe or contribute towards these erections he offered and granted an indulgence, for forty days; [351] or, in other words, a Licence to commit with impunity any species of wickedness, or all manner of sin and villany, for the space of forty days! It is supposed that this expedient fully answered the bishop’s purpose; for the buildings were soon finished, in a style of superior magnificence. It reflects no credit on the memory of our townsmen of that day, that in order to do some good, or contribute liberally towards the erection of religious edifices in the town, they must be indulged with a licence to commit all manner of crimes. It shews that they were much more attached to evil than good, and liked sin far better than holiness. How much the present population of Lynn excels them, is a question that will not here be discussed.—Bishop Herbert died in 1119 and was buried before the high altar of his new cathedral.

2. Eborard, or Everard, succeeded Herbert, after a vacancy of almost three years. In his time the Jews, as we are told, crucified a boy, named William, who being considered a martyr, and canonized, brought no small gains to the church, by the numerous pilgrimages and offerings made annually on this occasion. Though the truth of this shocking crucifixion story seems more than doubtful, yet the monks managed to procure it general belief, and to get the poor boy (real or fictitious) canonized, under the name of Saint William. Their main object no doubt was to bring grist to the mill; and as that end was amply obtained, it may be said that they received their reward, and did not labour (or rather invent the tale) in vain. This bishop was the founder of the hospital and church of St. Paul in Norwich; and a great benefactor to the monastery which had been endowed by his predecessor. He was deposed, or resigned about 1146, and died at Fountain’s Abbey in Yorkshire, in 1149, and was succeeded by

3. William Turbus, or Turbeville. He was a great stickler for Becket, whose influence, even while in disgrace and exile, drove him sometimes to unwarrantable and perilous lengths; especially when he excommunicated the bishop of London, the Earl of Norfolk and some other nobles, who were disliked by that proud prelate. He died in 1174, and was succeeded the next year, by

4. John of Oxford, who was very differently affected towards Becket, and took part with the king against him, by which he greatly ingratiated himself with his sovereign; who being desirous of having the laws more strictly executed, and a more impartial administration of justice enforced, appointed him, together with the bishops of Ely and Winchester, his three principal justices for the purpose. He built Trinity Church at Ipswich, repaired the damages his cathedral had sustained by fire, in the time of his predecessor, and was a great benefactor to the episcopal convent at Norwich. He died in June 1200, and was succeeded by

5. John de Grey, who was promoted to the see by that great and memorable patron of Lynn, King John, with whom he appears to have been in very high favour, and from whom he procured the liberties of Magna Charta for his diocese. He also obtained from that monarch a charter to make his town of Lynn a free borough, which was dated at Lutgershall, Sept. 14, 1204, the 6th year of that reign. This was the first of the Lynn charters. These concessions the king was induced to grant, as it is said, either to obtain favours, or in return for some he had received. The wealth of this prelate is reported to have been of great service to the sovereign in his troubles; and for various loans he had obtained, he pledged to the bishop his regalia, viz. his great crown, the surcoat, cloak, sandals, gloves, spurs, &c. This bishop built the palace of Gaywood, and so seems to have resided pretty much here, and may be supposed to have acquired among the inhabitants a good portion of popularity. We are also told that he confirmed to the monks of Norwich our church of St. Margaret, and the chapels of St. James and St. Nicholas, and the church of Mintling, together with the tithes of Gaywood, &c. This bishop died at Poictou, in 1214: after which the see was vacant seven years; when

6. Pandulphus, an Italian, was consecrated in 1222. He had been sent to England as legate by the pope, on account of the deposition of archbishop Langton by king John. While at Rome, to have his election to this see confirmed, on his representing that it was greatly in debt, (whether true or false, we know not,) he obtained a grant of the whole first fruits of the clergy in his diocese, for himself and successors; which thenceforth became attached to those prelates, till the time of Henry VIII, and must have considerably augmented the episcopal revenues. He died in Italy, in 1296; but his remains were brought to England for interment, and buried in his cathedral.

7. Thomas de Blandevill succeeded him, and died in 1236, when

8. Ralfo succeeded, and died the next year; of whom as well as the former, nothing remarkable is known to be recorded. His successor was

9. William de Ralleigh, who obtained the bishopric after three years contesting his right. He granted, we are told, an indulgence of twenty days pardon, to all in his diocese who would contribute towards the building of St. Paul’s in London. Hence it appears, as well as from the case of Herbert Lozinga, above noticed, that bishops, as well as popes, in those times, assumed the power of giving a licence to sin with impunity. They must have been rare teachers of morality, who could pretend to promote good works by allowing the people, for a limited time, to run into all possible excesses of riot and evil doing:—and, on the other hand, their intellects must have been in a most unenviable and degraded state, who could accede to the preposterous proposals of such instructors, or patiently listen to such shameless representations. The doctrine of indulgences was afterwards made good use of by Luther and his coadjutors, in their successful struggle against the papal tyranny.—Bishop Raleigh was translated to Winchester, where he died, soon after his induction. He was succeeded by

10. Walter de Suthfield, or Suffield, who was consecrated in 1224. He obtained for the bishopric a charter of free warren to himself and successors. So we may presume that he was himself a sportsman. By the command of Pope Innocent, he drew up a general and particular valuation of all the ecclesiastical revenues in the kingdom; which, after receiving the papal confirmation, was called the Norwich-Inquest; and subsequently became the ratio of clerical taxation. He erected and endowed the Hospital of St. Giles, in Norwich, for poor pilgrims, and died in 1257. He was succeeded the next year by

11. Simon de Waltone, who died in 1265; and was succeeded the same year by

12. Roger de Skerning, in whose time several dreadful affrays happened between the citizens of Norwich and the monks, in one of which the cathedral was burnt. This bishop died in 1278; and was succeeded the same year by

13. William Middleton. The cathedral being partially repaired, he was enthroned at Norwich; and he rededicated the church, in presence of the king and queen and principal nobility, who were assembled on the occasion. He died in 1288; whose successor was

14. Ralph de Walpole, a Marshland man, it seems, and ancestor of the present noble family of the Walpoles. He was translated to Ely, in 1299, and his successor at Norwich was

15. John Salmon, or Salomon. Enlarging or rebuilding the palace at Norwich, and founding the Charnel-house, now the free school, are among the principal works ascribed to him. He died in 1385, and his successor was

16. Robert de Baldock, who resigned shortly after, and was succeeded by

17. William de Ayrminne, who employed himself in enclosing his palace, cathedral, &c. with stone walls, and fortifying then with embattled parapets. He died in 1336; and had for his successor

18. Thomas Hemenhale, who soon resigned this see, and accepted that of Worcester in lieu of it. Then succeeded

19. Anthony de Beck, a man of the most imperious and turbulent temper, who had terrible quarrels with the monks, by whose instigation, as it was thought, he was poisoned by his own servants at his seat of Hevingham, in 1343. His successor was

20. William Bateman, dean of Lincoln. He was a great benefactor to the nunnery of Flixton in South Elmham, and gave the nuns a body of statutes for their regulation; and, in 1347 founded Trinity Hall in Cambridge, for the express purpose of supplying his diocese with persons properly qualified for the discharge of the duties of parochial cures. He died in 1354, at Avignon, while on an embassy to the pope. This prelate was a native of Norwich, but spent much of his time abroad, and chiefly at Rome, till the pope promoted him to this bishopric. So great was his interest with his holiness, that he also obtained for himself and successors, the first fruits, as we are told, of all vacant livings within his diocese, which occasioned, it seems, frequent disputes between him and his clergy. But the clergy were not likely to gain much by disputing with him, for he is represented as “a stout defender of his rights, and one who would not suffer himself to be injured or imposed upon, or his dignity insulted, by any one.” In proof of which, the following anecdote has been related of him by some of our historians:—“Lord Morley, having killed some of the bishop’s deer, infringed upon his manors, and abused his servants who opposed him, was obliged to do penance by walking through the streets of the city with a wax candle of six pounds weight in his hand, and kneel down before the bishop, in the cathedral, and ask his pardon, although the king had sent an express order to the contrary.”—From this anecdote we may safely infer, that this prelate governed his slaves and vassals, the inhabitants of Lynn, with despotic sway. It is said that there was in his time such a dreadful plague in England, and throughout Europe, as scarcely left a tenth part of the inhabitants living; and that it appears from the Chronicle of Norwich, that from the first of January to the first of July 1348–9, 57374 persons, besides ecclesiastics and beggars, died in Norfolk alone. We cannot learn how many of them were of the town of Lynn.—A circumstance that seems to corroborate this extraordinary mortality is, that this bishop instituted and collated 850 persons to benefices vacant at this time. [358] His successor was

21. Thomas Percy, youngest brother of the Earl of Northumberland, though but twenty-two years of age. After erecting the steeple of the cathedral, which had been blown down by a violent wind, and repairing the choir, which had been much damaged, he died, in 1369. The next year he was succeeded by

22. Henry Spencer, or Le Spencer, a prebendary of Salisbury. He was consecrated in March 1370, by the pope in person, which probably contributed not a little to cherish that self importance and haughtiness for which he was so remarkable. In an aid granted through the kingdom to the king’s use, this prelate certified for his diocese, that it contained, in Norfolk 806 parishes, and in Suffolk 515; and each county was accordingly rated. He took a most active part, at the commencement of what is called the grand Schism, in the memorable warfare between pope Urban and his competitor pope Clement: for there were then two popes; two infallible heads of the catholic church! and each reviling and damning the other without mercy, and most bloodily seeking his destruction!! Bishop Spencer was on the side of pope Urban, with whom he was in very high favour. In 1383 that pontiff published a bull, in which he called upon all who had any regard for religion, to exert themselves in its defence, by taking up arms for him, against his rival Clement and his adherents; promising at the same time, for the encouragement of all who would volunteer in this meritorious service, the same pardons and indulgences as had been usually granted to those who had engaged, or lost their lives, in the great eastern crusades, or holy wars. [359] This papal bull met with no small success in England, owing perhaps to France being on the side of pope Clement, and to Urban’s choosing an English ecclesiastic for his general. This was our bishop Spencer, “a young and stout prelate (says Fox) much fitter for the camping cure than for the peaceable church of Christ.”—A most dashing and bouncing high priest he certainly was; of which he gave repeated and abundant proofs, both at home and abroad. This right reverend warrior, and champion of holy church, (at least, of Urban’s portion or moiety of it) having obtained an aid or subsidy, of the English parliament, set out upon his continental expedition against the Clementines at the head of 50,000 foot and 2,000 horse: but he did not bring back quite so many. [360] Our general with his furious crusaders, after they had landed at Calais, to shew their strict regard for propriety and consistency, turned their arms against Flanders; a country that was not favourable to Clement, but had actually declared for Urban. After ravaging the country, taking divers towns, and defeating the Flemish force which had attempted to oppose them, an effectual stop was put to their career, by the French king, Charles VI. at the head of a powerful army. In short the expedition ended disgracefully, as it deserved, and not very unlike certain expeditions to Flanders and Holland in modern times. The great general, bishop Spencer, at his return, found himself somewhat in disgrace; in which he proved more ill-fated than our modern Yorks and Chathams. The king ordered the temporalities of his see to be seized, and several of his officers to be imprisoned. In a year or two, however, his temporalities were restored, and he probably regained the royal favour.—He lived in great splendor, and had divers sumptuous palaces, among which was that at Norwich, another at South Helingham, and another, supposed to be one of the chief of them, at Gaywood by Lynn, the inhabitants of which town had ample experience of his imperious and turbulent spirit. Being one time in town with his retinue, he quarrelled in the street with the mayor (who was supported by the townsmen) on some point of frivolous etiquette. From words the parties came to blows, and a very serious battle ensued, which terminated in the total defeat of the haughty prelate and his company, who were all furiously driven out of town, many of them sorely bruised and wounded. This turbulent high priest afterwards bent his rage against the poor Lollards, and appeared among the first to proceed against them upon the law De hæretico Comburendo. He prosecuted William Sawtre, minister of St. Margaret’s at Lynn, who at first recanted, and afterwards became minister of St. Osith in London, where he relapsed, and was the first that suffered under the above law. This bishop also afterwards persecuted Sir Thomas Erpingham at Norwich, and as a penance, for favouring Lollardism, enjoined him to build the gate, at the entrance of the College precinct, which still goes by his name. Bishop Spencer died in 1406, and was, it seems, the first prelate who quartered the episcopal arms with his own. His successor was

23. Alexander de Totington, who, though immediately elected, was not admitted to his spiritualities till the following year. Some of his manor-houses and palaces having fallen into decay, through the negligence of his predecessors, he is said to have spent large sums in repairing and beautifying them, which constituted, apparently, his most meritorious and memorable deeds. He died in 1413, and was succeeded by

24. Richard de Courtney, chancellor of Oxford, who died suddenly, about two years after, at the siege of Harfleur; from which it would seem that he was a prelate that delighted in war, or another of our fighting bishops, who, at the best, are but unamiable characters. He was succeeded, in 1416, by

25. John de Wakeryng, archdeacon of Canterbury, who was confirmed by the archbishop; which unusual circumstance was owing to the ecclesiastical anarchy still existing, occasioned by the continuance of the grand schism, which was then at its height. During that period there always were two popes, but they were now three, and each prefering a legal claim to the papal chair, as the lineal descendant of St Peter! Three contemporary popes exhibited an unusual and queer spectacle, and would naturally suggest the idea of three heads of the church: and a church, or any thing else, with three heads may pretty fairly be deemed a monster. Even the protestant church of England, however, has had before now two heads; one in London, and the other at St. Germans; which ought to deter its members from bearing too hard on the church of Rome in the above case. Bishop Wakeryng is said to have made considerable improvements in and about his cathedral; which seems to have been among his most praiseworthy performances. It appears that he died in 1425.

Here it may be proper to observe, that in this bishop’s time, and that of some of his predecessors, as well as of his immediate successor, the tranquillity of the town of Lynn appears to have been exceedingly disturbed by the violence of two contending factions, which kept the town in a continual state of discord and distraction, it seems, for the space of about thirty years: as may be gathered from existing documents, or copies of Letters, of that period, still preserved in a MS. History of Lynn, in the possession of Mr. Thomas King of this town. [363] From which we discover that those two contending factions were headed by two of the Aldermen of that time; one of whom was Bartholomy Petipas, who was twice mayor, and the other John de Wentworth, who served that office three times. The cause and nature of the difference that arose between these opposing parties is not easy to develop. That their animosity was bitter and violent is but too obvious, but its source or ground is involved in no small obscurity.

This however is not the place to enter minutely upon the subject, which shall be resumed in another part of the work. This dire contention seems to have begun in 1403, the 7th of Henry IV. and to have lasted till 1434, the 13th of Henry VI. The first of those years were the 3rd. of Wentworth’s mayoralty, between whom and Petipas there evidently existed some serious competition; but whether it was merely a contest for power or superiority in the management of the town, or arose from certain political questions about a reform of abuses, on which the parties disagreed, does not very plainly appear. It is however very well known that questions of a political, as well as theological nature, were then much agitated in different parts of the country, by the enlightened and patriotic disciples of Wickliff, who were anxious to promote every where political as well as ecclesiastical reformation; but that such was actually the case then at Lynn, and the ground of the said disagreement cannot perhaps be positively affirmed. There are indeed some intimations of insufficient or suspicious persons having for sometime been chosen or found among the 24 Jurats that were here annually elected, in a Letter or injunction from Henry VI, addressed, seemingly, to the mayor and burgesses, and dated November 23 in his 13th year, which may indicate that politics had no small share in the said contention, and the persons alluded to might belong to the advocates of reform, or democrats of that day. But this subject we will now drop, [365] and proceed with our episcopal catalogue. John de Wakeryng dying in 1425 was succeeded the following year by

26. William Alnwick, archdeacon of Salisbury, who, having sat ten years, was translated to Lincoln. The principal entrance of the palace is said to have been erected at his expence, and by his arms being united with those of the see, on the west end of the cathedral, he is supposed to have contributed towards the erection of that also.

27. Thomas Brown, or Breus, succeeded him, being translated hither from Rochester, by Pope Eugenius IV. by bull, dated September 19, 1436. We are told that he left a sum towards the payment of the city tax, and exhibitions for poor scholars, prosecuting their studies in the universities, who might be natives of the diocese: so that he seems one of the better sort of those of his order. He died at Hoxne, in 1445.—John Stanbery, a carmelite friar, was chosen to succeed him, but never consecrated, owing to papal interference, then at its height. The real successor therefore was

28. Walter Hart, or Lyhart, master of Oriel College Oxon, who was appointed by the pope, and consecrated February 27, 1446. Paving the cathedral; and erecting the elegant carved roof of the nave, where a hart, or deer couchant, in sculpture, alluding to his name, is seen in several places, are the works ascribed to him. He died in May 1472, and was succeeded by

29. James Goldwell, the Pope’s Prothonotary, who was made bishop by papal provision, and consecrated at Rome by pope Sixtus IV. October 4, 1472. He appears to have been a thorough-paced ecclesiastic, and legitimate son of his Holy Father. Before he left Rome, at the time of his consecration, he is said to have obtained of the Pope a perpetual indulgence, to repair and ornament the cathedral; by which he was empowered to grant, to all persons who frequented it annually, on Trinity Sunday and Lady-day, twelve years and forty days pardon, in lieu of offerings made on the occasion: and having received the sum of 2200 marks, for dilapidation, he finished beautifying the tower; made the elegant stone-fretted roof of the choir; and ornamented the chapels on each side of it; especially that dedicated to the Holy Trinity, in which he was afterwards interred.—We need not wonder that he could do so much, when he was empowered to grant such long indulgences, and such extensive and ample pardons. Wealthy people, who could believe him really possessed of such a power, might be expected to furnish him pretty readily with any sums of money he wanted for his sumptuous buildings and architectural decorations. To such pious frauds and cunning devices, many of our ecclesiastical structures, throughout the kingdom, owe much, perhaps, of their boasted beauty and magnificence. Sad however must have been the case of this country, when such vile tricks could take, or succeed, even with the most enlightened part of its population; and sadder still must be our case, if we are not yet proof against equally vile and palpable impositions.—Bishop Goldwell died in 1498, [370] and the see, on the refusal of Christopher Urswyke, was filled by

30. Thomas Jane, archdeacon of Essex, and Canon of Windsor, who was consecrated in 1499, and died the next year: whose successor was

31. Richard Nykke, or Nix, archdeacon of Exeter, who was elected in 1500. He must have been a man of an unamiable and hateful character. Writers unanimously concur to brand his name with the greatest obloquy. Of his vile persecuting spirit no further evidence need be adduced than the fact, that by his sanguinary judgments, Ayers, Bingy, Norrice, and the amiable Bilney were consigned to the flames, for only, in a peaceable manner, expressing those sentiments, which, as they were sanctioned by conscience, they had a right to suppose were the dictates of truth. He died January 14. 1535. In his time Chorepiscopi were first appointed by act of parliament; their office answering to that of suffragan, which, prior to that period, had been chosen at the discretion of the diocesan. While this bishop bore sway, as master and lord of Lynn, there was among the aldermen here a very remarkable person, whose name was Thomas Miller. He was mayor of the town six or seven years, but not six or seven times; for the first time he was in the office for four years successively, viz. 1520 and the three following years. He was mayor again in 1529, and again in 1546, the last of Henry VIII. That he was a man of spirit and intrepidity appears by his contending with his lord, the bishop, about the right of having the sword carried before him, which his lordship, it seems, objected to, and claimed as his own proper and exclusive right and prerogative. Our mayor and the corporation, not satisfied with this, went boldly to law with their lordly master, on the occasion, and carried their cause; which determined and established the point, and the sword has been carried before their worships, the mayors of Lynn, ever since, without any further demur or litigation. It appears indeed that it would have so happened, in no long time after, had the said law-suit, or legal decision not taken place; for the king, in the course of a few years, thought proper to require of this same bishop the relinquishment and surrender of his supremacy, or dominion over Lynn, for such valuable considerations as his majesty, in his princely wisdom, saw fit to grant or allow him, by way of exchange or remuneration. To this his lordship readily acceded; for he must have known the king too well to suppose that it would have been any way safe for him to have done otherwise. But he died soon after, and before the affair was fully concluded. The actual surrender, therefore, and probably under some new arrangements, was left to be executed by his immediate successor, the no less memorable

32. William Rugg, or, Reppes, fortieth abbot of St. Bennet’s in Holme, and native of North Repps, in this county, where his father, of both his names, is said to have resided. He had his education at Cambridge, and was fellow of Gonvill Hall in that university. After being abbot of St. Bennet’s about six years, he was promoted to this see, by way of recompence, as some seem to think, for the part he had acted among the Cambridge divines, in obtaining from that university the judgment his majesty wished, respecting his marriage with queen Catherine. They might also suppose, that his being a warm and stanch stickler for the king’s ecclesiastical supremacy, and influencing those of his convent to subscribe to the same, in 1534, were additional recommendations that contributed to his promotion. But when we consider the hard terms, or humiliating conditions, on which he was to obtain, or hold his episcopal dignity, (that is, by relinquishing the greatest part of the revenue and possessions attached to his see,) it will not be a very easy matter to prove that any favour was intended by this preferment, and much less a recompence or reward for former services: this was certainly very different from Henry’s wonted manner of using his favourites, and rewarding his approved servants. But this point is too uninteresting to merit any further discussion.—Abbot Rugg being promoted to the see of Norwich in 1536, he, by virtue of a private act of parliament, parted with all the lands of his bishopric, except the site of his episcopal palace in Norwich, to the king, by way of exchange for the revenues belonging to the abbey of Holme and priory of Hickling; which last being soon after alienated by him, the whole income, since his time, appertaining to the see of Norwich, has been only the estate of Holme monastery, which his successors still enjoy, according to the purport of the said act, which, continuing unrepealed, gave occasion to bishop Montague, in the time of Charles I. to subscribe himself, in his leases, “Richard, by divine permission, lord bishop of Norwich, and Head Abbot of St. Benedict’s de Hulm.” The exchange of the lands of the bishopric, for those of the Abbey of St. Benedict’s and priory of Hickling, is said to have been made by Abbot Rugg some months before his election to the see of Norwich, [372] though not before his promotion thither had been predetermined. We are further informed that this prelate alienated from his bishopric, not only the priory of Hickling, but many good manors besides, belonging to the abbey, some by absolute gift, others upon trifling exchanges, and gave long leases, so that, at last, he was unable to maintain the state of the bishopric, and forced to resign, with an annual pension of 200 marks. He seems to have been a singularly improvident and thoughtless prelate, and very different from most of that order, who seldom lose sight of their terrestrial interests, or temporal concerns, whatever they may do as to those that are of an eternal nature. After having resigned the see for the paltry pittance of 200 marks, or, as some say, 200l. per annum, he died in 1550. In allusion to the straits and difficulties to which his manifest and manifold indiscretions had reduced him, one of the members or officers of his household is said to have made the following verses on his resignation:

Poor Will, thou rugged art and ragged all: Thy abbey cannot bless thee in such fame, To keep a pallace fair and stately hall, When gone from thence what should maintaine the same.

First pay thy debts, and hence return to cell, And pray the blessed saint whom thou dost serve, That others may maintaine the pallace well; For if THOU stayst, we all are like to starve.

The convent, or abbey of St. Benedict’s, appears to have been his chief palace, or place of residence, during the whole time of his sustaining the episcopal character: after which it soon went into decay, and ceased to be the residence of his successors; with whom however we have no further concern, as they were no longer the temporal lords and masters of Lynn. Here therefore ends this episcopal catalogue; which exhibits a pretty long list of names, though but few among them appear to have merited the praise and benediction of their contemporaries, or the veneration and imitation of posterity.

CHAP. III.

State of Lynn previously and subsequently to its becoming a corporate-town, or free borough, with general remarks on that event, and on the progressive state of society in the towns and cities of this country, as well as at Lynn, in those times.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact state of this town, or the nature of its police, and the social condition of its inhabitants, not only before and at the Conquest, but also for a good while after, any further than that its population appears to have then consisted chiefly, if not entirely, of the bishop’s slaves or vassals, governed by such agents or officers as he thought proper to appoint, whose administration as may be reasonably presumed, would not always be of the mildest, or most equitable and unexceptionable description. Had there been now in existence regular and authentic records of the affairs of the town, in those days, we should probably discover that its police, at least the spirit of it, bore but too much resemblance to our present West Indian jurisprudence. Slaves, in those ages, seem to have constituted the bulk of our population; and were, in all probability, the offspring of the lower orders of the original inhabitants, whose lives had been spared, when the Anglo-Saxons over-run and conquered the country, on condition of submitting to perpetual servitude. Such seems to have been the origin of those slaves of different descriptions which formerly abounded in this country for many ages. These, in country places, were the cultivators of the soil, or tillers of the ground; and in the towns, they were the tradesmen, mechanics, artificers, and labourers. In short, both in the towns and in country places all useful employments were occupied by them. As to their masters, the nobility, gentry, and every description of military men, who constituted the great or main body of reputed freemen, they were all above engaging in any such employments. War and the chace were the only occupations that were deemed worthy of them; and there lay the whole stock or sum of their knowledge and acquirements. Literature of every kind they usually set at nought; scorning to learn so much as to write their own names, as an attainment that would be too degrading for an English gentleman. Under such beings, how unenviable, miserable, and deplorable must have been the condition of the enslaved or unfree part of the community.

Of the original, low, and servile state of the inhabitants of our English, and other European towns, and their progress from thraldom to freedom, no one has perhaps given a juster account than Dr. Adam Smith, in the second volume of his celebrated Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. He there observes that the inhabitants of cities and towns, after the fall of the Roman Empire, were not more favoured than those of the country.

“They consisted, indeed, of a very different order of people from the first inhabitants of the ancient republicks of Greece and Italy. These last were composed chiefly of the proprietors of lands, among whom the public territory was originally divided, and who found it convenient to build their houses in the neighbourhood of one another, and to surround them with a wall, for the sake of common defence. After the fall of the Roman empire, on the contrary, the proprietors of land seem generally to have lived in fortified castles on their own estates, and in the midst of their own tenants and dependants. The towns were chiefly inhabited by tradesmen and mechanics, who seemed in those days to have been servile, or very nearly of servile condition. The privileges which we find granted by ancient charters to the inhabitants of some of the principal towns in Europe, sufficiently shew what they were before these grants. The people to whom it is granted as a privilege, that they might give away their own daughters in marriage without the consent of their lord, that upon their death, their own children, and not their lord, should succeed to their goods, and that they might dispose of their own effects by will, must, before those grants, have been either altogether, or very nearly in the same state of villanage with the occupiers of land in the country. They seem, indeed, to have been a very poor, mean set of people, who used to travel about with their goods from place to place, and from fair to fair, like the hawkers and pedlers of the present times. In all the different countries of Europe then, in the same manner as in several of the Tartar governments of Asia at present, taxes used to be levied upon the persons and goods of travellers, when they passed through certain manors, when they went over certain bridges, when they carried about their goods from place to place in a fair, when they erected in it a booth or stall to sell them in. These different taxes were known in England by the names of passage, pontage, lastage, and stallage. Sometimes the king, sometimes a great lord, would grant to particular traders, to such particularly as lived in their own demesnes, a general exemption from such taxes. Such traders, though in other respects of servile condition, were upon this account called Free-traders. They in return usually paid to their protector a sort of annual poll tax. In those days protection was seldom granted without a valuable consideration, and this tax might, perhaps, be considered as compensation for what their patrons might lose by their exemption from other taxes. At first, both those poll-taxes and those exemptions seem to have been altogether personal, and to have affected only particular individuals, during either their lives, or the pleasure of their protectors. In the very imperfect accounts which have been published from Domesday-book, of several of the towns of England, mention is frequently made, sometimes of the tax which particular burghers paid, each of them, either to the king, or to some other great lord, for this sort of protection; and sometimes of the general amount only of all these taxes.” [377]

“That part of the king’s revenue which arose from such poll-taxes in any particular town, used commonly to be lett in farm, during a term of years for a rent certain, sometimes to the sheriff of the county, and sometimes to other persons. The burghers themselves frequently got credit enough, to be admitted to farm the revenues of this sort which arose from their own town, they becoming jointly and severally answerable for the whole rent.”

In return, being allowed to collect it in their own way, and to pay it into the king’s exchequer by the hands of their own bailiff, they would be altogether freed from the insolence of the king’s officers; a circumstance in those days of no small importance.

“At first, the farm of the town was lett to the burghers, in the same manner as it had been to other farmers, for a term of years only. In process of time, however, seems to have become the general practice to grant it to them in fee, that is for ever, reserving a rent certain, never afterwards to be augmented. The payment having thus become perpetual, the exemptions, in return for which it was made, naturally became perpetual too. Those exemptions, therefore, ceased to be personal, and could not afterwards be considered as belonging to individuals as individuals, but as burgesses of a particular burgh, which, upon this account, was called a Free-burgh, for the same reason that they had been called Free-burghers or Free-traders. Along with this grant, the important privileges above mentioned, that they might give away their own daughters in marriage, that their children should succeed them, and that they might dispose of their own effects by will, were generally bestowed upon the burghers of the town to whom it was given. The principal attributes of villanage find slavery being thus taken away from them, they now, at least, became really free in our present sense of the word Freedom.—Nor was this all. They were generally at the same time erected into a commonality, or corporation, with the privilege of having magistrates and a town-council of their own, of making bye-laws for their own government, of building walls for their own defence, and of reducing all their inhabitants under a sort of military discipline, by obliging them to watch and ward; that is, as antiently understood, to guard and defend those walls against all attacks and surprises, by night as well as by day. In England they were generally exempted from suit to the hundred and country courts; and all such pleas as should arise among them, the pleas of the crown excepted, were left to the decision of their own magistrates.” [379]

For the origin of corporate towns, in this country, we are generally referred to the times of which we are now treating, that is, the ages subsequent to the Conquest; and yet it seems to be very evident from the old book called The Mirrour, that there existed here some towns of that description even as early as the days of Alfred: [380] but they were probably few, and disregarded afterward, if not entirely disannulled; till a good while after the accession and establishment of the Norman dynasty: nor can we learn scarcely any thing of the cause and object of their formation, or the nature and principles of their constitutions. The case is otherwise as to those corporations formed since the Conquest; which seems to apply to all those that now exist in this country: it is not so difficult to find, or make out, how and why they were formed; and it is with them only that we have here any concern. Before they sprung up the feudal system was in its full and utmost vigour; and the power of the country was divided between the sovereign and the barons, or great lords; and the latter were sometimes an over match for the former. As a counter-balance or check to the formidable and enormous power of the barons, the incorporation of the great towns and cities seems chiefly to have been resorted to, or adopted. At least this appears to have been the case as far as any good policy, and not mere caprice, had any share in the business: for justice and humanity, or a desire to enlarge the liberty, and promote the welfare of the people were totally out of the question. These were motives too sublime and godlike to enter into the contemplation of the English kings and courtiers of those days.

But the said measure, whatever might be its cause and object, or the motive for its adoption, appears to have produced very salutary effects: for by forming cities and towns into corporations, and conferring on them the privileges of municipal jurisdiction, the first check was given to the overwhelming evils of the feudal system: and under their influence freedom and independence began to peep forth, from the rigours of slavery, and the miseries of oppression. To be free of any corporation, however, was not then, as at present, merely to enjoy some privilege in trade, or to exercise the right of voting on particular occasions, but it was to be exempt from the intolerable hardships of feudal service; to have the right of disposing both of person and property, and to be governed by laws intended to promote the general good, and not to gratify the ambition and avarice of individuals. These laws, however rude and imperfect, tended to afford security to property, and encourage men to habits of industry. Thus commerce, with every ornamental and useful art, began first in corporate bodies to animate society. But in those dark ages force was necessary to defend the claims of industry; and such a force the municipal societies possessed; for their towns were not only defended by walls and gates, vigilantly guarded by the citizens, but oftimes at the head of their fellow freemen in arms, the mayor, aldermen and other officers, marched forth in firm array, to assert their rights, defend their property, and teach the proudest and most powerful baron, that the humblest freeman was not to be injured with impunity. It was thus the commons learned and proved they were not objects of contempt; nay, that they were beings of the same species as the greatest lords. [381]

In this country the king is said to be the fountain of honour; and such he was to the incorporated towns and cities. From him they derived their chartered and municipal privileges, and to him they owed their emancipation from their former bondage, or manumission from feudal servitude. Though these royal acts appear to have proceeded from no generous or noble motives, such as the love of justice, or a regard for liberty, but rather from a selfish and sordid policy; yet, as they proved of vast benefit to the inhabitants of those towns and cities, they strongly attached them to the throne, and greatly added to the power and resources of the sovereign. The aversion and contempt manifested by the nobles towards this new body of freemen, tended to promote still further their attachment and subserviency to the court. The lords despised the burghers, whom they considered not only as of a different order, but as a parcel of emancipated slaves, almost of a different species from themselves.

“The wealth of the burghers never failed to provoke their envy and indignation, and they plundered them on every occasion without mercy or remorse. The burghers naturally hated and feared the lords. The king hated and feared them too; but, though perhaps he might despise, he had no reason either to hate or fear the burghers. Mutual interest, therefore, disposed them to support the king, and the king to support them against the lords. They were the enemies of his enemies, and it was his interest to render them as secure and independent of those enemies as he could. By granting them magistrates of their own, the privilege of making bye-laws for their own government, that of building walls for their own defence, and that of reducing all their inhabitants under a sort of military discipline, he gave them all the means of security and independency of the barons, which it was in his power to bestow. Without the establishment of some regular government of this kind, without some authority to compel their inhabitants to act according to some certain plan or system, no voluntary league of mutual defence could either have afforded them, any permanent security, or have enabled them to give the king any permanent support. By granting the farm of their town in fee, he took away from those whom he wished to have for his friends, and, if one may say so, for his allies, all ground of jealousy and suspicion, that he was ever afterwards to oppress them, either by raising the farm rent of their town, or by granting it to some other farmer.” [383]

The armed force, with which the towns now furnished themselves, must have produced a very material change in the state of the kingdom. This new order of warriors, or trained bands of the towns, seem not to have been inferior to those of the country; and as they could be more readily assembled on any emergency, they are said to have frequently had the advantage in their disputes with the neighbouring lords. In some parts of the continent they became so powerful and successful as to subdue the nobles in their vicinity, and enable the cities to which they belonged to form themselves into independent republicks. But in England, the cities and burghs had no opportunity to become entirely independent. They became, however, so considerable, as Dr. Smith observes, that the sovereign could impose no tax upon them, beside the stated farm-rent of the town, without their own consent. They were, therefore, called upon to send deputies to the general assembly of the states of the kingdom, where they might join with the clergy and the barons in granting, upon urgent occasions, some extraordinary aid to the king. Being generally, too, more favourable to his power, their deputies seem, some times, to have been employed by him as a counterbalance, in those assemblies, to the authority of the great lords. [384] Hence, as it seems, the origin of the representation of burghs in our parliaments.

However useless or objectionable our modern burghs or corporate towns may be, it must be allowed that they were originally productive of no inconsiderable national advantages. In them, as has been observed by the writer last mentioned, order and good government together with the liberty and security of individuals, were established at a time when the occupiers of land in the country were exposed to every kind of violence. That industry also, which aims at something more than necessary subsistence was found in them before it was commonly practised, or did exit among the country farmers.

“If in the hands of a poor cultivator, oppressed with the servitude of villanage, some little stock should accumulate, he would naturally conceal it, with great care, from his master, to whom it would otherwise have belonged, and take the first opportunity of running away to a town. The law was, at that time, so indulgent to the inhabitants of towns, and so desirous of diminishing the authority of the lords, over those of the country, that if he could conceal himself there, from the pursuit of the lord, for a year, he was free for ever. Whatever stock therefore accumulated in the hands of the industrious part of the inhabitants of the country, naturally took refuge in cities, as the only sanctuaries in which it could be secure to the person that acquired it.” [385]

Thus it appears the cities and towns were then replenished with inhabitants from the industrious and most valuable part of the population of the country, and not, as is too often the case in our time, from the most idle, profligate, and worthless.

From what has been already said of the motive or policy that seems to have given birth to our burgh-system, it might naturally be expected that those princes, who lived upon the worst terms with their barons, would be the most ready and active promoters of it, and the most liberal in their grants of municipal immunities. This, at least, appears to have been the case: and we find our king John, for example, and we may add, his son, and successor, Henry III. were most munificent benefactors to those towns; of which Lynn, may be mentioned as one notable instance. This town owes, to those two sovereigns, its political redemption, or elevation to the rank of a corporate town, or free borough. The era of its arriving at this high, and proud distinction, was the 13th century; whereas it was, before that period, the miserable abode of a horde of slaves, the vassals of the lord bishops of the see in which it is situated.

But though Lynn acquired then the rank and denomination of a free burgh, it does not appear, that it also became possessed of equal freedom from baronial domination, and feudal vassalage, with all the rest of our corporate towns; or, that it actually arrived at that state or degree of liberty, for a very long while after, even till the reign of Henry VIII. about 300 years after it had been first declared a free burgh by king John and his successor. The time when it acquired the name of King’s Lynn, seems, therefore, to be the true era of its actual, and entire liberation from its former feudal encumbrances. Lynn then is a place where the memory of the last Henry ought to be held dear, and where he should be commemorated as one of its best benefactors. These, however, are circumstances, not generally adverted to; but they seem to be real matters of fact, and may deserve here some elucidation.

King John, granting to Lynn its charter of incorporation at the instance of bishop Grey, who had so much interest with him, and to whom he had very great obligations, was not likely to attempt to deprive him of his baronial rights, or supreme power and jurisdiction, in this town: nor do we know that the bishop was at all disposed to relinquish the same. We accordingly find an express clause in the royal charter, saving to the said bishop and his successors, the liberties, &c. which had previously belonged to the bishops of Norwich. That this was understood as securing to the bishops their former rights and authority in this town, may be inferred from the general conduct of the succeeding prelates for many generations, who seem to have been uniformly striving to retain and perpetuate the said rights and authority, and keep the inhabitants in their original state of subjection to them. Nor did the mayor and corporation appear, at all, disposed to the point with their lordships, except in very few instances; as in the time of bishops Spencer, Wakeryng, and Nix, already noticed. There seems, also to have been some stir, of the same sort, made in the time of bishop Hart, or Lyhart, in the year 1446, and the corporation, probably, complained, or appealed to the king, (Henry VI.) who then visited this town, and seems to have favoured the cause of the corporation; for he is said to have ordered the sword to be carried before the mayor. But the bishop would not long submit to this royal order, for the very next year he had the sword carried before himself, as formerly, the mayor following, as one of his retinue or municipal officers. [387]

On the whole, therefore, it seems pretty evident that though Lynn became a corporate town, and was declared a free burgh as early as the beginning of the 13th century, yet it was not entirely freed from the temporal jurisdiction of the bishop, and the hard yoke of feudal domination, and so did not attain to equal liberty and independence with the generality of our English boroughs till a good part of the 16th century had elapsed. We accordingly find that the mayor and corporation, in the mean time, or during most part of it, seemed perfectly ready to approve as well as profess themselves the lordly prelate’s humble tenants and devout bedesmen; giving him the most explicit and solemn assurance, “that he should find in them as lowly tenants as any that longed to him within his lordships,” and that their bodies as well as goods were entirely at his service, &c. agreeably to the tenour of the above memorable letter to bishop Wakeryng. [388]—We may therefore venture to affirm that this town was, at most, but partially liberated from feudal vassalage, till the period above specified; that is, within these 300 years; before which the mayors of Lynn appeared, or might justly be considered, as the bishops’ head-men, chief bailiffs, or slave drivers; and the aldermen as so many underlings, or petty officers, implicitly executing his lordship’s paramount orders or commands.—Though the Charters might sometimes be thought to entitle his worship and his brethren to greater independence and a higher character, yet till then it does not seem that they were enabled to assume their proper dignity and consequence. The bishops being so powerful here, took care always to manage so as to thwart and baffle all their attempts. Nor did there seem to be any prospect of their succeeding in obtaining their proper station while the bishop continued to retain a paramount sway and uncontrolled power in the town. This the king, probably saw: and it might be one, if not the chief reason of his requiring the bishops, Nix and Rugg, to relinquish their oppressive jurisdiction here. However that might be, it is certain that his majesty deserved well of this corporation: and whatever their ideas or feelings may have been, or may now be, on this point, it must be said, that they ought to consider Henry among the very chief of their royal benefactors; with whom such princes as Charles and James the second, can, surely, bear no comparison; to whom, nevertheless, statues have been here erected!! [389]

CHAP. IV.

Further observations on the history of Lynn during the period under consideration—probable state of the town, as to its internal police and municipal economy previously to its being declared a free burgh and receiving its first royal charter—changes resulting from that event—statement of subsequent occurrences.

It has been already observed that Lynn was a place of considerable trade, and of growing importance and opulence, at and before the Conquest. Afterward its trade kept rapidly increasing; and in the reign of Richard I. it was become a place of distinguished eminence, insomuch that it was called by William of Newburgh, who lived at that time, “a noble city, or a city of note for its trade and commerce.” [390] Foreign merchants had then a regular established connection and intercourse with this town, and their ships and sailors frequented it in great numbers. A considerable body of Jews also had settled here, and must have been among the most active and useful part of its population; which further corroborates the report of its being in those days a place of no small commercial note and consequence, for those people were not likely to settle, in any great numbers, except in places of that description. [391] Indeed it seems pretty clear and certain that both in the reign of Richard and that of his brother and successor John, Lynn ranked very high among the trading towns of this kingdom, in point of commercial importance: and it is recorded upon undoubted authority, that in the sixth year of the last of those two reigns, (the date of our first royal charter) the tax or tallage of the king at Lynn, amounted to 651l. whereas that of London at the same time amounted only to 836l. 12s. 6d. [392] From which we may infer that the revenue which the crown then derived from the trade of this town, was more than two thirds of what it derived from that of London; and consequently that the trade itself of this town did in the mean time bear the same proportion to that of the metropolis; which may be presumed to have been the case of very few places, if any, besides in the kingdom.—Lynn being allowed to have a mint, or mints for the coining of money, belonging to the king and the bishop, [393a] has been deemed another proof of the flourishing state of the town at that period.

Of the government of Lynn, or its municipal economy in those times, very little is known, except that it appears to have been under the management of an officer who bore the name of provost, who doubtless was nominated by the bishop, and acted as his bailiff or deputy; but whether he was elected annually or held his office for a longer or shorter term, or during the pleasure of his master, seems rather uncertain. He was, however, the chief magistrate of the town, and had, of course, other officers assisting and acting under him, like our chief magistrates of more modern times. It is very provable that the order of things in this town was not so materially changed by king John as some may imagine. The chief alteration apparently was, that the town now ranked among those incorporated by royal charter, was consequently declared a free burgh, had its burgesses exempted from tolls, &c. in all parts of England, but London; and finally, had its chief magistrate denominated mayor, instead of provost, [393b] a circumstance, probably of no mighty consequence, or real benefit to the community, though highly gratifying, perhaps, to the pride and vanity of the corporation. The real difference, however, between a mayor and a provost, seems to be very little, if any thing, more than that between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The former indeed is generally taken to be the highest and most honourable appellation, and therefore our corporations naturally prefer it to the other, as the title of their head man, or chief magistrate. After all, the inferiority of the provost does not seem always perceivable; and nobody, perhaps, would deem the lord Mayor of York as superior in dignity to the lord Provost of Edinburgh.

The smiles and favours of royalty are always gratifying to most people: those of king John were so, no doubt, to his Lynn subjects, and may be supposed to have confirmed them more than ever in their attachment to him, which appears to have continued strong and steady afterwards during the remainder of his reign. Of the worth and merit of that attachment, his majesty seemed duly sensible: as a proof of which, they received from him in return, some very flattering and lasting tokens, beside the immunities and privileges specified in his charters; especially the silver cup which is still in being, and shewn to strangers and others as a great curiosity. It is an elegant double-gilt, embossed, and enamelled cup and cover, weighing 73 ounces, and of exquisite workmanship, and shews the uncommon skill and ingenuity of some our silver-smiths of that period, who were probably of the monkish order, as our best artists, as well as most renowned scholars, were then chiefly to be found within the solemn precincts of our monasteries.

The sword, which is usually carried before our mayors, has been also considered as another mark or token of king John’s favour to this town; but this appears a very questionable matter. This weapon, which has a silver mounting, the king is said to have taken from his side, and given to the corporation, to be carried before the major: but it does not appear that there was a sword at all carried before our mayors as early as the reign of king John, or even for a long time after. If such a ceremony was really observed here before the reign of Henry V. or of Henry VI. it must seemingly have been appropriated solely to the great lords of the place, the bishops of Norwich, who appear, all along to have claimed, that honour as their own peculiar, and exclusive prerogative: the mayors having no share in it, but only as they followed their masters, the bishops, and formed a part of their retinue. Bishop Gibson, in his additions to Camden, observes that the present sword, though said to have been given by king John, was really the gift of Henry VIII. after the town came into his possession, and he changed their burgesses into aldermen. John’s charter does not mention the sword, but that granted by Henry expressly says, that he granted them a sword to be carried before their mayor. As to the inscription on the blade of the present sword, purporting its being the gift of king John, it proves nothing, being apparently the unauthorized contrivance of two forward fellows of the town, a sword cutler and a school-master, as late as the reign of queen Elizabeth. [395] But, however improbable it may be that the said sword was ever the property of king John, and given by him as a present and mark of his royal and special favour to this corporation, yet there does not seem to be any just reason for entertaining similar doubts respecting the cup before-mentioned. The only circumstance relating to the cup which one would be inclined to deem doubtful, or rather incredible, is a certain sly insinuation, which has been sometimes heard, that it was a part of a parcel of stolen goods, which his majesty, while on a visit at Walsingham, contrived to pilfer from that celebrated abbey, and coming afterward to Lynn, made a present of it to the corporation.