A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



friendly inhabitants. Sir Charles Cornwallis, at his wits' end, suggested that 

 the deputy-lieutenants should be given powers of arbitrary punishment, so 

 that the runaways might be punished without fear of pursuit in law or in 

 Parliament. 1 Further, men were demanded for the siege of La Rochelle. 

 The county refused to send them till the last two presses were satisfied and 

 some definite provision made by the council for the payment of press and 

 conduct money, for ' without money service cannot be got.' In reply, the 

 council first adopted a tone of dignified reproach, saying that the custom 

 always had been for the county to defray all expenses, and send in its bill 

 to the government, and then peremptorily ordered the impressment to 

 proceed without delay. The justices of the peace and the deputy-lieutenants 

 had simply to put their hands in their pockets. Masters 2 and owners of 

 Ipswich ships were many of them like to be ruined by the Isle de Rhe 

 disaster, and Aldeburgh frankly told the council that if they wanted the 

 town fortified they must do it themselves. A further loan of 5*55 was 

 demanded in February, 1628. The county despaired of keeping solvent, 

 and Buckingham was regarded as the root of all evil, so much so that one 

 of the Feltons of Playford thought to mend matters by assassinating him. It 

 was rumoured that Felton was only one of certain persons of quality in Suffolk 

 who had threatened the Duke. 3 But Felton's fortitude prevented the 

 discovery of the names of any of his confederates. His action brought no 

 relief, only a change of masters. The coasts were no better defended. The 

 county definitely refused to pay the muster-master's fee, and at Bury* 

 Sir Robert Crane and Sir Lionel Tollemache, as members of Parliament, 

 refused to sign any warrants for it, fearing they might be committed for it 

 by the House. 'But,' said Sir Robert Crane, 'you, Sir Thomas Glemham and 

 Mr. Poley, and such as are no Parliament men, make out the warrants.' The 

 other deputy-lieutenants answered they would all run the same course, and 

 the warrants remained unsigned. The fiscal and military exactiorJs, added to 

 the irksome ecclesiastical restraints under Laud, made Suffolk men restless 

 and hopeless. The sacredness of individual religion as they found it in the 

 Gospels and in the sermons and prayers of their powerful preacher, 

 Dr. Samuel Ward, whose fame was great in both London and Cambridge, 

 was to them more precious than their homes. They decided, urged thereto 

 by a certain 6 Dr. Dalton, parson of Woolverstone by Ipswich, to emigrate to 

 America, and arrangements were made for transporting some 600 persons 

 out of Suffolk. Mr. Ward did not discourage their flight under persecution, 

 while commending the courage of those who remained, for he writes : ' he was 

 not of so melancholy a spirit nor looked through so black spectacles as he 

 that wrote that religion stands on tip-toe in this land looking westward.' 

 The first ships were to sail on 10 March, 1633. Ward was brought up before 

 the Court of High Commission, and Dr. Brent made an ecclesiastical 

 visitation through the county. He found preachers everywhere. Not a 

 bowling-green or an ordinary could exist without one, and many private 

 gentlemen kept divines in their houses as tutors to their children. 



October, 1634, saw the beginning of the fiscal revolt, the struggle in the 

 county against arbitrary taxation." In that month the maritime towns were 



1 Cal. S.P. Dm. 1627-8, p. 198. * Ibid. 1625-49, P- 3*- * ^ b ^- '633-4, P- '75- 



4 Ibid. 1625-49, p. 379. * Ibid. 1633-4, P- 45- ' Ibid - l6 34-5> P- 2 4*- 



1 88 



