The Day That Cromwell Came To Town
The top end of Rant Score – with the road still bearing the name of a family which held all the land between what is now 80 High Street and the score itself, from the end of the 16th century until the middle of the 17th. Looking at both road signs, at the top - with the smaller blue one advising motorists to “Beware oncoming Cyclists” - it is hard to imagine how cars going down the slope would ever be met by cyclists “tanking up” that gradient at any real turn of speed! And it was on this very spot, on 14 March 1644 (1643, by use of the old Julian Calendar) that a number of Royalist gentry from North Suffolk and South Norfolk - plus a handful of sympathetic townsmen - made a token stand against Oliver Cromwell and his force of cavalry, which had come to Lowestoft from Cambridge (or Norwich - accounts vary) on hearing of an arms shipment which was either being brought in, or sent out, to assist the cause of Charles I (it has never been established which).
A chain was put across the score at this point, by the King’s supporters, and three cannon (dragged up from the Ness Point battery) set in place to traverse the High Street (north and south) and the Market Place – across which there was, at the time, an almost open field of fire along the line of Blue Anchor Lane (Duke’s Head Street). And Beccles Way, as it was called (now, St. Peter’s Street), was the road by which the Roundheads would have entered the town. No fighting of any kind took place and a local merchant, Thomas Mighells, negotiated a truce. Cromwell took most of the Royalists away with him, back to Cambridge, including the Lowestoft vicar, James Rous, and three local mariners, Thomas Allin (al. Allen) and the brothers, Simon and Thomas Canham. They were all placed under house arrest there, for an extended period of time, before being released.
This event has been cited as evidence that Lowestoft was a “Royalist town” – in contrast with Great Yarmouth, which was definitely of Parliamentary sympathy. Cromwell’s own lawyer, Miles Corbet, lived in a house on the market place, there, and may even have drafted Charles I’s death warrant. Lowestoft was almost certainly a community of mixed allegiance, with some of its population of Royalist persuasion, while others (particularly its Nonconformist citizens) would have been on the side of Parliament. And there would have been others, no doubt, who felt no particular allegiance to either side. After their confinement in Cambridge had come to an end, the people taken there returned home, with Thomas Allin (later to become an admiral in Charles II’s navy, during the 1660s) eventually finding his way over to Holland and operating from a base there to harry Parliamentary shipping in the North Sea – especially vessels belonging to Great Yarmouth!
The armed conflict between Crown and Parliament, which lasted from 1642 until 1651, has been estimated to have resulted in 85,000 battlefield deaths, with a further 100,000 fatalities resulting from various, indirect causes relating to it. England’s population in the middle of the 17th century has been estimated at about five and a half million people – so the Civil Wars (and there were two of them) were responsible for about 3-4% of the country’s population dying. Members of families sometimes found themselves divided in their loyalties, and there is no better example of this in Lowestoft than when William Canham (gentleman) came to make his will in May 1647. Among the bequests made was the sum of £5 for his fourth son, Simon (referred to, two paragraphs above) – to be paid to him “when he shall have made his peace with the Parliament of England and returned home to Lowestoft”. The said Simon might well have been across the other side of the North Sea with Thomas Allin.
The Lowestoft episode involving Cromwell and his troops has been well recorded. Two of the Norfolk Record Society’s published series – The Knyvett Letters, 1620-44 (vol. xx, 1949) and The Corie Letters, 1664-87 (vol. xxvii, 1956) – contain details of the event, as family members of the time were among members of the gentry present that day. These same people are referred to in a handwritten note of the time by the Lowestoft vicar, James Rous, which follows a baptism recorded for 12 March – there being no more such entries until 23 August (which resulted from Rous’s period of absence from the town). The register shows the date of the first baptism as 12 March 1643 and the one which follows it as 23 August 1644, but it is the year 1644 being referred to in both entries. Up until 1752 (when the Gregorian model was introduced), the old Julian Calendar was used in England – and the New Year began on 25 March: the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There can be no better way of giving a sense of Cromwell’s visit than letting James Rous describe it in his own words – but with the spelling of today used, rather than the variant form of the mid-17th century.
“Anno Domini 1644. Reader, whoever you are, that shall have occasion to peruse this book, know that by this means for these two following years it comes to be so imperfect as you find it; on the fourteenth of March 1643 Colonel Cromwell with a Brigade of Horse [cavalry] and certain foot [infantry] which he had from Yarmouth came to this Town and carried away Prisoners Sir Thomas Barker and his brother Sir John Pettus, Mr. Knivett of Ashwellthorpe, Mr. Catline, Captain Hammond, Mr. Thomas Cory with others to Cambridge and with these myself Mr. Thomas Allen, Mr. Symon Canham and Thomas Canham of this Town so that for some time following there was in this Town neither Minister nor Clark [sic], but the inhabitants were enforced to procure now one and then another to baptise their children by which means there was no Register kept, only those few hereafter mentioned were by myself baptised in those intervals when I enjoyed my freedom.Haec scripsi June 1st Anno Domini 1646. Sd. Jacob Rous.
It is difficult to ascertain, from James Rous’s account, exactly how long his absence from the parish was (presumably, about five months) – and the archaic phraseology and punctuation (or lack of it) don’t help. His words have been reproduced here as accurately as possible, just as they are written on page in the register book, within the restraints imposed by the layout of this text. And there are two main things of interest – other than the names of the men arrested. The first is that Cromwell added to his cavalry with militia reinforcements from Great Yarmouth – Lowestoft’s main rival and “bogeyman” for about the previous three centuries – with ongoing dispute between the two communities as to fishing and trading rights in the local part of the North Sea. It’s not hard to imagine the pleasure of the foot-soldiers as they marched in, lording it over the enemy! The other matter deserving of comment is the way that Rous signed himself off in Latin: “I have written these [words, or things – understood] on June 1st, in the year of Our Lord 1646. Sd. [Signed] Jacob Rous. Jacobus being the common Latin form of “James”, and Jacob its customary abbreviation..
During his brief stay in Lowestoft, Cromwell stayed overnight - and possibly the following evening - at The Swan inn, which stood at the top of Mariner’s Score (Swan Score, in those days) on the site now occupied by Nos. 41-42 High Street. Edmund Gillingwater, in his An Historical Account of the Ancient Town of Lowestoft (1790) - footnote on p. 236 - has this to say: “This William Frary was a blacksmith in the town; and when Oliver Cromwell and his forces were at Lowestoft, was a considerable sufferer from the soldiers entering his shop and working up his stock, for the use of the army. He was also obliged to keep his horse in the parlour, to prevent his being seized by the soldiers.” From what is to be understood, here, is that Frary had his forge used by some of Cromwell’s troops to shoe their horses and that, fearing his own animal being requisitioned, had concealed it inside his house. Edmund Gillingwater’s mother, Alice, was a member of the Frary family, who had married his father, Edmund Snr., on 30 June 1729 - with his older brother Isaac being baptised on 14 April 1732 and he himself following on 29 December 1736. The story about the forge and the horse must have been handed down in the family. And what makes it even more interesting is that the Lowestoft manor court books recording property transfer show that William Frary occupied a High Street dwelling house and blacksmith’s shop immediately to the north of Swan Score (Mariner’s Score) from 1635 until at least 1654 - premises which were still in the family’s tenure in 1720! No wonder he hid his horse indoors, with Cromwell just across the way at the top of the score!
Someone who came off a lot worse than William Frary was Sir John Wentworh of Somerleyton Hall (1578-1651). Though of Presbyterian (Puritan) leanings in the practice of his Christian faith, he was not perhaps of full Parliamentarian persuasion in his political alignment - which is why Cromwell may have quartered much of his cavalry force (plus others) on him for two or three days. The Revd. Alfred Suckling, in The History and Antiquities off the County of Suffolk, vol. II (1848), p. 48, records this particular episode in detail, using documentation kept by Wentworth himself - beginning in January 1640 and relating to the Somerleyton estate. Strangely, the account begins “Upon the 14 day of March, 1642, being Tuesday…” Whereas use of a perpetual calendar shows that this particular date fell on a Monday - with the following year of 1643 being a Tuesday. Therefore, for whatever the reason, Sir John Wentworth was a year out in his account.
What follows, however, is of great interest - continuing thus “…Collonell [sic] Cromwell’s troope, and Captain Fountyne with his troope, and divers others, to the number of 140, came to Somerley [sic] Hall in the morning, and there they quartered that night, and a great part of them all Wednesday and Thursday till afternoon.
“Valuing the quartering of 100 men - because some of them went away that morning [perhaps to Lowestoft] - for two days, as above-said, at 8d the man, comes to £3 6s 8d.
“Item, their horses eat in that time - as is by good proof made manifest - 35 comb [coombs] of oats: the price of them 5s. the comb comes to £8 15s 0d.
“Item, their horses eat and stroyed off the chamber and out of the barn, at least 4 comb of wheat, besides rye: the price of such wheat then, at least 16s. the comb, comes to £3 4s 0d.
“Item, their horses eat and stroyed at least three loads of grey [dried] peas in the straw, all of which were very well worth £4 0s 0d.
“Item, they shot out of the sacks, and gave to their horses, 9 bushels of barley: then being 2s. the bushel, comes to £0 18s 0d.
“Summe of this free quarter £20 3s 8d.
“Besides at least five loads of good hard-land hay eaten and stroyed, worth £5 at least.
“For goods, horses, and arms seized or taken, thus we informe and accompte [account]:
“The 15th day of March, 1642 [sic], Colonel Cromwell’s quarter-master took away from Somerleyton Hall, the house of Sir John Wentworth, Knt., six muskets, worth 20s. the musket, which comes to £6; and their bandiliers [bandoleers], and two rests, valued at 6s 8d; and one fowling-piece well worth 22s.; and 12 headpieces [helmets], valued at 9s. the piece, comes to £5. 8s.
“So the total of these armes comes to £12. 16s. 8d.
“More was taken at the same time, but by whom we know not; in gold, £160.”
It has not been possible to replicate the layout of Sir John Wentworth’s claim against the forced hospitality extended to Cromwell’s cavalry, but it can be seen that it was presented as a set of accounts for money owing. Everything named added up to a total of £198 0s 4d - a considerable sum of money for the time. The coomb measure was an Imperial unit of volume/capacity, used for centuries for dry goods (especially grain), and measuring out at thirty-two gallons. Its smaller constituent was the bushel, which measured out at eight gallons - with four such units making up the coomb. A coomb of oats weighed fourteen stones, barley sixteen and wheat eighteen. Not only did the troops themselves eat at Wentworth’s expense, but their horses obviously made serious inroads into his stock of animal feed. Sundry items of firearms and weaponry were either requisitioned or confiscated and gold coin and plate were also taken away. No record exists, or has come to light, as to whether or not Wentworth was reimbursed, but he is shown not long afterwards - along with Sir Butts Bacon of Blundeston - as being charged with organising local militia forces in the Parliamentary cause (Suckling, pp. 49-50). And some years later, in December 1648, he signed a declaration - along with fifty-three other inhabitants of Somerleyton - promising to “be true and faythful to the comen wealth of England, as the same is now established, without a King or House of Lords” (Suckling, pp. 51-2).
Far more is not known about the Lowestoft episode, involving Oliver Cromwell, than what is recorded or established. But the incident is nevertheless a fascinating cameo of a deeply troubled time in our nation’s history.
The view shown here of Somerleyton Hall was executed by the Revd. A. Suckling himself (Rector of Barsham 1839-56) and it shows the building as it appeared before the changes made by Samuel Morton Peto during 1844. The Sucklings were a long-established Barsham family and Horatio Nelson’s mother was a member of it.
CREDIT: David Butcher
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