The village to which the reader has already paid a visit was sleepy and healthy, but not without a certain rustic grace of its own. At one end, the gates of the neighbouring park gave almost an aristocratic air to the place. Far off among the trees was the parish church, as if it never could be of any use to anybody, while the old red-brick meeting-house was a formidable rival, inasmuch as it was nearer to the people, and therefore more convenient of access. It had quite a history, that old place. Norfolk and Suffolk have been the home of Nonconformists from the earliest times. One of the first victims of the writ _De heretico comburendo_ was a Norfolk man. Dr. Grosteste, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, a divine of great learning and courage, who is said to have sympathised with Wycliffe, was born at Stradbrook, in Suffolk. The earliest martyr of the Reformation, according to Fox, was William Sawtree, parish priest of the church of St. Margaret in the town of Lynn, and here, as elsewhere, the blood of the martyrs was not shed in vain. Heresy continued to grow, and Mary, whom history calls the Bloody, owed her throne in no small degree to the loyalty of the old Nonconformists of Suffolk, who believed her to be the rightful heir to the Crown, and aided her effectually in asserting her rights, only stipulating that they should be unmolested in the exercise of their religion. But Mary had learnt of her Popish priests to keep no faith with heretics, and in Suffolk the race of martyrs never failed. Many Protestants fled from this fierce persecution, and some found an asylum in Frankfort.