From Ipswich I took a turn into the country to Hadleigh,
principally to satisfy my curiosity and see the place where that
famous martyr and pattern of charity and religious zeal in Queen
Mary’s time, Dr. Rowland Taylor, was put to death. The
inhabitants, who have a wonderful veneration for his memory, show
the very place where the stake which he was bound to was set up,
and they have put a stone upon it which nobody will remove; but it
is a more lasting monument to him that he lives in the hearts of
the people – I say more lasting than a tomb of marble would be, for
the memory of that good man will certainly never be out of the poor
people’s minds as long as this island shall retain the Protestant
religion among them. How long that may be, as things are going,
and if the detestable conspiracy of the Papists now on foot should
succeed, I will not pretend to say.
A little to the left is Sudbury, which stands upon the River Stour,
mentioned above – a river which parts the counties of Suffolk and
Essex, and which is within these few years made navigable to this
town, though the navigation does not, it seems, answer the charge,
at least not to advantage.
I know nothing for which this town is remarkable, except for being
very populous and very poor. They have a great manufacture of says
and perpetuanas, and multitudes of poor people are employed in
working them; but the number of the poor is almost ready to eat up
the rich. However, this town sends two members to Parliament,
though it is under no form of government particularly to itself
other than as a village, the head magistrate whereof is a
constable.
Near adjoining to it is a village called Long Melfort, and a very
long one it is, from which I suppose it had that addition to its
name; it is full of very good houses, and, as they told me, is
richer, and has more wealthy masters of the manufacture in it, than
in Sudbury itself.
Here and in the neighbourhood are some ancient families of good
note; particularly here is a fine dwelling, the ancient seat of the
Cordells, whereof Sir William Cordell was Master of the Rolls in
the time of Queen Elizabeth; but the family is now extinct, the
last heir, Sir John Cordell, being killed by a fall from his horse,
died unmarried, leaving three sisters co-heiresses to a very noble
estate, most of which, if not all, is now centred on the only
surviving sister, and with her in marriage is given to Mr.
Firebrass, eldest son of Sir Basil Firebrass, formerly a
flourishing merchant in London, but reduced by many disasters. His
family now rises by the good fortune of his son, who proves to be a
gentleman of very agreeable parts, and well esteemed in the
country.
From this part of the country, I returned north-west by Lenham, to
visit St. Edmund’s Bury, a town of which other writers have talked
very largely, and perhaps a little too much. It is a town famed
for its pleasant situation and wholesome air, the Montpelier of
Suffolk, and perhaps of England. This must be attributed to the
skill of the monks of those times, who chose so beautiful a
situation for the seat of their retirement; and who built here the
greatest and, in its time, the most flourishing monastery in all
these parts of England, I mean the monastery of St. Edmund the
Martyr. It was, if we believe antiquity, a house of pleasure in
more ancient times, or to speak more properly, a court of some of
the Saxon or East Angle kings; and, as Mr. Camden says, was even
then called a royal village, though it much better merits that name
now; it being the town of all this part of England, in proportion
to its bigness, most thronged with gentry, people of the best
fashion, and the most polite conversation. This beauty and
healthiness of its situation was no doubt the occasion which drew
the clergy to settle here, for they always chose the best places in