Jermyn3

Suffolk and Norfolk

THE JERMYNS 0F RUSHBRO0KE

By THE REV. J. R. M. WRIGHT

Today in common with many other great houses, Rushbrooke Hall, Bury St. Edmunds, is unwanted. This mellow red brick Elizabethan mansion is something left over from an age that is past. Once scores of people lived within its walls. There were lights and music, lovely furniture and ﬁne pictures on the walls. There were tables laden with food and wine. Beautifully dressed ladies and lords as splendidly dressed, talked and laughed. Then the house fulfilled the dreams of the man who planned and built it - Thomas Jermyn.

In Rushbrooke one often ﬁnds the crest of the Jermyns, a crescent between two mullets or, in more popular terms, the moon and the stars. That" crest is to me symbolic of ‘the family who bore it, for they reached out for the moon and the stars and held them in their grasp. The ‘family is the subject of this paper. People are more interesting than houses and the tale of this "Suffolk family is in many ways typical of the story of any English squirearchy in the 16th and 17th centuries.

If it is true, as someone once remarked, that ‘there is no history, only biography,’ then the story of the Jermyns will also become the story of England. It is a tale which reaches out from this tiny Suffolk village of Rushbrooke to the court of St. James. It is the story of a farming family who rose to great positions. The unravelling of the tale discloses curious links between the lanes of Rushbrooke and crowded Piccadilly, between the tiny village church and the splendid chapel of St. George’s, Windsor.

The story for our purposes begins in Tudor England. There had been Jermyns in Rushbrooke for many years before that since the 13th century, in fact. But we know little of them. The ﬁrst of whom we hear held land at Rushbrooke from the abbey of St. Edmundsbury in the time of the great Abbot Samson himself. For the next 300 years they lived there, yeomen of England, farming their lands, paying their taxes, marrying Suffolk girls from neighbouring villages. Occasionally one of them distinguished himself and received a knighthood, perhaps for services in the wars. But in 1504, when Thomas Jermyn made his will, they were still farmers. Her left to his sons ‘ carts, ploughs, harrows, barrows and all other such things.’ His main stock, as we should expect, were sheep. To each of his godchildren he left an ewe and a lamb and to each servant four ewes and four lambs. It was a will made before the Reformation and there are generous bequests to the churches of Rushbrooke, Great and Little Whelnetham and St. Mary’s, Bury._ And, with no shadow of Henry VIII. before him, he left to the ‘new work’ at Bury abbey 10 marks. The ‘new work’ was probably the rebuilding of the west front.

He was followed by his son, also Thomas. There are almost too many Thomas’s in this story. Thomas II inherited the family farm at Rushbrooke in 1504, just as the Tudor rule was establishing itself. Trevelyan remarks that the Tudors had a pedestrian beginning which gave little promise of the brilliance of Elizabeth.

These were the days of that beginning, which is the background of the Jermyn story. The early years of the 16th century witnessed a revolution in England similar to that of our own day. Power was moving from one class to another. The great nobles who since the Conquest had possessed power sufficient to overawe the king himself, and had embroiled the whole kingdom in their family feuds, were, after the Wars of the Roses, a spent force. Many of them were dead, the new artillery made their strongholds useless and the new_ king, Henry VII., took active he asures to complete the process of discomfiture. The new artillery he kept in his own hands. Private armies were abolished. The great nobles were impoverished by enforced taxation. The power of the nobles then was broken, but who would govern England for the king? He had no standing army and he had no intention of squandering his hoarded millions in paying administrators, if the work could be done for nothing. This was when the little men —the merchants, the small landowners and the lawyers—came into the picture.

The justices of the peace, as the servants of the Privy Council, governed England cheaply for the king So Thomas Jermyn II. makes his ﬁrst appearance busy on the king’s business in the Suffolk rebellion of 1525. This rising, a small thing, is important in that it illustrates the economic background of the rise of the Jermyn. To understand it, we have to touch on touch features of Tudor life which we know only too well in our own day. Where Henry VII had hoarded, Henry VIII. spent. The dispersal of the royal hoard produced inﬂation and, later, when the by now impoverished king needed money to ﬁnance his wars, heavy taxation. These two evils, inﬂation and heavy taxation, pressed heavily upon the landowners, who could not raise their rents and the peasants, who could get no higher wages. The yeoman freeholder, who paid only a nominal rent, ﬂourished, since he could sell his product at three times the price his grandfather asked. Hence, while the class to which the Jermyns belonged flourished in this age of rising prices, the labourers and great landowners were impoverished. This discontent was at the root of the rising at Lavenham in 1525, when Thomas Jermyn tried to mediate between the rioters and the king.

The great clothiers of Lavenham had to face the royal demand for a levy of one sixth of their goods. They called their workers together and told them that there could be no more work for them. This caused the rising. After Jermyn’s mediation, the rioters dispersed and the tax was withdrawn. The most hated man at this time, held responsible for the taxation, was that other Suffolk worthy, Thomas Wolsey, and Jermyn seems to have had little liking for him. As early as 1531 he was pledging himself to Thomas Cromwell and serving as sheriff for Suffolk and Norfolk. He seems to have been increasingly drawn into court circles. ln 1533, at the coronation of Anne Boleyn, he was knighted and six years later he was one of the party which met Anne of Cleves, Henry’s new and ugly queen, at Dover.

The year 1540 found him presumably passing’ rich, with his own lands and some of the wealth ‘of the weavers, for he had married Ann Spring of Lavenham. Then, suddenly, he became a man of great properties. In 1539 John Reeve had left for the last time the abbey he had ruled for his house in Crown Street.

A year later, part 'of the estates passed, for a consideration, to Thomas Jermyn Bradﬁeld, Tostock, Hessett, Little Whelnetham, Barton, Felsham, Norton, Drinkstone, Rougham, Pakenham, Rushbrooke, Stanton,‘ haworth and others. One wonders what else, besides land, he received from the abbey, for in his-will there is mention of silver bowls, gilt cups, chains of gold, yellow and red carpets and vestments. I suspect that some of the abbey treasures found their way to Rushbrooke. In the will they lie strangely with the sheep and the carts, the horses and ploughs. For the rest of his life, Thomas Jermyn seems to have busied himself in looking after his new possessions.

He planned a new house cornmensurate with his new dignity. He rebuilt the church at Rushbrooke. He saw his large family growing up and making their way in the world. One son was ‘in the service of Stephen Gardiner, the Bury boy who became Bishop of Winchester. Another was a servant to Wriothesley, the Secretary of State. He seems to have kept discreetly to the old religion in his own house, although the royal arms in the church he erected at Rushbrooke are today our greatest glory; When he died he was described by Henry Machyn, the diarist, as the best housekeeper in Suffolk.

For the rest of the century his son and grandson were busy effecting the transition from farmers to gentry. While England moved forward into the Elizabethan age, with its wars, its seamen, its poets and musicians, the Jermyns remained busy at Rushbrooke.

The hall was built to match their new dignity and in 1578 it must have been the scene of much splendour. Elizabeth was on the tour of the eastern counties and dined at Hawstead. (Rushbrooke was one of ‘the houses at which she did not sleep). But Robert Jermyn feasted the French ambassadors and it is recorded that they were ‘marvellously contented.’ ‘The next day in Bury the queen knighted. Robert.- She also went to Stephen Tonni’s bell foundry in Southgate Street and watched the making of the bell for Rushbrooke Hall. Into the molten metal she probably threw some silver. This bell is now in Christchurch Mansion at Ipswich and used daily to warn visitors of the closing of the building.

The only troubles which seem to have toughed Rushbrooke were religious ones. Robert was a sturdy Protestant and had a good deal to do with the band of Puritans who used to meet in Bury. Sir Robert and his brother-in-law Thomas Baddy supported the preachers and incurred the wrath of the queen for so doing. Fuller in his Worthies describes him as a man of singular piety, a bountiful benefactor to Emmanuel College and a man of great command in this county.’ This impression is borne out by his will. His sister Frances was also allied to the reformers and left money to St John’s and Trinity Colleges. I brother Ambrose was a recusant Roman Catholic, for which he had to pay 20 marks penalty annually. His sister left him £20 to be paid when he shall come to hear the word preached and receive the sacrament. There must have been some fierce family arguments.

Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth was growing old. Mary Queen of Scots executed, the Armada sailed and was destroyed, the Earl of Essex, the new favourite, could safely embark on expeditions to France and Ireland. With him went young Thomas Jermyn, the third in this story. At the age of 19 he rd in the force which was helping protestant Henry of Navarre against Catholic League. Here, at Rouen, while still in his teens, Thomas was knighted. Later he was on the Irish expedition and also served under Sir Walter Raleigh in the ‘Warspite’ on an expedition to the Azores. Somewhere about 1600 he married a Cornish girl and settled down. Like most of his family he became an M.P. at for Bury in the sporadic parliaments of James and Charles. For the Stuarts had now come to the throne and the Jermyn star was in the ascendant Sir Thomas was comptroller of the household. His eldest son, also Thomas was a groom of the bedchamber to Prince Charles (later Charles II). His other son, Henry, was vice chamberlain to Queen Henrietta Maria into the rights and wrongs of the Stuart troubles, religious and otherwise, we need not go. The Jermyns do not seem to have worried themselves over everything but their loyalty to the royals. This loyalty, in fair weather or in foul was unwavering.

At first the sun shone for them. During the long years when Parliament was in abeyance and Stratford and ruled the land, the Jermyns were busily occupied in the king’s business When, in 1640, the tide turned, they were equally loyal. Young Henry Jermyn was one of a band which included the swashbuckling Sir John suckling and the poet Sir William Davenant which sought to rescue the Earl-of Strafford and restore power to the king. This failed, and he had to ﬂee the country. When at last war came young Thomas joined the king at Oxford. For this he was later ﬁned £2,750 by Parliament. He fought with the Cavaliers until Charles was arrested and then followed abroad the young prince whose servant he had been, returning only after the execution of the king. Brother Henry was entrusted with the protection of the queen, Henrietta Maria, and went with her to France. Their father returned to Rushbrooke, had to pay £1,000 to Parliament for the prosecution of the war, saw his young grandson die and a year later (1645) followed him, ‘expecting a glorious resurrection.’

During the years of the Protectorate, there was a temporary dimming of the glory of the Jermyns. The moon and stars seemed to have eluded their grasp after all. The family, impoverished by taxes and ﬁnes, lived quietly at Rushbrooke, which nevertheless seems to have been a centre for royalist gatherings. The Jermyns and the Herveys and the Gages met together for merriment and sport, and other things as well, for at least two of the young Jermyns found life partners among the Gages of Hengrave, the family that gave us that best of all plums, the greengage. So they waited, till the king should come into his own again and with the king, Brother Henry.

FOR all through these years of exile Henry Jermyn was with the queen mother in Paris, looking after her and (his critics unkindly said) looking after himself even more. Certain it is that while the young Prince Charles knew not where to turn for money, Henry Jermyn lived in great magniﬁcence. He was with Clarendon and Ormonde in the royal council of state. Rumour persistently asserted that he married Henrietta Maria, but of this there is no evidence either way. The I that one can say is that, from now wherever one is, there is to be found the other. In 1660, his diligent services were rewarded. He returned to England, bringing with him the silver gilt communion plate, made in Paris, which he presented to Rushbrooke church. He was created Earl of St. Albans, a title formerly held by Francis Bacon whose grandfather had been sheep-reeve to the abbey at Bury. Later he became a knight of the garter and so probably procured the 1662 prayer book now at Rushbrooke which bears the name of William Isaacs a former verger of St. Georges Windsor. It seems likely that the book must have come from Windsor Foe the next 20 years the earl was a great man. He lived at Somerset House, the residence of Henrietta Maria. He had the poet, Abraham Cowley, that lover of luxurious life, as his secretary he travelled backwards and forwards to France on the secret missions of Charles II’s tortuous diplomacy. Pepys saw him walking in Pall Mall ﬁelds with the queen. Evelyn noticed him escorting the king to Newmarket. The chief interest for us today is in his building activities. From the king he received a grant of land in Pall Mall ﬁelds, bounded by Piccadilly. Haymarket, Pall Mall and St. James’ Street. On these ﬁelds he built houses for the use of the nobility attending the court.

So began the ﬁrst steps in the linking up of the cities of Westminster and London. St. James’ Square, Duke Street, Jermyn Street and other thoroughfares were laid out. For the new estate, he commissioned Wren to build St. James’, Piccadilly. Still today, from a ground rent in part of the St James’ Square site, comes the endowment of the Rushbrooke alms-houses built by his nephew. If he made money, he also enjoyed spending it. Evelyn has a picture of the old man of eighty ‘still eating and drinking with extraordinary appetite; nearly blind but still gambling heavily with someone by him to name the cards. He is a prudent old courtier and much enriched since His Majesty's return.’ The words of the secretary express the master’s philosophy: ‘Let me alive my pleasures have, all are stoics in the grave. He died in 1684, while the Thames was frozen over, and was buried at Rushbrooke, aristocratic to the last. By this time, to help the declining wool trade, bodies were ‘to be buried in woollen shrouds. But Henry Jermyn would have none of this. He was buried in linen and a ﬁne of £5 was duly paid, half to the informer and half to the poor of Rushbrooke. The family fortunes had been founded on the sheep runs of Rushbrooke and the clothiers‘ wealth of Lavenham. Now a Jermyn despised wool. The wheel had turned full circle.

His treasures he left to the house at Rushbrooke, that it might never be unfurnished. Among them were two cabinets with the monogram of Henrietta Maria and a chest with the initials of Charles l. In the chest were two shirts and a night-cap belonging to the unhappy king. This furniture has now found a home in the Vandyke Room at Windsor.

The Jermyn story now draws to a close at the moment of its greatest brilliance. Of the two nephews of the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Jermyn was at Rushbrooke and his brother, Lord Dover, a Roman Catholic, at court in the service of James, Duke of York, soon to become king. When William of Orange landed, both brothers stood by the king until his proven ineptitude showed his inevitable failure. For Lord Jermyn, the last years were full of sorrow. Of his thirteen children, seven died in infancy and are buried side by side in Rushbrooke, a sad reminder of the awful infant mortality rate even among the wealthy of those days. One son, Thomas, survived infancy and he was killed in an accident at the age of 15. He was aboard a ship in the Thames during a gale when the mast fell on him. His monument recalls the date, 27 December 1692, a day never to be forgotten by his unhappy father and mother. The rector recorded in the register that to all appearances the name and race ended with his life. This was indeed the case. There were only four daughters left to Lord Jermyn, and Lord Dover had no children. So when Jermyn died in 1701 the family which had lived at Rushbrooke for 500 years came to an end. The estate passed to a daughter who had married Sir Robert Davers of Rougham, a rich sugar planter whose wealth lay in the West Indies.

The story of the Jermyns I ﬁnd a fascinating one, as during the past few years I have pieced it together, deriving much help from Hervey’s Green Book on Rushbrooke. It is a story which may be almost matched by any Suffolk village. Here there is the added ﬂash of brilliance which makes it stand out from the rest: from the long years of obscurity and the humble public service in the county, from the careful nursing of newly acquired Wealth and the acceptance of the responsibilities which that wealth brought, they had risen to fame and glory. Yet none of the splendours of Whitehall and St. James, of Somerset House and Mayfair weaned them from their love of their Suffolk home and the care of those dependent upon them.

The days of the 'old aristocracy are numbered and in their passing many hard things are said about them. Yet at their best they provided something which England can ill afford to lose.

JERMYN