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.
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 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.

Credit: David Butcher
 

Attached photo credit Joe Mason

https://joemasonspage.wordpress.com/2019/05/29/oliver-cromwells-east-anglian-background/