How an education in Bury St Edmunds offered future Archbishop William Sancroft, who was born in Fressingfield, a grounded start in life

Though not a Bury St Edmunds man, William Sancroft certainly appreciated the grounding that he had in his education here.

He was born at Ufford Hall, in Fressingfield, Suffolk on January 30, 1617, the second son of Francis Sancroft (1580–1647) and Margaret Sancroft née Butcher (1594–1631).

His family could be described as of comfortably well-off yeoman stock, having farmed lands they owned in the area.

His uncle, William Sancroft the elder, was Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and after young William had been educated at the renowned Bury Grammar School some 30 miles from home, it was nepotism that enabled him to be go to this college in September 1633, matriculating (enrolling) a year later.

His time spent as a ‘foreigner’ (non-Bury resident) at the grammar school under High-Master John Dickenson was well spent, especially learning the classics, Latin and Greek.

William junior graduated in 1638 with an MA and became a fellow in 1642, but quit in 1649 over his views concerning differences between the Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell and Royalty known as the ‘engagement’. This was where Charles I had engaged the help of the Scots to support his cause by invading England.

Sancroft left the country but returned to England for the restoration in 1660 and was eventually elected to master of his alma-mater, Emmanuel College, in 1662, a post he held for nearly three years. During this time he raised funds for a new chapel here, it being completed in 1667 by notable architect of the day, Christopher Wren, to be the architect of a new St Paul’s.

From humble beginnings, as the rector of Houghton-Le-Spring all the way up near Sunderland, he went on to become dean of York, then dean of St Paul’s in 1664.

He greatly assisted with the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral after the Great Fire of London in 1666, financially and spiritually, till finally becoming the Archbishop of Canterbury in December 1677.

Highly educated as a linguist, he was described as fearlessly exercising discipline and doing his best to promote men of learning. However, it was this appointment to the highest religious office in the land that would bring him in direct confrontation with the monarchy.

With the death of Charles II in February 1685 (with Archbishop Sancroft at his deathbed), it was his brother James who ascended the throne as James II/VII of Scotland.

The leaning of James towards the Catholic church as his father, Charles I had done, would see him in direct conflict with the Church of England in as much he wanted to give parity with the Church of Rome.

This was at odds with the Government of the day, which feared a takeover by the Catholic church, especially when the Declaration of Indulgences – a series of proclamations issued by Charles II and subsequently James II – attempted to establish religious toleration.

These proclamations suspended the penal laws against Protestant nonconformists and Roman Catholics. However, Parliament was fiercely opposed to the declaration and Charles II was forced to cancel it in 1673.

James II's own Declaration of Indulgence in1687 would again have his proclamation granting religious freedom in England by suspending penal laws; this was opposed by Anglicans on religious and constitutional grounds.

The Declaration of Indulgence was a grievance which would eventually lead to the ousting of James II from the throne.

Though the declaration helped to develop dissenting organisations and groups, which contributed to the Toleration Act of April 1688, James ordered his version to be read in every church.

Seven bishops signed a petition to be excused from this duty, arguing it relied on an interpretation of royal authority declared illegal by Parliament.

After the petition was printed and publicly distributed, the bishops were charged with seditious libel and held in the Tower of London.

Four of these in such a high religious office were from East Anglia, Turner of Ely, White of Peterborough, Lloyd of Norwich and Archbishop Sancroft.

They were tried and found not guilty on June 30; the acquittal of the seven bishops as non-jurors (those who refused to read out the indulgences) destroyed James's political authority.

Nationally, hundreds of priests were deprived of their livings, 23 in Suffolk.

This was the second of two events that turned dissent into a crisis; the first, the birth of James Francis Edward Stuart on June 10, 1688 created the prospect of a Catholic dynasty something the country would not welcome.

With the arrival of William of Orange and James’s daughter Mary in England in 1688 with the ‘Glorious Revolution’ they were crowned as joint monarchs in 1689, James having fled the country.

Archbishop Sancroft was deprived of his office in1690, having refused to crown the new monarchs and take the oath of allegiance to them saying he had given his oath of support to one king and could not morally do so for another.

He was expelled from his official London residence, Lambeth Place; the bishop of London, Henry Compton, instead crowned William and Mary together at Westminster Abbey on April 11, 1689.

Throughout his life Sancroft, a man at different times influential and wealthy, was occasionally philanthropic making several gifts to both Fressingfield and Withersdale churches as (his forebears had farmed at Withersdale).

He retired to Fressingfield, where he lived in reduced means in a small property on the Ufford Hall estate. He died aged 77 in 1693 and is buried in a tomb with an elaborate text he composed himself close to the church porch, a far cry from his beginnings in Bury.