195 m. N.W. by W. from London, and 1012 N. by W. from Manchester, on the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway and the Manchester & Bolton canal. Pop. (1891) 57,212; (1901) 58,029. The church of St Mary is of early foundation, but was rebuilt in 1876. Besides numerous other places of worship, there are a handsome town hall, athenaeum and museum, art gallery and public library, various assembly rooms, and several recreation grounds. Kay’s free grammar school was founded in 1726; there are also municipal technical schools. The cotton manufacture is the principal industry; there are also calico printing, dyeing and bleaching works, machinery and iron works, woollen manufactures, and coal mines and quarries in the vicinity. Sir Robert Peel was born at Chamber Hall in the neighbourhood, and his father did much for the prosperity of the town by the establishment of extensive print-works. A monument to the statesman stands in the market-place. The parliamentary borough returns one member (since 1832). The county borough was created in 1888. The corporation consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and 30 councillors. Area, 5836 acres.
Bury, of which the name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon burhg, birig or byrig (town, castle or fortified place), was the site of a Saxon station, and an old English castle stood in Castle Croft close to the town. It was a member of the Honour of Clitheroe and a fee of the royal manor of Tottington, which soon after the Conquest was held by the Lacys. The local family of Bury held lands here during the 13th century, and at least for a short time the manor itself, but before 1347 it passed by marriage to the Pilkingtons of Pilkington, with whom it remained till 1485, when on the attainder of Sir Thomas Pilkington it was granted to the first earl of Derby, whose descendants have since held it. Under a grant made by Edward IV. to Sir Thomas Pilkington, fairs are still held on March 5, May 3, and September 18, and a market was formerly held under the same grant on Thursday, which has, however, been long replaced by a customary market on Saturday. The woollen trade was established here through the agency of Flemish immigrants in Edward III.’s reign, and in Elizabeth’s time this industry was of such importance that an aulneger was appointed to measure and stamp the woollen cloth. But although the woollen manufacture is still carried on, the cotton trade has been gradually superseding it since the early part of the 18th century. The family of the Kays, the inventors, belonged to this place, and Robert Peel’s print-works were established here in 1770. The cognate trades of bleaching, dyeing and machine-making have been long carried on. A court-leet and view of frank pledge used to be held half-yearly at Easter and Michaelmas, and a court-baron in May. Until 1846 three constables were chosen annually at the court-leet to govern the place, but in that year the inhabitants obtained authority from parliament to appoint twenty-seven commissioners to undertake the local government. A charter of incorporation was granted in 1876. The well-known Bury Co-operative Society was established in 1856. There was a church here at the time of the Domesday Survey, and the earliest mention of a rector is found in the year 1331–1332. One-half of the town is glebe belonging to the rectory.
BURY ST EDMUNDS, a market town and municipal and parliamentary borough of Suffolk, England, on the Lark, an affluent of the Great Ouse; 87 m. N.E. by N. from London by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 16,255. It is pleasantly situated on a gentle eminence, in a fertile and richly cultivated district. The tower or church-gate, one of the finest specimens of early Norman architecture in England, and the western gate, a beautiful structure of rich Decorated work, together with ruined walls of considerable extent, are all that remains of the great abbey. St Mary’s church, with a beautifully carved roof, was erected in the earlier part of the 15th century, and contains the tomb of Mary Tudor, queen of Louis XII. of France. St James’s church is also a fine Perpendicular building, with a modern chancel, and without a tower. All these splendid structures, fronting one of the main streets in succession, form, even without the abbey church, a remarkable memorial of the wealth of the foundation. Behind them lie picturesque gardens which contain the ruins, the plan of which is difficult to trace, though the outlines of some portions, as the chapter-house, have been made clear by excavation. There is a handsome Roman Catholic church of St Edmund. The so-called Moyses Hall (perhaps a Jew’s House, of which there is a parallel example at Lincoln) retains transitional Norman work. The free grammar school, founded by Edward VI., has two scholarships at Cambridge, and six exhibitions to each university, and occupies modern buildings. The Church Schools Company has a school. There are large agricultural implement works, and the agricultural trade is important, cattle and corn markets being held. In the vicinity is Ickworth, the seat of the marquess of Bristol, a great mansion of the end of the 18th century. The parliamentary borough, which returns one member, is coextensive with the municipal borough. The town is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 2947 acres.
Bury St Edmunds (Beodricesworth, St Edmund’s Bury), supposed by some to have been the Villa Faustina of the Romans, was one of the royal towns of the Saxons. Sigebert, king of the East Angles, founded a monastery here about 633, which in 903 became the burial place of King Edmund, who was slain by the Danes about 870, and owed most of its early celebrity to the reputed miracles performed at the shrine of the martyr king. By 925 the fame of St Edmund had spread far and wide, and the name of the town was changed to St Edmund’s Bury. Sweyn, in 1020, having destroyed the older monastery and ejected the secular priests, built a Benedictine abbey on its site. In 942 or 945 King Edmund had granted to the abbot and convent jurisdiction over the whole town, free from all secular services, and Canute in 1020 freed it from episcopal control. Edward the Confessor made the abbot lord of the franchise. By various grants from the abbots, the town gradually attained the rank of a borough. Henry III. in 1235 granted to the abbot two annual fairs, one in December (which still survives), the other the great St Matthew’s fair, which was abolished by the Fairs Act of 1871. Another fair was granted by Henry IV. in 1405. Elizabeth in 1562 confirmed the charters which former kings had granted to the abbots, and James I. in 1606 granted a charter of incorporation with an annual fair in Easter week and a market. Further charters were granted by him in 1608 and 1614, and by Charles II. in 1668 and 1684. The reversion of the fairs and two markets on Wednesday and Saturday were granted by James I. in fee farm to the corporation. Parliaments were held here in 1272, 1296 and 1446, but the borough was not represented until 1608, when James I. conferred the privilege of sending two members. The Redistribution Act 1885 reduced the representation to one. There was formerly a large woollen trade.
See Richard Yates, Hist. and Antiqs. of the Abbey of St Edmund’s Bury (2nd ed., 1843); H. R. Barker, History of Bury St Edmunds.
BUSBECQ, OGIER GHISLAIN DE [Augerius Gislenius] (1522–1592), Flemish writer and traveller, was born at Comines, and educated at the university of Louvain and elsewhere. Having served the emperor Charles V. and his son, Philip II. of Spain, he entered the service of the emperor Ferdinand I., who sent him as ambassador to the sultan Suleiman I. the Magnificent. He returned to Vienna in 1562 to become tutor to the sons of Maximilian II., afterwards emperor, subsequently taking the position of master of the household of Elizabeth, widow of Charles IX., king of France, and daughter of Maximilian. Busbecq was an excellent scholar, a graceful writer and a clever diplomatist. He collected valuable manuscripts, rare coins and curious inscriptions, and introduced various plants into Germany. He died at the castle of Maillot near Rouen on the 28th of October 1592. Busbecq wrote Itinera Constantinopolitanum et Amasianum (Antwerp, 1581), a work showing considerable insight into Turkish politics. This was published in Paris in 1589 as A. G. Busbequii legationis Turcicae epistolae iv., and has been translated into several languages. He was a frequent visitor to France, and wrote Epistolae ad Rudolphum II. Imperatorem e Gallia scriptae (Louvain, 1630), an interesting account of affairs at the French court. His works were published
