CHAPTER II.

Description of Beccles-modern improvements-probable state in the reign of Mary; the scene of persecutionFox's account of the burning of three men; their examination; sentence; articles against them; their conduct and treatment at the stake-Remarks.

IN point of situation and general appearance, Beccles has been accounted by some worthy to rank as the third town in Suffolk. Towards the west it is skirted by a cliff, once washed by the estuary which separated the eastern parts of Norfolk and Suffolk.* A portion of the most elevated ground is occupied by the parish church and church-yard, commanding a view somewhat more

*"The mouth of the Yare at that time, (cir. A. D. 1000.) was an estuary or arm of the sea, and extended, with considerable magnitude, for many miles up the country. Tradition, the faithful preserver of many a fact which history has overlooked or forgotten, confidently and invariably asserts it; and the present appearance of the ancient bed of the river, from Yarmouth to Harleston in Norfolk, tends to confirm it."-Gillingwater's Hist. of Lowestoft, 4to, p. 26.

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expanded and interesting than is common in this part of the county. It overlooks the valley of the appropriately designated river Waveney. The church is a handsome building, said to have been erected about A. D. 1369. Its south porch, of rather more recent date, affords a fine specimen of highly ornamented Gothic architecture.* massive tower of freestone, erected early in the sixteenth century, stands apart from the church. The other principal buildings, for public purposes, are, a town-hall; a spacious modern gaol; a theatre; an assembly room, to which is attached an apartment used as a public library; a free school for instruction in "writing, cyphering, and learning," and in the established religion; a meeting-house belonging to the Society of Friends, appropriated to the purpose of an infant school room; and the meeting-houses or chapels of

*The upper part of this porch forms a room in which is a small, but valuable, collection of books in divinity.

† A subscription has been set on foot, a site purchased, and the promise of a grant from government obtained, for the erection of a school on the principles of the British and Foreign School Society.

the Independent, Baptist, and Wesleyan denominations of christians.

The population of Beccles, as stated in the census of 1831, was 3862, and is considered to be gradually increasing. The town possesses the commercial advantage of a communication by water with the sea at Yarmouth and Lowestoft. An extensive tract of marshes, formerly held by the abbot of Bury St. Edmund's, as part of the manor of Beccles, has long been vested in incorporated trustees for the benefit of the inhabitants. There are also other lands held for charitable uses.

It is probable, that long before the arm of the sea had retired within the humble banks of the Waveney-while Yarmouth was yet a sand-bank, swept by the ocean-the spot in question had become the settled abode of some who found in the adjacent waters a ready means of subsistence.*

* The herring fishery was evidently a principal source of emolument to the inhabitants. In the time of the Conqueror the fee farm rent of the manor of Beccles to the king was 60,000 herrings, and in the time of the Confessor 30,000.-Domesday Book.

The grant to the inhabitants at a later period, of the tract of marshes reclaimed from the sea, was perhaps an inade

It is generally supposed that the name, Beccles, was adopted with reference to a church which had been built here at an early period.* Possibly Sigebert, king of the East Angles, and founder of a monastery at Bury, might select this place,

quate compensation for the loss of the fishery. It was stated by a writer at the commencement of the seventeenth century that more wealth was raised out of herrings and other fish in his majesty's seas by the neighbouring nations in one year, than the king of Spain had from the Indies in four.-Phænix, i. 222.

* There has been a difference of opinion respecting the derivation of the name, which is not likely to be settled. The common notion is, that the first letter is an abbreviation of Bella. Some suppose the first syllable, Bec, to be derived from the name of an abbey inNormandy. A third interpretation may be suggested. Bec de terre, a point of land, was sufficiently descriptive of the spot, while the marshes which lie west, north, and east of the town, remained under water. Bec and eglise might be compounded into Becclys, the ancient orthography. It has been surmised that the town may have owed its origin to its site having "protruded into the ancient river" and served during the Roman, Saxon, and Danish invasions, as a convenient situation for placing a beacon or signal.--Gillingwater's History of Lowestoft, p. 26. At all events, the Rev. Geo. Crabbe has been led into an error in supposing the name to be derived from the present "beautiful church," nor does it appear why he prefers "beata" to "bella." Crabbe's Life and Works, vol. i. p. 147.

among others, for the establishment and propagation of the Christian faith, which he had imbibed during a voluntary exile in France.* The manor and advowson of Beccles were granted by King Edwy, about A. D. 956, to the monks of Bury, and remained in their possession until the dissolution of the religious houses under Henry the Eighth.

In most of its local features, as well as in its commercial, civil, and moral interests, the town has, no doubt, greatly improved since the period to which the close of the preceding chapter refers. Navigation and intercourse with other inland places have been facilitated; and trade, adapting itself to existing circumstances, has been extended. More efficient municipal regulations, and advancing civilization, have contributed to the preservation of order, and led to an extension of privileges to the inhabitants. Considerable progress has been made towards an improved system of prison

* Under him it is said that "the sable clouds of paganism which had overshadowed these parts near two hundred years," were dissipated by the glorious rays of the gospel."-Gardner's History of Dunwich, Blithburgh, and Southwold, 4to, 1754, pp. 42, 43.

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