reigns of king Stephen, and Henry II. We find in Doomsday Book, that there were then nine churches standing; viz. the Holy Trinity, St. Austin, St. Michael, St. Mary, St. Botolph, (i. e. Whitton) St. Laurence, St. Peter, St. Stephen, and Thurleston, the three former of which are now no more, and have never been rebuilt; and we are told by Stow, in his annals, that in the fifteenth year of Edward I. 1287, on new year's day, at night, as well through vehemency of the wind as violence of the sea, many churches were overthrown and destroyed, not only at Yarmouth, Dunwich, and Ipswich, but also in divers other places in England. Thus the remorseless waves, and the unruly winds, topple down high towers and moss-grown steeples, and towns and churches tumble and decay. Sic transit gloria mundi. Having thus, I trust, very properly moralised upon the frailty of all terrestrial things, let us proceed to inquire into the civil institutions of the times. At, and some time previous to the Conquest, Ipswich, like the other boroughs that were in the demesne of the crown, was held by the sovereign himself, or perhaps one third of the revenue was granted to some earl, and the other two thirds remained in the possession of the crown. It was not uncommon for the earl to let the revenues of the borough to some other persons for a certain annual rent, but still he never neglected his third. There were some of the inhabitants who had possessions without the town, held by military service, and these were the only lawful men of the realm, and free men, properly so called. The rest had, strictly speaking, no property at all; they held what they had at the will of their superior, and consequently had no will of their own, being thus happily saved the trouble of thinking for themselves, for they could not devise their possessions to their children without permission of their lord, who had a property in their very persons, and they were denominated his villains, and his men. Alas! how are we degenerated, for who would not wish to have lived in what we have often heard so pathetically called the "good old times!" An extract from Doomsday, which was finished in the twentieth year of William, 1086, will shew that the inhabitants of Ipswich enjoyed these privileges in their fullest extent:-" Half hundred of Gippeswid. This Roger Bigod keepeth in the king's hand. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, queen Edith, who was the daughter of earl Goodwin, had two parts of the borough, and earl Guert, her brother, had the third part; and the queen had a grange in demense, to which belonged four carucates or hides of land." When this house was rebuilt it was probably called New Palace, or New Place; and the farm-house now standing retains the name of New Place to the present day. It goes on to state further, that, " In the time of king Edward, there were 538 burgesses who paid custom to the king, and they had forty acres of land. But now there are only 110 burgesses who pay custom, and 100 poor burgesses who can pay no more than one penny a head to the king's geld. So upon the whole they have forty acres of land, and 328 houses now empty; and which, in the time of king Edward, scotted to the king's geld. Roger, the vice-earl, let the whole for £40, to be paid at the feast of St. Michael; afterwards he could not have their rent, and he abated sixty shillings of it, now it pays £37. And the earl always has the third part." It is not said whether the revenues were let to one or more persons, but probably to some of the principal burgesses of the town. Sometimes the king held certain boroughs himself, and appointed one or more officers, who were called præpositi, or provosts; and under the Norman king's these officers were called ballivi, or bailives. The policy of these latter princes led them to raise the condition of the lower people, that by their means they might the better be enabled to check the inordinate power of the barons; this was done gradually, by altering the tenures of private persons, and then by enfranchising whole communities, especially the boroughs in the royal demesne, as being more immediately dependant upon the crown. There are, doubtless, many of my readers whose pens can glide over the surface of their paper with as much rapidity as their thoughts arise in their own fertile imaginations; and these can, I fear, but imperfectly judge of the labours of the creeping man of dullness, who is compelled to keep strictly to matter of fact. It is, however, the duty of a writer of local history to obtain all the information he can get at, even at the risk of being sometimes considered as an impertinent or troublesome fellow; for, like the little crooked mark of interrogation, he never appears without asking questions; and if the replies he receives be sometimes incorrect, he may be led into unintentional error, without any desire to deviate from the truth; but he must exercise his own judgment, and fearlessly pursue the even tenor of his way, determining "To nothing extenuate, or set down aught in malice." After deciphering charters, grants, records, and old MSS., referring to works of antiquities, topography, local histories, and indexes, it is necessary to go back to Kirby's Suffolk Traveller for much of the information worthy of record in the History of Ipswich. From the dry style of this volume, and the uncouth manner in which it has always been brought before the public, its merits have never been justly allowed, but it is certainly a work of labour and research; and the edition corrected by the late Rev. Richard Canning, of this town, notwithstanding some errors and deficiencies, is unquestionably a valuable county history. The editor of Kirby has drawn a great portion of his intelligence relative to Ipswich, from Mr. Bacon's MS., which I have carefully gone through, and find that he has extracted largely from it in the Suffolk Traveller; therefore it of necessity follows, that there must be in this volume a repetition of similar facts. For though you may represent either a fact or a man in a marked or particular dress, it would be folly in the author or artist to alter the features so that they could not be known. Bacon's work is a treasure of its kind, and worthy of description. It came into the possession of William Batley, esq. of this town, in his capacity of town clerk, for he many years filled that situation with honour to himself and to the universal satisfaction of the borough. As he holds this book in custody, for the corporation, it could not be in better hands; he can justly appreciate its value, and obligingly allows a reference to be made to it upon all proper occasions. It is a large thick volume, in excellent preservation, consisting of 800 folio pages, entirely written in the author's own hand; it has, besides an appendix containing some ancient records, together with a copious index. There are occasionally interspersed some judicious notes, in the hand-writing of the Rev. Richard Canning; and it is altogether a valuable record, such as few other corporations possess. It is entitled THE ANNALS OF IPSWICHE; THE LAWS, CUSTOMES, AND GOVERNMENT OF THE SAME; COLLECTED OUT OF THE RECORDS, BOOKS, AND WRITINGS OF THAT TOWNE. BY NATHANIEL BACON, SERVING AS RECORDER AND TOWNE CLERK IN THAT TOWNE. It is dedicated "To the Bailiffs, Burgessess, and Commonalty of the Towne of Ipswiche." It is prefaced with an address to the reader, in which there is given a summary of the history of Ipswich from the earliest period of antiquity to the time when he commences his extracts from the court books, memorandums, transcripts, and other public documents. But in the prefatory introduction the author has deviated into fanciful speculations respecting the truth of representations, which are palpable legendary fictions, and of course it cannot be altogether relied on as matter of veritable history. The remainder of the volume is filled up with the official proceedings of the Great Courts, and of the matters which were brought under their consideration; with the names of all persons who held the different offices in the corporation, and the date of all their appointments, changes, and re-elections; furnishing a faithful relation of the transactions of the Corporate Body for several centuries, and eliciting many curious particulars of the manners, customs, and opinions of our forefathers that cannot be mistaken. He commences his official extracts at a very early date, and finishes them at the death of Charles II., the 30th of January, 1649; and he thus concludes the volume:"The last day of Jan. puts a sad period to my pen. Thus, by the goodness of Almighty God, I have summed up the affairs of the government of this town of Ipswich, under bailiffs who are happy in this, that God hath established their seat more sure than the throne of kings!" Had he lived in these changeable times, he would have known that they were liable to be ousted by a writ of mandamus every two or three months. -As this work has never been printed, and cannot have been seen but by few of my readers, I shall make no apology for having said so much upon this singular production, which must |