Family-History Pilgrimage: Day 13

Sunday, June 18, 2023, 7:30 a.m.

Ann in the cathedral rose garden in Bury St. Edmunds. 

We spent yesterday exploring Suffolk and East Anglia, using lovely Bury St. Edmunds as our base. Ann (bless her) stayed in the rental and did laundry in the morning while I drove to two nearby towns, Rattlesden and Mendlesham. Both had ancient churches with impressive bell towers and gravestones so worn by the elements that dates even from the 1800s are hard to read. My ancestors left these communities in the early 1600s, so I didn’t find any family markers. But both churches were interesting, and one especially might shine a light onto the exodus of my relatives in the Brundage family.

Angels ascending the rafters at
St. Nicholas', Rattlesden.

Rattlesden was the hometown of my ancestor John Brundish, born in 1593. His father, Thomas, served as warden of St. Nicholas’ Church in Rattlesden three times, as well as being the local constable at one point. Clearly, the Brundishes were on the Anglican/royal “team” in this period of increasing conflict with the Calvinist Puritans and other dissenters. In 1621, John Brundish married Rachel Hubbard from Mendlesham. She and her parents, James and Naomi, apparently leaned Puritan. In the early 1600s, that difference meant much more than we might imagine.

Because of her outstanding political skills, Queen Elizabeth I had navigated the troubled waters of the English Reformation, working with the Puritan-leaning reformers in the Church and the government. With her death in 1603, King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, bringing with him both dubious political skills and a firm belief in the divine right of kings. The religious reformers in Parliament were intent on increasing their political power at the king’s expense. This religious and political turbulence only got worse when James’ son Charles I came to the throne, even more intransigent than his father. Charles I and William Laud (Bishop of London and then Archbishop of Canterbury) tried to wipe out the Puritans, with Church representatives traveling to each diocese to examine the clergy about their theology and obedience to mandated ritual in worship. Clergy who refused to follow Laud’s high liturgical practice were jailed and tortured; and citizens who gathered for unapproved religious meetings also faced harsh penalties.

The American Chapel at St. Nicholas',
Rattlesden. The American 447th Bomber
Group was based in Rattlesden in WWII.

So, as we all learned in elementary school, dissenters from the English Church began leaving for the New World, beginning with those on the Mayflower in 1620. By the end of the English Civil War, and the execution of Charles I, in 1649, about 30,000 Puritans had emigrated. Among them were John and Rachel Brundish, who made the journey to Massachusetts sometime between 1632 and 1635. They settled in Connecticut, where John worked as a tanner. He is thought to have committed suicide in 1639, but I don’t know the story behind that. Three of Rachel’s siblings also left England for Massachusetts in the 1630s.

Saints past and present preparing for mass
at St. Mary the Virgin, Mendlesham.

One of the parishes I visited yesterday offers some clues about the challenges of living as an English Puritan in the times of King Charles’ and Archbishop Laud’s persecution. Even before you step into the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Mendlesham, you know this is an Anglo-Catholic parish. The signboard tells of daily celebrations of “mass,” as well as regular times for the sacrament of reconciliation (confession). Also posted is a one-pager for newcomers explaining that St. Mary’s celebrates Holy Communion daily, in which members receive Jesus’ own Body and Blood. It then asserts that the Church of England did not participate in the Protestant movement as did churches on the continent and that the Book of Common Prayer never includes the word “Reformation.” And at the church door is a long sign listing the vicars of Mendlesham, beginning in 1085 and continuing to Fr. Philip Thomas Gray, who came in 1974 and has the same name as the current vicar (it could be the same priest, now in his 49^th year of service, or perhaps his son). 

The vicars of Mendlesham, 
going back to 1085.

Parishes with a thousand years of history tend to have deep-set spiritual and liturgical DNA, so my guess is that St. Mary’s in Mendlesham has been a strong Anglo-Catholic presence for a long, long time now. If you were a Puritan in Mendlesham in the early 1600s, and this was your one option for state-approved worship, and you faced legal sanction, even imprisonment and torture, for gathering and worshiping differently, being seen as a traitor to the Crown – well, perhaps the hard journey to Massachusetts would feel like the best option.

The helmet of King Raedwald,
buried with him in his
great ship in the field.

In the afternoon, Ann and I visited Sutton Hoo, the site of Anglo-Saxon burial mounds from about 625. King Raedwald, leader of the tribes in East Anglia, had died, and he was sent on his journey to meet the gods in a huge ship, buried in a mound and filled with weapons, tokens of office, prized possessions, and food (including lamb chops). Along with Raedwald’ s buried ship, Sutton Hoo includes 17 other burial mounds, which have been robbed from time to time across the centuries. But graverobbers missed the treasures in two of the mounds, including the Great Ship Burial, and archaeologists excavated the mounds starting in 1939. The video below shows the field of burial mounds in the English countryside. (Sutton Hoo is also the inspiration for the British comedy Detectorists, which is absolutely worth streaming.)

Monument to Thomas Spicer, one of three
Protestant martyrs in Beccles in 1556.

Unfortunately, because I spent time recharging the car, we didn’t get to drive to nearby Beccles. There, in May of 1556, three Protestants were burned at the stake during the purges of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary, and among them was Thomas Spicer, a laborer. The three were imprisoned for refusing to conform to Roman Catholic practice, tried for heresy, and burned in the Beccles marketplace, reportedly praising God as the flames grew. That’s all I know about Thomas (from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs), and I can’t connect him directly to the Edward Spicer who most likely was the immigrant ancestor on that branch of my family tree. Still, like the martyr John Spicer in Salisbury, also burned at the stake in 1556 for being a Protestant, Thomas offers a stunning model of commitment to his faith. And he makes me wonder how far I’d go walking in his footsteps today. 

This morning, we’ll worship at St. Edmundsbury Cathedral before driving off to southwest England to pick up the story of the Spicer immigrant ancestor(s).