Panel 5: The Stuarts

Historical Content:

During the early seventeenth century there was fresh religious strife in Ipswich. Easy access to the Low Countries had long enabled the writings of the reformers Luther, Calvin and Zwingli to be smuggled in to the town. The town preacher from 1605, Samuel Ward, an influential advocate of plain worship and bible-based sermons, was twice imprisoned for offending the king and his bishops. He was accused of encouraging townsfolk to emigrate to Puritan New England, and the Godspeed moored by the wharf took some of them as early as 1602. Below the corner post on the left-hand side from a house in Carr Street is the 'Watch Ward' Armada beacon from Samuel Ward's portrait in Ipswich Museum. The town was firmly on the Roundhead side in the Civil Wars which led to the beheading of King Charles I. To the left of the Ipswich coat of arms at the top of the panel is an anti-papal drawing from the Museum and on the right the Prince of Wales feathers from St Margaret's Church -- a secret sign of loyalty to Charles II during the Commonwealth. Cromwell's government disappointed many people and the town was entirely ready to welcome the restored monarch Charles II in 1660. Music, drama, dance and colour reappeared in everyday life, as shown at the foot of the panel. New Corporation regalia were made and the silver-gilt mace is shown on the right. The Ancient House in the Buttermarket, prominent in this scene and made by combining several much earlier dwellings, is an enduring celebration of the Restoration. The Sparrowes showed their loyalty by placing new Royal Arms on the house front as well as the depicting the four known continents in elaborate pargetting. Dial Lane at the side of the house was the junction of the butter market, to the right, and the fish market, to the left, which Sparrowe eventually had removed. The larger figures on the left and right are a prominent merchant of the time, John Knapp, and his wife Martha. On the left of the panel, above the Neptune, can be seen the medieval West Gate opposite the Shire Hall, built in 1699. Notice that the river starts to become polluted on this panel and continues to be so until towards the end of the last panel.