A beautiful church bears the signs of religious turmoil. Martin Chambers tells the story.

In the bloody reign

Standing in the aisle, under the stunning hammerbeam roof of the serene church of St Mary the Virgin in Wetherden, near Stowmarket, it is hard to imagine, in this tranquil spot, that this fifteenth century church played a pivotal part in England’s history.

The tomb of Sir John Sulyard at the head of the south aisle still bears the scars of Puritan vandalism in the seventeenth century, as does the rest of the church.

Protestant church vandal William Dowsing came here on official business in February 5, 1644. We know this from the diary he kept as he travelled across East Anglia, systematically visiting churches in search of evidence of Catholic worship.

As he did in many other churches across the region, Dowsing destroyed the stained glass windows containing ‘superstitious’ images. Sixty-eight cherubim hanging from the roof were also taken down, and, what concerns us here, inscriptions on the tomb of Sir John Sulyard were chipped away with a chisel.

Sulyard, you see, a century earlier, had been a staunch defender of the Roman Catholic faith until his death. His rallying to the cause of Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary in 1553 had seen him rewarded with the title of Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk.

Then, the short reign of Edward VI, the sickly 15-year-old son of king Henry VIII had come to an end with his early death. Mary Tudor, Henry’s daughter through Anne Boleyn, was in her Hertfordshire residence when she heard the news of her brother’s death.

Mary moved quickly, arriving in Kenninghall, near Diss.

John Sulyard, a lawyer of the Wetherden parish, based at Wetherden Hall, summoned the local yeomanry at Stowmarket to go and safeguard the future queen’s passage, as her succession was under threat.

She faced competition from Lady Jane Grey, the great-granddaughter of Henry VII through his younger daughter Mary and a first cousin once removed of Edward VI. In May 1553, she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, a younger son of Edward’s chief minister, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.

When the 15-year-old king lay dying in June 1553, he nominated Jane as successor to the Crown in his will, thus subverting the claims of his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth under the Third Succession Act.

Lady Jane Grey was the eldest daughter of

Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Lady Frances Brandon. Lady Frances was the daughter of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, the younger sister of Henry VIII.

On Saturday, July 8, 1553, those loyal to Mary who was believed to be the rightful heir to the throne rallied in Stowmarket. By Tuesday, they were at Kenninghall castle, escorting Mary to Sulyard’s Wetherden Hall before she would head on to Framlingham Castle.

Passing through Ashfield, they were close to Elmswell Church when they came under attack from the Dudleys supporting the claim to the throne of Lady Jane Grey. Jane’s reign was to last but nine days.

The escort repelled the attempt on the future queen’s life, and so Mary’s claim to the throne was almost secure.

After her overnight stay at Wetherden, she progressed with her escort though the ancient village of Haughley and through Old Newton and Gipping to Framlingham.

Here she bestowed Sulyard’s knighthood on him for his service.

Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London when the Privy Council decided to change sides and proclaim Mary as queen on July 19. She was convicted of high treason in November, which carried a sentence of death, although her life was initially spared.

Wyatt’s rebellion of January and February 1554 against Queen Mary I’s plans to marry Philip of Spain led to the execution of both Jane and her husband.

Mary remembered Sulyard’s crucial service with the grant to him of Haughley Park, previously held by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and grandfather of Lady Jane Grey. Sulyard’s heirs built the prestigious Elizabethan manor set in the beautiful parklands that exists today.

While Mary had used those Protestants of Suffolk who were loyal to her claim to the throne to defend her and help her in her quest, it would not be long before she went back on her promises of religious toleration. On August 22, she had Above – The tomb of Sir John Sulyard was vandalised by the Puritans, opposite page, Wetherden Hall, first page, Wetherden Church where John Sulyard lies.

Photos: Martin Chambers

declared in council that though “she was fixed in her own religion, yet she would not compel others to it, but would leave that to the motions of God’s spirit and the labours of good preachers”.

However, within weeks she had issued a proclamation that married priests had to leave their wives or else leave their posts. Priests were also not allowed to preach unless they obtained a licence – and licences were not granted to those who had supported the reformation.

Back in Wetherden, Sulyard ensured that the new proclamations were obeyed in his parish. Father Collyn, the married parish priest, left the area with his wife and went into hiding.

When the Act of Reconciliation confirmed the return of Roman Catholicism to England in January 1554, burnings and imprisonments of Protestants became widespread.

Sulyard, made High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1556, then took the lead in his own campaign of persecution of reputed heretics. The diocese of Norwich, which in those days took in the same area as Sulyard’s office, had John Hopton as bishop, Queen Mary’s confessor.

With 46 burned at the stake, the diocese ranked below only London and Canterbury in the number of recorded victims.

Local tradition has one of those victims as Robert Rosier, a yeoman of Wetherden and staunch Protestant supporter of Mary, who is reputed to have marched with Mary from Kenninghall and fought in the skirmish against the Dudleys. In 1556 he was taken to be burned at the behest of Sulyard.

He was lashed to a post and burned in a field on a hill beside the main road between Wetherden and Woolpit.

Local legend has it that the choice of location was his, so he could see his beloved Wetherden home, but others say it was Sulyard’s, to increase his suffering.

To this day, it is said the field is under a curse, and since then no crops have ever grown there.

After Mary’s death in 1558, Sulyard lived in retirement without retribution, dying in 1574.

His tomb inscription reads: Hic jacet Johannes Suliarde, miles, qui obit quarto die Martii, Anno Dom. 1574. Cujus animae propitiatur Deus.

The last four words were the ones defaced by Dowsing – ‘On whose soul God has mercy’ – showing Dowsing was as faulty in his Latin, as he was in his behaviour, since this was no Catholic prayer.