A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



of £1,000 a °d upwards must keep six horses or geldings fit for mounting 

 demi-lances with harness complete and ten with weapons and harness for light 

 horsemen and so on down to estates of ioo marks and under £100, which 

 were to furnish one gelding and harness for one light horseman. 1 The 

 apportioning of the ship-money was not so easy. 2 Upland woollen towns 

 objected to pay for both coast and land defence. Ipswich answered that their 

 wool was shipped at the coast, and no port no trade. Lowestoft was too 

 poor to furnish the pinnace alone, and the coast towns of Blything had to 

 contribute. Aldeburgh had in a most spirited fashion furnished a ship and 

 paid £s9° f° r fr> while Orford, Dunwich and Southwold, Woodbridge and 

 Walberswick, collectively contributed only £40 to the outlay. 3 During the 

 summer of 1588 it was found impossible to maintain the county levy at the 

 coast, for the farms wanted hands in the June weather, and it was arranged 

 that the towns and companies should take it by turns to watch a month. 

 Her Majesty was a believer in the blue water theory and the Navy was 

 indeed the defence of the whole realm. Suffolk was ordered to provide 

 200 cwt. each of butter and cheese for the fleet at reasonable price. On 

 23 July, while the fight was running up the channel, the county was 

 ordered to send 2,000 men, and on the 28th, when the Spaniards had anchored 

 off Calais, another 1,000 was urgently demanded. The county levied 4,239 

 men, and 2,000 of these were to repair on 8 August to Tilbury, under Sir 

 William Heydon their colonel, but the same day a contradictory order was 

 sent, for news had come that the Spanish fleet had been sighted ENE. of 

 Yarmouth,* and Sir William was to wait with his levy till it would appear what 

 course they were going to take, while Sir William Waldegrave, Sir Nicholas 

 Bacon, and Sir William Spryng were ordered to bring the rest of the levies to 

 Stratford-le-Bow. On 7 August the danger was over, for the Spaniards were 

 fleeing northward before the gale, and the Suffolk men were allowed to go 

 about their harvest again. 5 Only the seamen had no rest, and 1 10 were ordered 

 to be taken and pressed and sent to Dover and Sandwich. The geldable 

 portion of Suffolk was commanded to contribute £500 to the ships furnished 

 by Ipswich and Harwich. 6 All gentlemen who had served in Her Majesty's 

 service in the summer were to be exempt, and the tax fell principally on 

 the poor and on the recusants. The county continued to send contingents to 

 the Spanish wars under Drake and Norris, 7 but the men deserted at the water's 

 edge, and sailors simply were not to be found. 



The 21 July, 1603, saw Suffolk once more with a duke of its own. 

 Thomas, lord Howard de Walden, 8 second son of the Duke of Norfolk, was 

 raised to the dignity. Two years later the county was horrified to find that 

 one of its number was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. Ambrose Rook- 

 wood, of ColdhamhalP had been persuaded into joining the plot, which was 

 wildly supposed to be the first act in a new Spanish invasion. Robert Rook- 

 wood of Clopton and Robert Townsend of Broughton were examined for 

 evidence, and Ambrose's house was searched, but nothing treasonable was to be 

 found and he himself had not been seen in the county since October. 10 The 



1 Grose, Military Antiquities, 13. * Acts of the Privy Council (New Ser.), I 588, p. 58. 



"Ibid. 115. 'Ibid. 210. s Ibid. 224. 



6 Ibid. 368 et seq. 7 Cal. S. P. Dom. 1591-4, p. 552. 8 Ibid. 1603-10, p. 23. 



9 See East Angl. Mag. iii (Ser. xi), 145. l0 Cal. S. P. Dom. 1603-10, p. 253. 



186 



