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The succeeding half century is chiefly characterised by ecclesiastical commotions, of which the fact that within little more than 60 years the diocese had twelve bishops, may be taken as one indication. Of these, the first, John Parkhurst, who died about 1575, was favorably disposed towards the church polity of Calvin, and opposed, as far as he could, a passive resistance to the harsh injunctions of his Primate (Parker, a native of Norwich) against the Puritans; Edmund Freke, his successor, deprived many nonconforming ministers of their livings, and imprisoned Robert Brown, the first separatist from the Establishment, and whose ideas of church government are mainly identical with those of the present Congregationalists; a third—Matthew Wren, father of the famous architect, was censured and imprisoned by the Parliament, on a complaint by the people of Ipswich, that he had, in two years, suspended or deprived fifty ministers, and driven 3000 persons, with their manufactures, to Holland, to the prejudice of the trade of the kingdom; Joseph Hall, the last of the twelve, was a man much esteemed for his mild disposition, and for the purity of his style was termed the English Seneca. Though at one time harshly treated by the Roundhead soldiers, he was ultimately restored by the Commons to the full possession of his revenues, and spent the latter part of his life in a quiet retreat at Heigham, (now the Dolphin Inn,) in the church of which parish he was interred, though a passage in his will runs thus—“I do not hold God’s house a meet repository for the bodies of the greatest saints.”—(Neale’s History of the Puritans.) Of the Civil War, the period in which this worthy bishop lived, there is but little to record. Norwich seems from the first to have given an unhesitating support to the Parliament, and was assessed at £53 yearly towards the maintenance of the Earl of Manchester’s forces. That there was, however, a party in the city who leaned to the King’s side, is shown by a tragical occurrence in 1648. John Utting, the mayor, had been complained of for not carrying out the ordinances against images; but upon a poursuivant being sent to require his attendance at the bar of the House to answer the charge, a violent tumult arose; the rioters obtained possession of the military depôt, (whose site the Bethel now occupies,) and 98 barrels of gunpowder being accidentally fired, 200 persons were killed or wounded by the explosion.