Framlingham & Wingfield in Suffolk. Church of England church in Framlingham, Suffolk, dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel. Known affectionately as St Mike's. Family burials of the Howard (family) mostly moved after the dissolution of Thetford Priory. Hereward the Wake is believed to be the son of Earl Leofric of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva. According to legend, Hereward's base was the Isle of Ely and he roamed the surrounding fenlands of what is now Lincolnshire, leading popular opposition to William the Conqueror. Thetford Priory is a Cluniac Priory located at Thetford, England. One of the most important East Anglian monasteries, it was founded in 1103 by Roger Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk and dedicated to Our Lady. It owed much of its prosperity to a miraculous appearance of the Virgin Mary, whose statue here was. In the 13th century, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in a vision to locals requesting the addition to the site of a Lady Chapel. During its construction, the old statue of her on the site was discovered to have a hollow in its head concealing saints' relics, and became a magnet for pilgrims. It housed the tombs of the Howard dynasty, of Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset and of other early Tudor Dynasty officials. Even this could not save the priory from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and, on its closure in 1536, the Howard tombs were removed to St. Michael the Archangel, Framlingham.
The name St Peter ad Vincula refers to St. Peter's imprisonment under Herod in Jerusalem. The Chapel is probably best known as the burial place of some of the most famous prisoners executed at the Tower. The Chapel contains many splendid monuments. In the north-west corner is a memorial to John Holland, Duke of Exeter, who died 1447, a Constable of the Tower. Under the central arcade lies the effigy of Sir Richard Cholmondeley (Chumley), who died 1544, a Lieutenant of the Tower. In the sanctuary there is an impressive monument to Sir Richard Blount, who died 1574, and his son Sir Michael, died 1596, both Tudor Lieutenants of the Tower, who would have witnessed many of the executions. The Tower Division was a liberty in the ancient county of Middlesex. It was also known as the Tower Hamlets, and took its name from being under the special jurisdiction of the Constable of the Tower of London. Middlesex included the City of London, which has been self-governing since the thirteenth century, and the city of Westminster.
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke Norfolk is buried at St Peter ad Vincula (the parish church dating from 1520) at the Tower of London, executed there for trying to make a 4th marriage to Mary Queen of Scots. In their robes of state and resting their heads and feet on emblems connected with their Houses, his 1st and 2nd wives Mary FitzAlan and Margaret Audley are represented, though only Margaret is buried here. The large space between these 2 effigies is perhaps for Mary, Queen of Scots, or him, or his third wife. Tradition has it that the inhabitants of the town hid some of their valuables in the monument during the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and swept it clean afterwards. The large space between the effigies is said to have been reserved for Norfolk himself, his third wife, or even Mary Queen of Scots.