There was, however, one offence of which Mr. Fleming was found guilty. He did not conform in all points to the prescribed ritual. Urged in extenuation of this, the pains of a doubting or the convictions of a settled judgment, the testimony of a good life and the profession of sound doctrine, the attachment of his flock and the usefulness of his ministry—were, in the estimation of the intolerant ecclesiastics, of no value. He was summoned to London {72b} to undergo the mockery of an examination, and to sustain the costs of his journey, and the ultimate loss of his preferment. Mr. Fleming refused to subscribe Whitgift’s Articles; and the discipline of the ecclesiastical courts having been employed in vain in his correction, the bishop, on the 23rd of July, 1584, deprived him of his living. {72c} He continued to reside in Beccles, probably exercising privately the most essential branches of a minister’s duty, if not, after a time, officiating in the parish church through the connivance of those who were conscious of his value. {74a} He died in 1613; and his interment, on the 8th of September in that year, is recorded in the parochial register in terms which prove that time had not sullied the reputation which persecution had failed to injure, and that when the grave had closed over his remains, he was remembered as the benefactor of his neighbours, and honoured as the founder of a new order of christian ministers among them. The entry, in the oldest register book now preserved, stands thus: “Bury: Master William Fleming, our minister and faythfull teacher, the glory of our towne, & father of ye ministery round about us.” {74b} From the terms in which the above entry is couched, it seems that Mr. Fleming was the first clergyman in Beccles who had cordially embraced and advocated the doctrines of the Reformation. {75} He had carried out its great principle to an extent which marks him as the father of the protestant _dissenting_ ministry in that place. What were the precise objections made by him to the archbishop’s Articles, is unknown. But the nonconformity of Beccles will appear to have been justifiable in its _origin_, if it be shown that those Articles embraced any point to which, as an upright man, he could not unhesitatingly assent.