Robert Brewster (Roundhead)

[4] Humphrey Brewster appears as lord of the manor of Wrentham Southall in a Chancery action brought by Thomas Butts in the time of Queen Elizabeth.

[7] He married Alice, daughter of William Forster of Copdock (near Ipswich), and died in 1593, as shown by his brass memorial in Wrentham church.

[16] He was thereafter concerned with the raising of levies to support the Parliamentary forces, and in June 1646 was named as a deputy to adjudge scandalous offences deserving exclusion from the Sacrament by the Elderships of congregations.

[21] He, presumably, was the Francis Brewster recommended to the Lord Protector on 29 May 1653 by the Churches of Suffolk to be advanced to places of public trust for management of the affairs of the Commonwealth.

[24] In 1654, arising from their petition, Robert and Francis certified, in returns to the Lord Protector, details of the Ministers and the communities supporting them at Walberswick and Dunwich,[25] and at Cookley and Walpole, Sibton, Beccles and Sancroft.

[27][28] Robert's brother Humphrey Brewster (1602-1669), of Hedenham, Norfolk, and later of Beccles, became Lieutenant-Colonel in the Parliamentary Army, raised and commanded a troop of horse, and was Governor of Landguard Fort in 1659–1660.

Since the time of Henry VIII, under a long lease, the stewards had permitted the usual manorial fines to be levied at the fixed rate of sixpence per acre.

[30] He resumed this against the copyholders in 1655–1658, naming them all in his suit, and accusing them of forming a confederacy to detain the old manorial court rolls, and of having altered the landscape by ploughing to such an extent that the enclosures could not be assessed properly.