“A formidable fleet of 60 sail, the greatest that England had ever known, was equipped under the Earl of Northumberland who had orders to attack the Herring busses of the Dutch which fished in what was called the British seas.”
The effect of this attack upon the Dutch and French fishing in what was called the British seas was felt by Yarmouth and Lowestoft immediately. No more could their merchants rely upon their foreign visitors for their supply of herrings. If they were to retain their trade in herrings they must now catch them themselves or have their supplies limited to the produce of the English fishermen from southern ports.
Both towns had submitted, with the other maritime towns of Norfolk and Suffolk to the demands for ship money with which this fleet had been provided, but when the demand for more ships and more money was made in the following years, the loyalty of both towns must have been sorely tried.
The events which followed upon the King’s renewal of his demand for ship-money throughout the kingdom, form the saddest chapters in the history of our country. We have only to notice those in which our two towns were concerned.
The Long Parliament met in 1640, and in 1642 Yarmouth declared herself for “the King and Parliament,” which meant that she was prepared to side with the Parliament against the King. Lowestoft took a different course. Although probably, like most other towns, and even families, at this terrible and critical period, our old townspeople were divided on the grave questions at issue, it appears that several of the leading persons in the town were so much inclined to the King’s side, that instead of at once joining the East Anglian Association with the rest of the towns and parishes, and most of the landed gentry in the county, they entered into communication with some of the Cavalier party and offered Lowestoft as a rendezvous for the King’s friends. Such a course was perhaps only a natural sequel to the steps taken a few years before in applying to the King to exempt the town from contributing to the expenses of the county members, on the ground of being Ancient Demesne of the Crown. In the return of Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston and Sir Philip Parker, the Roundhead members for Suffolk, in the Long Parliament, Lowestoft had no part.