Wisbech prior to drainage schemes, it sat on the river Great Ouse. The port is Cambridgeshire's only gateway to the sea. In 1631 Sir Cornelius Vermuyden built the Horseshoe Sluice at Wisbech at a cost of £8,000. In 1680 the trade of Wisbech had increased sufficiently for the port to be reckoned independent and no longer a member of King's Lynn. In 1720 the corporation was licensed to buoy the channel for the first time. By 1751 it was possible in a dry year to walk across the river bed under Wisbech Bridge. Ship building was carried out in the late
Wisbech Stirs policy of internment. The problems that surfaced at Wisbech went back at least 15 years. Thomas Watson died in 1584, the last bishop of the Catholic hierarchy in England who commanded general allegiance. Thomas Metham had informally acted as Watson's successor at Wisbech; he died in 1592. Cardinal William Allen died in 1594. A group around Charles Paget opposed the appointment of the Jesuit Robert Parsons as his replacement, supporting instead Owen Lewis. Lewis died also in 1594, but Parsons was not made Cardinal, and campaigning involving the English College, Rome included also efforts to lobby the secular priests at