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148 BYGONE SUSSEX.
Mr. Fletcher, for his father was a butcher, and Mr. Fletcher's father a wever." Bennet's brother Robert was also a despiser of dignities, for " debating within the church said openly he would call that he would the churchwarden knave of yt."
The distinctions of rank were carried out beyond death in an order made in 1579 that no one under the degree of the Mayor, Jurats, and Common Council, or their wives " shall be chested or coffenid for their buriall." Many projects for the improvement of the decayed haven of Rye were under consideration from time to time.
The Puritans, who called the Archbishop of Canterbury "the Pope of Inglande," and the Roman Catholics who smuggled " Jesus psalters " were equally obnoxious to the authorities. In 1603, "John Arkinstal, of Ringy, in the parish of Bowden, in the county of Chester," a trumpeter, deposed that the schoolmaster of Rye, had, at an inn in Hastings, stated that the King of Scotland had been proclaimed King of England at London, and that afterwards Lord Beauchamp was proclaimed by the Earl of Southampton. The bellicose "dominie" further asserted that he had a great horse, and would |
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