Chappels, many of which had lien so for two or three hundred years together, not regarding y^{e} dust of our founders and predecessors who likely were buried there; compelled us by armed Souldiers to pay forty shillings a Colledge for not mending what he had spoyled and defaced, or forth with to goe to prison.”

We meet with the sad doings of this wretch Dowsing in various places in East Anglia.  He left his hideous mark on many a fair church.  Thus the churchwardens of Walberswick, in Suffolk, record in their accounts:—­

  “1644, April 8th, paid to Martin Dowson, that came with the
  troopers to our church, about the taking down of Images and
  Brasses off Stones 6 0.”

  “1644 paid that day to others for taking up the brasses of grave
  stones before the officer Dowson came 1 0.”

[Illustration:  St. George’s Church, Great Yarmouth]

The record of the ecclesiastical exploits of William Dowsing has been preserved by the wretch himself in a diary which he kept.  It was published in 1786, and the volume provides much curious reading.  With reference to the church of Toffe he says:—­

“Will:  Disborugh Church Warden Richard Basly and John Newman Cunstable, 27 Superstitious pictures in glass and ten other in stone, three brass inscriptions, Pray for y^{e} Soules, and a Cross to be taken of the Steeple (6s. 8d.) and there was divers Orate pro Animabus in ye windows, and on a Bell, Ora pro Anima Sanctae Catharinae.”

  “Trinity Parish, Cambridge, M. Frog, Churchwarden, December 25,
  we brake down 80 Popish pictures, and one of Christ and God y^{e}
  Father above.”

  “At Clare we brake down 1000 pictures superstitious.”

  “Cochie, there were divers pictures in the Windows which we
  could not reach, neither would they help us to raise the ladders.”

  “1643, Jan^{y} 1, Edwards parish, we digged up the steps, and
  brake down 40 pictures, and took off ten superstitious
  inscriptions.”

It is terrible to read these records, and to imagine all the beautiful works of art that this ignorant wretch ruthlessly destroyed.  To all the inscriptions on tombs containing the pious petition Orate pro anima—­his ignorance is palpably displayed by his Orate pro animabus—­he paid special attention.  Well did Mr. Cole observe concerning the last entry in Dowsing’s diary:—­

“From this last Entry we may clearly see to whom we are obliged for the dismantling of almost all the gravestones that had brasses on them, both in town and country:  a sacrilegious sanctified rascal that was afraid, or too proud, to call it St. Edward’s Church, but not ashamed to rob the dead of their honours and the Church of its ornaments.  W.C.”

He tells also of the dreadful deeds that were being done at Lowestoft in 1644:—­