THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
LX I IL—SUFFOLK AND NORFOLK.-(CONCLUSION.) NATE have, in concluding our notice of this Province, to refer
to one or two towels whose burgesses are not specially mentioned in Domesday Book, but which are of a certain import- ance at the present day.
Lowestoft ( or Laystoff )—a place of considerable anti-
quity—is a coast town of Suffolk, 45 miles north-east from Ipswich, and stands on a cliff facing the sea, with a beach in some parts nearly half a mile wide. The town grew rapidly between the censuses of 1851 and 1861, the population, Which in the former year was 6,580, reaching 10,663 in the latter year. This was chiefly owing to the great improvement of the port and town, the new railway communication, and the subsequent increase in the number of visitors for bathing, &c. The principal support of the town, commercially, is the fishery and fish-curing for the Lon-
don and Norwich markets. There are also rope and twine manu- factures. At one time Lowestoft fitted out 30 boats annually for the North Sea and Iceland fishery, but this trade declining gradually, was relinquished in the middle of the last century. The town was part of the ancient demesne of the Crown, and as such had many privileges, one of which was exemption for the inhabi- tants from serving on juries either at the quarter sessions or assizes. It was several times visited by the plague, particularly in 1603, when 280 persons were buried in five months. There was also a great fire on the 16th of March, 1645, which consumed property to the amount of 10,2971. The Royalist gentry gathered here in the beginning of 1643, in order to form an organization antagonistic to the " Associated Eastern Counties ;" but Cromwell forcing an entrance into the town made prisoners of the whole of them, and so nipped the enterprise in the bud. A very severe naval fight was fought off this town on the 3rd of June, 1665, between the English and Dutch, which ended unfavourably to the latter, but with severe loss on both sides, including Admirals Sampson and Lawson, and the Earls of Marlborough and Rutland. The town has been especially a nursery of distinguished seamen.
Newmarket, which stands partly in Suffolk, partly in Cambridge- shire, must be mentioned in respect of the celebrated races with which its name is now associated. It is situated 13 miles east by north from Cambridge, in the bottom and along the sides of a valley. The greater part of the town was destroyed by fire in 1623, and again in the middle of the last century. The race- course extends four miles in length. Horse-racing appears to have been introduced here about the close of the sixteenth century, and becoming fashionable under James I., a house was erected here for the accommodation of the King and Court. The population of the town, which in 1851 was 3,356, amounted in 1861 to 4,069.
Lynn, a market town and seaport of Norfolk, 41 miles west - north - west from Norwich, extends about a mile in length on the right bank of the estuary of the Ouse. An older town is supposed to have existed in the time of the Romans, on the site of the present village of 1Vest or Old Lynn, on the left bank of the river. " The harbour of Lynn was much enlarged by an alteration of the course of the Ouse, the left bank of the river being to a considerable extent swept away, with one of the churches of Old Lynn." Before this Lynn had been a place of considerable trade. In Domesday Book it is called Len or Lena, and then belonged to 0 gelmare, Bishop of North Elmham, and Archbishop Stigand. It then enjoyed " the privilege of certain duties and customs, payable on the arrival of any goods or mer- chandise by sea or land, of which the bishop of the diocese at that time was found seized of a moiety. Henry I. granted liberty to the Priory of Norwich, which then possessed the fee of the town, to hold a fair at Lynn on the feast of St. Margaret, with sac and soc and other customs." William of Newburgh, in the reign of Richard I., speaks of it as a town distinguished for traffic and commerce. Many Jews then resided in it. It has received no less than fifteen Royal charters, beginning with one in the time of John, in 1204, by which the burgesses were to elect a prxpositus or pro- vost, subject to the bishop, who was hence called the bishop's man, but in the end of this reign the mayor. The borough has returned two Members to Parliament from the 23rd of Edward I. Henry VIII. changed the name from Lynn Episcopi, or Bishop's Lynn, to Lynn Regis, or King's Lynn. In the civil war of Charles I. the Cavalier gentry occupied the town, and held it against the Earl of Manchester from the 28th of August, 1643, to the 16th of September, when it capitulated and paid 3,2001. ransom. It was formerly defended on the land side by walls, of which some traces have remained to the present time. There are also some remains of ancient ecclesiastical edifices in the town, and an " hexagonal tower, 90 feet high, formerly the Grey or Franciscan Friars' Monastery, which serves as a landmark to vessels entering the harbour." There are a corn market and fairs. Ropernak- ing and shipbuilding are carried on to some extent, and the channel of the river has been of late years deepened. The exports are corn, agricultural produce, and a fine sand used for mak- ing glass. There is also a considerable trade in shrimps for the London market. The imports are corn, coal, timber, hemp, and tallow. There is a considerable coasting and some foreign trade, but the population of the borough declined between 1851 and 1861 from 19,355 to 16,170.
Among the celebrated men whom this Province has produced we may mention Admirals Sir Thomas Allen and Sir John Ashby (of Lowestoft) ; Richard de Atingervyle, or De Bury (from his native place), tutor to Edward III., and Bishop of Durham and Lord High Chancellor and Treasurer to that King, who founded a library on the spot where Trinity College, Cambridge, now stands ;
the celebrated Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal and Archbishop and Lord Chancellor (born at Ipswich); Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester (born at Bury); Edward, Lord Thurlow, Lord Chancellor (born at Ashfield, in Suffolk) ; John Lydgate, the poet (born at a village of that name in Suffolk) ; Robert Bloomfield, the rustic poet (born at Honington, in Suffolk) ; Ralph Brown- rigg, Bishop of Exeter during the civil war of the reign of Charles L (born at Ipswich, where his father was a merchant); Sir Simonds d'Ewes, the antiquary, and M.P. of the Long Parlia- ment, who, though not born in Suffolk, was a member of a Suffolk family, was educated at Bury, and lived at Stowlangtoft, in the same county; Archbishop William Sancroft (born and died at Fres- ingfield, in Suffolk) ; Archdeacon Laurence Echard, the historian (born at Barsham, near Beccles) ; Thomas Gainsborough, the painter (born at Sudbury) ; Thomas Nash, the poet and satirist in the close of the sixteenth century (born at Lowestoft, for which place he fought vigorously in satire against Yarmouth) ; Clara Reeve, authoress of the once popular story of the Old English Baron, and Sarah Trimmer, well known for her publications for children, both natives of Ipswich ; Sir John Bourchier, afterwards Lord Berners, the well known soldier and author of the reign of Henry VIII. (of Thorpe, in Norfolk); Queen Anne Boleyn (born at Blickling Hall, in Norfolk) ; Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury ; Dr. John Kaye, better known as Dr. Caius, the celebrated physician and founder of Caius College, Dr. Samuel Clarke, the well known Rector of St. James, and author of the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, John Cosin, Bishop of Durham, who was so prominent in the reign of Charles I. as a Ritualist, and Edward King, the antiquary,—all natives of Norwich ; Sir Thomas. Gresham, the projector of the Royal Exchange of London, born at. Holt, in Norfolk ; Miles Corbet, one of the more eminent of the members of the High Court of Justice on Charles I., and_ executed after the Restoration for his share in the King's. death (a native of Norfolk, which also gave birth to William. Heveningham, another of the Regicides, more fortunate in his. fate) ; Sir Roger l'Estrange, the Royalist political writer of the same period (born at Hunstanton Hall, in Norfolk) ; Sir Edward Coke, the celebrated Chief Justice and patriotic member of Parliament (born at Mileham, in Norfolk) ; Sir William le Neve, the antiquary and herald (born at Aslacton, in Norfolk) ; Thomas (better known as Tom) Paine, author of the Rights of Man, Age of Reason, and Common Sense (born at Thetford) ; Richard Porson, the great Greek scholar (born at Ruston, in Norfolk) ; Sir Henry Spelman, the antiquary (born at Congham, in Norfolk) ; and last, but not least, Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford (born at Houghton, in Norfolk).
Such a roll of distinguished names may well secure for this Province a not inconsiderable share in the fame attaching to eminent Englishmen, and with this striking testimony to the merits of her sons we conclude our present notice.
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