Ipswich Martyrs - The Protestant Martyrs

The Protestant Martyrs

Protestant martyrdoms associated with Ipswich begin with:

• Saint Thomas Bilney, who was plucked from the pulpit of St George's church or chapel in St George's Street, just north of the Westgate, Ipswich, as he preached in favour of the Reformation in 1527. He had previously preached in St Margaret's church. This was during a preaching-tour undertaken with the Norfolk mass-priest Master Lambert. After being forced to recant he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a year, and then returned to Trinity Hall, Cambridge for two years in great torment of conscience. In 1531 he went to Norwich and declared his convictions, and was there burnt at the stake.

Martyrs named on the Ipswich Memorial:

• N. Peke, 1538. (Burnt at Ipswich)
• - Kerby, 1546. (Judged in Ipswich together with another man named Roger Clarke, and both being condemned, Kerby was burnt at Ipswich and Roger at Bury St Edmunds.)
• Robert Samuel, 1555. (A minister of East Bergholt, burnt at Ipswich.)
• Agnes Potten, 1556. (Agnes Potten and Joan Trunchfield, both of Ipswich, were condemned together and burnt together in one fire at Ipswich.)
• Joan Trunchfield, 1556. (See above.)
• John Tudson, 1556. (John Tudson of Ipswich was burnt at London.)
• William Pikes, 1558. (William Pikes of St Margaret's, Ipswich, was burned at Brentford.)
• Alexander Gooch, 1558.(Alexander Gooch (of Woodbridge, Suffolk) and Alice Driver (of Grundisburgh, Suffolk) were arrested together at Grundisburgh and both burnt on one day and in one fire at Ipswich.)
• Alice Driver, 1558. (See above.)

Also mentioned by Foxe:

• Anne Bolton (burnt at Ipswich)
• John and Michael Trunchefielde (both of St Leonard, Ipswich, condemned to be burnt)
• Agnes Wardal (of Ipswich, persecuted but escaped)