Timeline

When Thomas Boteler died in 1515, his 72 Manor Estates were divided equally between his two daughters, Anne and Margaret, with Rochford being inherited by Margaret. Margaret had married Sir William Boleyn, who died in 1505, so in 1515 it was their son Thomas Boleyn who obtained possession of Rochford Hall and the manor estate.

Henry VIII married Anne Boleyn in 1533 after annulling his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The Pope excommunicated Henry from the Catholic Church, which resulted in Henry establishing the Church of England in 1534 and breaking with Catholic Rome.

Mary and her second husband, Sir William Stafford, lived at the Hall for some time and Mary died there in 1543.

Lord Rich appears to have been quite a schemer and was involved in the interrogations that led to the ending of some of the King's marriages. Some say he gathered 'evidence' that led to Anne Boleyn's beheading.

Sir Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, Mary's son by her first marriage, sold the Manor with other property to Lord Rich in 1550 for £2,000. The lands acquired by Rich included 2000 acres of arable, 500 acres of meadow, 3000 acres of pasture, 1000 acres of wood, and 2000 acres of furze and heath. Lord Rich remodelled the manor house as a vast Tudor mansion, a small part of which survives today.

In 1555, Thomas Causton (from Thundersley) and John Ardeley (from Great Wigborough) were burnt at Rayleigh. Ardeley's compatriot, John Simson, was burnt at Rochford. William Tyms (from Hockley) and Robert Drake(s) (from Thundersley) were both burnt at Smithfield in London. Memorials to these martyrs are found off Rochford Square and in Rayleigh High Street. Rochford district was a hotbed of Protestantism and these burnings probably took place in its two largest towns to deter others from following that faith.

Dutch Protestants escaping persecution in Holland came into the Wakering and Foulness areas.

Some local women were accused, often wrongly, of being witches. At Canewdon, a village with a strong witchcraft tradition, witch trials took place in 1580.

Rochford Hall became a secret meeting place for early Congregationalists and for more fervent Protestants, called Puritans. These 'dissenting' groups from the Established Church wanted more religious freedom than the Church of England allowed.

Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, whose family owned Chichester Hall in Rawreth, was the principal translator of the King James version of the Bible and was personally credited with translating the 'Pentateuch', the first five books of the bible.

Services held in Rochford Hall's chapel were said to have fuelled the emergence of Essex Puritanism, which was subsequently taken to America by the Pilgrim Fathers. Wakering was a Puritan stronghold and some Puritans left Rochford district for the New World, but probably not on the Mayflower.

John Winthrop, a Puritan from Great Stambridge, became the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a chief figure among the Puritan founders of New England.