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The Cause of the Rising

Rebellion

During 1548, England was subject to social unrest. After April 1549, a series of armed revolts broke out, fuelled by various religious and agrarian grievances. The two most serious rebellions, which required major military intervention to put down, were in Devon and Cornwall and in Norfolk. The first, sometimes called the Prayer Book Rebellion, arose mainly from the imposition of church services in English, and the second, led by a tradesman called Robert Kett, mainly from the encroachment of landlords on common grazing ground.[39] A complex aspect of the social unrest was that the protestors believed they were acting legitimately against enclosing landlords with the Protector's support, convinced that the landlords were the lawbreakers.[40]

The same justification for outbreaks of unrest was voiced throughout the country, not only in Norfolk and the west. The origin of the popular view of Edward Seymour as sympathetic to the rebel cause lies partly in his series of sometimes liberal, often contradictory, proclamations.[41] and partly in the uncoordinated activities of the commissions he sent out in 1548 and 1549 to investigate grievances about loss of tillage, encroachment of large sheep flocks on common land, and similar issues.[42] Seymour's commissions were led by the evangelical M.P. John Hales, whose socially liberal rhetoric linked the issue of enclosure with Reformation theology and the notion of a godly commonwealth.[43] Local groups often assumed that the findings of these commissions entitled them to act against offending landlords themselves.[44] King Edward wrote in his Chronicle that the 1549 risings began "because certain commissions were sent down to pluck down enclosures".[45]

Whatever the popular view of the Duke of Somerset, the disastrous events of 1549 were taken as evidence of a colossal failure of government, and the Council laid the responsibility at the Protector's door.[46] In July 1549, Paget wrote to Seymour: "Every man of the council have misliked your proceedings ... would to God, that, at the first stir you had followed the matter hotly, and caused justice to be ministered in solemn fashion to the terror of others ..." Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset Wikipedia Page [2]

" In truth, the enclosures themselves, whereby vast numbers of poor people (whose right it was) had the food taken out of their mouths by the rich, were the causes of tumults." SIR JOHN HAYWARD, Life of Edward VI. Note by JOHN STRYPE.

" During the period, which may be roughly defined as from 1450 to 1550, enclosure meant to a large extent the actual dispossession of the tenants by their manorial lords. This took place either in the form of the violent ousting of the sitting tenant, or of a refusal on the death of one tenant to admit the son, who in earlier centuries would have been treated as his natural successor. Proofs abound." W. J. ASHLEY, Economic History.

" Marry, for these enclosures do undo us all, for they make us pay dearer for our land that we occupy, and cause that we can have no land in manner for our money to put to tillage ; all is taken up for pastures, either for sheep or for grazing of cattle. So that I have known of late a dozen ploughs within less compass than six miles about me laid down within these seven years, and where forty persons had their livings, now one man and his shepherd hath all. Which thing is not the least cause of these uproars, for by these enclosures men do lack living and be idle, and there- fore for very necessity they are desirous of a change, being in hope to come thereby to somewhat, and well assured, howsoever it befall with them, it cannot be harder with them than it was before." Discourse of this Commonweal of this Realm of England, 1581. page 18 [3]

" The foundations upon which society had been based for 500 years were broken up, the ideas which dominated it passed away, and those which were to regulate the new society were still without form and void. The change was neither begun nor ended during the Tudor period, but that age felt more severely than any other the stress and the shock of the revolution. A. F. POLLARD, page 28 England under Protector Somerset

the highways and the villages were covered in consequence with forlorn and outcast families, now reduced to beggary, who had been the occupiers of com- fortable holdings ; and thousands of dispossessed tenants made their way to London, clamouring in the midst of their starving children at the doors of the courts of law for redress which they could not obtain."

The harshness and rapacity of landlords, no longer restrained by religion or by sense of social obligation, and bent only on getting rich as quickly as possible, had their counterpart in the unscrupulous energies of the traders. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [4]

In that year, 1549, came the great risings in the West of England and in Norfolk, and many smaller risings elsewhere. To Robert Kett, the Norfolk leader, it seemed as though Protector Somerset would really order something more hopeful for the peasants than hanging and flogging, and the landowners, on their side were equally distrustful of the Protector's plans. As it turned out, Somerset accomplished nothing for the peasants, and only ruin for himself, but his policy distinctly encouraged the yeomen and peasants to hope for redress of their wrongs, as it as distinctly filled the landowners with wrath. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [5]

Cardinal Wolsey, in the heyday of his power, had also attempted to save the countryside from the growing /power of the landlords. His in- quisition of 1)817 included the counties of Oxford, Bucks, Northants, Berks, and Warwick, and reported large enclosures of common lands, and the eviction of several hundreds of people. 1

Restitution was ordered to be made for all en- closures carried out since 1485, and the King's pardon might be pleaded. There the matter ended. The landowners neither restored lands, nor ceased from enclosing though at the dis- solution of monasteries, so many estates were enlarged 1 that for a few years common lands were left untouched hi many places. On the death of Henry VIII. , there is a vigorous renewal of enclosures. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [6]

" Let the commissioners do their duty bravely, and the world would be honest again/' Somerset wrote with brave optimism. " The great fines for lands would abate, all things would wax cheap ; twenty and thirty eggs would again be sold for a penny, as in times past; the poor craftsmen could live and sell their wares at reasonable prices ; and the noblemen and gentlemen who had not enhanced their rents would be able once more to maintain hospitality" Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [7]

The report of the Commissioners, presented in the form of a petition to Parliament, declared the population diminished, the farmer and labourer impoverished, villages destroyed, towns decayed, and the labouring classes generally reduced to great suffering. It urged that land- owners should not farm any portion of their estates beyond the needs of their households ; that the great farms should be broken up ; and that a moderate fine of ten marks should be exacted from all who were breaking the law in the matter of enclosures.

But Parliament would do nothing, the land- lords ignored the Commission and its report, and the only result of Somerset's policy was a grow- ing restlessness amongst the country people, and his own unpopularity with the nobility. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [8]

Somerset had said openly, concerning the at- tacks on enclosures, that he " liked well the doings of the people/' and that, since " the covetous- ness of the gentlemen gave occasion to them to rise, it were better they should die than perish for lack of living/' 2 But the nobles and country gentlemen, furious at the attempts of Somerset to restore the enclosed land and at the boldness of the peasants, wherever they were strong enough repulsed the latter by force of arms. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [9]

That Robert Kett, with many of the country folk, were convinced that Somerset was with them against the landlords seems plain. But Somerset, by July 1549, was tottering to his fall. He could neither support the rebels nor yet recover their allegiance.

Over and over again in the first half of the sixteenth century the people rose in revolt, sometimes on behalf of the Catholic religion against the Government changes in the Church services, more often against the social and economic changes that were depopulatang rural England. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [10]

But these years with their petty outbreaks all gave evidence of the general unrest, and in the " Kett Rebellion " of 1549 culminated the long pent-up sense of injury, the knowledge of ruin unjustly earned, the hatred of landlord tyranny, and the hope of restitution. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [://archive.org/details/robertkettthenor00clayuoft/page/44]

The Beginning of the Rising

" The occasion of this rebellion was, because divers lords and gentlemen, who were possessed of abbey lands, and other large commons and waste grounds, had caused many of those commons and wastes to be enclosed, whereby the poor and indigent people were much offended, because thereby abridged of the liberty that they formerly had to common cattle, etc., on the said grounds to their own advantage/' BLOMEFIELD, History of Norfolk.

" By bearing a confident countenance in all his actions, the Vulgars took him (Kett) to be both valiant and wise, and a fit man to be their commander." SIR JOHN HAYWARD, Life of Edward VI.

THE rising began at Attleborough on 20th June 1549. Here one John Green, lord of the Manor of Wilby, had set up fences and hedges round the common lands of Harpham and Attleborough belonging to his manor ; and the inhabitants of Attleborough, Eccles, and Wilby and other neighbouring villages, hearing that the men of Kent had filled up ditches and pulled down fences, assembled together and vowed they would do the like in Norfolk. Straightway they threw down Squire Green's hedges, and laid the whole land where they had been wont to com- mon open as before.

So the fire was kindled.

The people were without leaders and without organisation. But they were in sore straits, and could see nothing for it but to take the matter into their own hands. Some attempt at common action was made, and " at first, therefore, were secret meetings of men running hither and thither, and then withdrawing themselves for secret conferences, but at length they all began to deal tumultuously and to rage openly. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [11]

There was talk on all sides of the en- closures, and of the ruin and beggary overtaking the land, and much discussion as to the work at Attleborough. The spirit of revolt spread quickly. If the old common rights were to be saved then the people must act promptly, for every day saw fresh invasions and the planting of new hedges to keep the peasants off the land. On the Monday, the play ended and the fair over, a great body of people set off to throw down the fences set up at Morley by one Master Hobart, and this done they proceeded to Hether- set, a few miles off, on the Norwich road, where Sergeant Flowerdew had enclosed many common lands.

This Flowerdew was an old enemy, 1 who had fallen into disrepute with his neighbours ten years before the rising. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [12]

No sooner had the people begun to throw down Flowerdew's fences at Hetherset than the cunning lawyer suggested to the leaders of the invasion that it would be well to attack the Ketts, who, at Wymondham, had also made en- closures. Flowerdew even went so far as to pay 4od. 2 to the rioters, on condition that they should destroy Robert Kett's enclosure. The proposal to visit Kett was approved, and so it was actually at Flowerdew's prompting that Robert Kett was drawn into the rising. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [13] With a full sense of responsibility Robert Kett made his answer to the crowd which gathered at his house at Wymondham on the Monday even- ing of 8th July. His own enclosures he would pull down at once ; but more than that, he would join with them whole-heartedly in the removal of all enclosures, and together they would break the power of their enemies. From the first the rising is in Kett's eyes a social crusade against the dominion of landlords, and this speech at the very beginning of his captaincy strikes the confident note of revolutionary en- thusiasm.

" I am ready, and will be ready at all times, to do what- soever, not only to repress, but to subdue the power of great men ; and I hope to bring it to pass ere long that as ye shall repent of your painful labour so shall these, the great ones, of their pride.

" Many horrible things of late years have ye endured, with many wrongs and miseries have ye been vexed and afflicted.

" But I will that ye be of good cheer, for this so great severity, so exceeding covetousness, and so seldom heard of cruelty in all sorts, seem to be hated and accursed of God and men. Moreover, I promise that the hurts done unto the public weal and the common pasture by the importunate lords thereof shall be revenged.

" Whatsoever lands I have enclosed shall again be made common unto ye and all men, and my own hands shall first perform it." x

Then to bring the speech to an end Kett an- nounces his willingness to lead the revolt.

" Never shall I be wanting where your good is concerned. You shall have me, if you will, not only as a companion, but as a captain ; and in the doing of the so great a work before us, not only as a fellow, but for a leader, author, and principal. Not only will I be present at all your consulta- tions, but, if you will have it so, always will I be your president."

Great were the shouts of rejoicing at these words, and the enthusiasm became contagious. People surrounded Kett and hailed him excitedly as their leader. Fired with his spirit they be- lieved a new day was dawning, for here was a landowner willingly helping to lay open the en- closures he had made and promising to do more ; and when such things happened it must seem that times were ripe for change in England. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [14]

All were reassured next day (gth July) when Kett answered those who came to beg him to stand their friend as he had already promised to do, that he would assist them utterly, and would be faithful to the office bestowed upon him.

" I will never lay down the charge/' said Kett, " which the commonwealth has committed to me, until your rights have been won, nor is any- thing more dear to me than your welfare. Before all things else do I put your welfare and deliverance, and for these I am willing to spend not only my goods, but my very life, so dear to me is the cause in which we are embarked Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [15]

The temper of the people was rising ; that same night many came in from the country round and from the city bringing such weapons as they could lay hands on, and Kett delivered a fierce harangue against the tyranny of the landowners.

" Now are ye overtopped and trodden down by gentlemen, and put out of possibility ever to recover foot. Rivers of riches ran into the coffers of your landlords, while you are pared to the quick, and fed upon pease and oats like beasts. You are fleeced by these landlords for their private benefit, and as well kept under by the public burdens of State wherein while the richer sort favour themselves, ye are gnawn to the very bones. Your tyrannous masters often implead, arrest, and cast you into prison, so that they may the more terrify and torture you in your minds, and wind your necks more surely under their arms. And then they palliate these pillories with the fair pretence of law and authority ! Fine workmen, I warrant you, are this law and authority, who can do their dealings so closely that men can only discover them for your undoing. Harmless counsels are fit for tame fools ; for you who have already stirred there is no hope but in adventuring boldly."Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [16]

Had not Acts of Parliament already been passed, making actual " slaves " of the poor, landless folk who walked the roads, men and women driven to vagabond- age by the enclosures of the common lands, and the destruction of tillage in the old common fields ? And was not Parliament busy, only this year, making it high treason for twelve or more persons to meet together, and calling it felony to break down enclosures these enclosures which were at the root of all the misery

THE REBELS' COMPLAINT

" The pride of great men is now intolerable, but our con- dition miserable.

" These abound in delights ; and compassed with the fulness of all things, and consumed with vain pleasures, thirst only after gain, inflamed with the burning delights of their desires.

" But ourselves, almost killed with labour and watching, do nothing all our life long but sweat, mourn, hunger, and thirst. Which things, though they seem miserable and base (as they are indeed most miserable), yet might be borne howsoever, if they which are drowned in the boiling seas of evil delights did not pursue the calamities and miseries of other men with too much insolent hatred. But now both we and our miserable condition is a laughing stock to these most proud and insolent men who are consumed with ease and idleness. Which thing (as it may) grieveth us so sore and inflicteth such a stain of evil report, so that nothing is more grievous for us to remember, nor more unjust to suffer.

" The present condition of possessing land seemeth miser- able and slavish holding it all at the pleasure of great men ; not freely, but by prescription, and, as it were, at the will and pleasure of the lord. For as soon as any man offend any of these gorgeous gentlemen he is put out, deprived, and thrust from all his goods.

" How long shall we suffer so great oppression to go un- revenged ?

" For so far are they, the gentlemen, now gone in cruelty and covetousness, that they are not content only to take all by violence away from us, and to consume in riot and effeminate delights what they get by force and villainy, but they must also suck in a manner our blood and marrow out of our veins and bones.

" The common pastures left by our predecessors for our relief and our children are taken away.

"The lands which in the memory of our fathers were common, those are ditched and hedged in and made several ; the pastures are enclosed, and we shut out. Whatsoever fowls of the air or fishes of the water, and increase of the earth all these do they devour, consume, and swallow up ; yea, nature doth not suffice to satisfy their lusts, but they seek out new devices, and, as it were, forms of pleasures to embalm and perfume themselves, to abound in pleasant smells, to pour in sweet things to sweet things. Finally* they seek from all places all things for their desire and the provocation of lust. While we in the meantime eat herbs and roots, and languish with continual labour, and yet are envied that we live, breathe, and enjoy common air !

" Shall they, as they have brought hedges about common pastures, enclose with their intolerable lusts also all the com- modities and pleasures of this life, which Nature, the parent of us all, would have common, and bringeth forth every day, for us, as well as for them ?

" We can no longer bear so much, so great, and so cruel injury ; neither can we with quiet minds behold so great covetousness, excess, and pride of the nobility. We will rather take arms, and mix Heaven and earth together, than endure so great cruelty.

" Nature hath provided for us, as well as for them ; hath given us a body and a soul, and hath not envied us other things. While we have the same form, and the same con- dition of birth together with them, why should they have a life so unlike unto ours, and differ so far from us in calling ?

" We see that things have now come to extremities, and we will prove the extremity. We will rend down the hedges, fill up ditches, and make a way for every man into the common pasture. Finally, we will lay all even with the ground, which they, no less wickedly than cruelly and covetously, have enclosed. Neither will we suffer ourselves any more to be pressed with such burdens against our wills, nor endure so great shame, since living out our days under such inconveniences we should leave the commonwealth unto our posterity mourning, and miserable, and much worse than we received it of our fathers.

" Wherefore we will try all means ; neither will we ever rest until we have brought things to our own liking.

" We desire liberty, and an indifferent (or equal) use of all things. This will we have. Otherwise these tumults and our lives shall only be ended together. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [17]

The March to Mousehold

" This Kelt was a proper person to be a ringleader of mischief. For he was of a bold, haughty spirit, and of a cankered mind against the Government." JOHN STRYPE, Ecclesiastical Memorials.

" The peasant, whose pigs and cow and poultry had been sold, or had died because the commons were gone where they had fed, the yeoman dispossessed of his farm, the farm servant out of employ, because where ten ploughs had turned the soil one shepherd now watched the grazing of the flocks, the artisan smarting under the famine prices which the change of culture had brought with it ; all these were united in suffering, while the gentlemen were doubling, trebling, and quadrupling their incomes with their sheep farms, and adorning their persons and their houses with splendour hitherto unknown." J. A FROUDE, History of England. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [18]

" The discontented, the desolate and oppressed, those for whom no man had cared, had now their ' camp/ as such gatherings were called; and having this, great numbers from Norfolk, Suffolk, and other parts joined them daily ; blazing beacons and pealing bells spreading the tidings that the men of Norfolk had raised a standard, round which all such might gather ; and far and wide was the rumour sent, and thronging multitudes came pouring in from quiet villages and market towns the peaceful abodes of humble rustics and simple-minded farmers, hitherto content with complaining, but now roused to action, as the distant beacon sent its glare across the landscape, or as the village bells, hitherto associated only with days of holy rest and happy times, forgotten now in the wild storm of social excitement in which they were living, summoned them away to join the bold spirits gathering on Household Heath. F. W. RUSSELL, " Kett's Rebellion." Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [19]

" Twenty thousand men gathered round the ' Oak of Reformation/ near Norwich, and repulsing the royal troops in a desperate engagement, renewed the old cries for a removal of evil counsellors, a prohibition of enclosures, and redress for the grievances of the poor." J. R. GREEN, History of England. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [20]

The Oak of Reformation

The " Requests and Demands " were studi- ously moderate and free from all revolutionary sentiment. They reveal a wide and detailed knowledge of the various hardships of the country people, and explain much of the unrest of the time. They offer proof that Kett, fiercely as he could declaim against landlord rule, and much as he might desire a social revolution, had very clear notions as to the immediate and practical reforms that were needed in the county of Norfolk. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [21]

This reply, with a general pardon, was brought to Household by a herald. " Herewith also the King sent his general pardon, in case they would quietly desist and dissolve ; but it was all, un- happily, of no avail." 2

Hardly could such reply avail. What availed it to the homeless and landless peasants of East Anglia to talk of applying themselves to harvest and " other peaceable business at home " ? What hope was there for this long-suffering multitude in the promise that Parliament would meet to look into their grievances some months hence ? Year after year had the people waited for help, while their state went steadily from bad to worse, their old rights and liberties vanishing before the advancing wave of land- lord aggression. Now, at last, when they had been driven to take up arms, and had found a leader whom they trusted, something more de- finite than this royal reply was required to make them disperse. If there was to be no assistance from the King's Government in London, then, in the strength of their own arms must deliver- ance be wrought. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [22]

As for Robert Kett, this answer to his petition left him unmoved. It would be time enough when Parliament met and fulfilled these pledges for him to resign his charge. To give up the work now would be sheer folly. Over and over again had the people been fooled by royal pro- mises, only made to be broken. What had been the fate of the peasants who trusted the given word and the royal signature of Richard II. at the time of the great uprising in 1381 ? What attempt did the Crown make to keep the promises it gave to the commons of Kent, when Jack Cade led them to London in 1450 ? If Protector Somerset were in earnest to help the people to their rights his task should be aided, not impeded, by the resolute action of people found striving for their rights. Popular in- difference and a return to abject submission would provide Parliament with a fatal excuse for doing nothing, and would, besides, probably bring down heavy vengeance on the heads of all who had dared revolt. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [23]

" We are the King's friends, and being unjustly oppressed, we have taken upon ourselves the defence of the laws and of the King's Majesty." Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [24]

In order to maintain better discipline and order in the rebel host, Kett seized an opportunity of investing a number of his followers with the authority of magistrates. For a royal messenger, bearing commissions of the peace to various county gentlemen, falling into the hands of Kett's men, they at once deprived him of these docu- ments before sending him on his way. Kett thereupon filled in the commissions with the names of certain trustworthy men whom he picked out, and these irregularly appointed magistrates co-operated with the delegates of the hundreds in the maintenance of order.

The Oak of Reformation was not only Kett's court of justice, " his King's Bench, Chancery, and all other courts," * it was also the place of prayer and preaching. Dr Conyers, vicar of St Martin's at the palace, in Norwich, the chaplain to the camp, read the prayers of the new Book of Common Prayer daily to such as would attend, and " grave persons and good divines " were wont to come out from the city and preach under the Oak, without let or hindrance. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [25]

Parker in disgust de- clared the " common people " were drunk, and put off his sermon to the morrow, for preach he would.

Whatever may have.been their condition over- night, the people were all at prayers, the Rev. Thomas Conyers " reading the Litany in the midst of them/' when Parker appeared to fulfil his mission in the morning. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [26]

hen followed a glowing eulogy on the King, and the importance of postponing their demands till the King was of age Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [27]

" How long shall we bear with this hireling doctor ? He's hired by the gentry, and so he comes with words for which they have paid him, and with his tongue bribed by them. But for all his prating we will bridle their intolerable power, and will hold them bound with the cords of our laws, in spite of their hearts." Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [28]

Chaplain Conyers soon restored peace to his excited congregation, for " with three or four choristers he began to sing the Te Deum in English to solemn music, and the people, being ravished by the sweetness of which song, for they were unwonted to music, and being be- witched with these unaccustomed delights, by little and little were appeased Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [29]

The Conflict with the Citizens

" Apart from the recovery of what the peasants thought was stolen property, their conduct was restrained and almost orderly. Rude courts were held by Kett and his reluctant assessor, the Mayor of Norwich, in the rebels' camp ; and if the justice they administered was rough, it was probably as fair as that obtainable in the King's courts, where, accord- ing to the proverb of that day the law was ended as a man was friended." A. F. POLLARD, Political History. Robert Kett and the Norfolk rising by Clayton, Joseph [30]

Kett's Rebellion
An 18th-century depiction of Robert Kett and his followers under the Oak of Reformation on Mousehold Heath
Date 8 July 1549 – 27 August 1549 Location Norfolk Result Victory for Edwardian forces, rebellion suppressed, execution of rebel commanders
Belligerents
East Anglian rebels	Kingdom of England
Commanders and leaders
Robert Kett	Edward VI of England Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset John Dudley, 1st Earl of Warwick William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton
Strength
~16,000 rebels	~12,000 troops ~1200 German mercenaries
Casualties and losses
At least 3,000 killed Unknown wounded	Unknown
~3,000 deaths

Kett's Rebellion was a revolt in Norfolk, England during the reign of Edward VI, largely in response to the enclosure of land. It began at Wymondham on 8 July 1549 with a group of rebels destroying fences that had been put up by wealthy landowners. One of their targets was yeoman farmer Robert Kett who, instead of resisting the rebels, agreed to their demands and offered to lead them. Kett and his forces, joined by recruits from Norwich and the surrounding countryside and numbering some 16,000, set up camp on Mousehold Heath to the north-east of the city on 12 July. The rebels stormed Norwich on 29 July and took the city. On the 1st of August the rebels defeated a Royal Army led by the Marquess of Northampton who had been sent by the government to suppress the uprising. Kett's rebellion ended on 27 August when the rebels were defeated by an army under the leadership of the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Dussindale. Kett was captured, held in the Tower of London, tried for treason, and hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle on 7 December 1549.

Background

The 1540s saw a crisis in agriculture in England. With the majority of the population depending on the land, this led to outbreaks of unrest across the country. Kett's rebellion in Norfolk was the most serious of these. The main grievance of the rioters was enclosure, the fencing of common land by landlords for their own use. Enclosure left peasants with nowhere to graze their animals. Some landowners were forcing tenants off their farms so that they could engross their holdings and convert arable land into pasture for sheep, which had become more profitable as demand for wool increased. Inflation, unemployment, rising rents and declining wages added to the hardships faced by the common people. As the historian Mark Cornwall put it, they "could scarcely doubt that the state had been taken over by a breed of men whose policy was to rob the poor for the benefit of the rich".

Uprising at Wymondham

Kett's Rebellion is remembered on Wymondham's town sign

Kett's rebellion, or "the commotion time" as it was also called in Norfolk, began in July 1549 in the small market town of Wymondham, nearly ten miles south-west of Norwich. The previous month there had been a minor disturbance at the nearby town of Attleborough where fences, built by the lord of the manor to enclose common lands, were torn down. The rioters thought they were acting legally, since Edward Seymour (1st Duke of Somerset, and Lord Protector during part of Edward VI's minority) had issued a proclamation against illegal enclosures. Wymondham held its annual feast on the weekend of 6 July 1549 and a play in honour of St Thomas Becket, the co-patron of Wymondham Abbey, was performed. This celebration was illegal, as Henry VIII had decreed in 1538 that the name of Thomas Becket should be removed from the church calendar. On the Monday, when the feast was over, a group of people set off to the villages of Morley St. Botolph and Hethersett to tear down hedges and fences. One of their first targets was Sir John Flowerdew, a lawyer and landowner at Hethersett who was unpopular for his role as overseer of the demolition of Wymondham Abbey (part of which was the parish church) during the dissolution of the monasteries and for enclosing land. Flowerdew bribed the rioters to leave his enclosures alone and instead attack those of Robert Kett at Wymondham.

Kett was about 57 years old and was one of the wealthier farmers in Wymondham. The Ketts (also spelt Ket, Cat, Chat, or Knight) had been farming in Norfolk since the twelfth century. Kett was the son of Tom and Margery Kett and had several brothers, and clergyman Francis Kett was his nephew. Two or possibly three of Kett's brothers were dead by 1549, but his eldest brother William joined him in the rebellion. Kett's wife, Alice, and several sons are not recorded as having been involved in the rebellion. Kett had been prominent among the parishioners in saving their parish church when Wymondham Abbey was demolished and this had led to conflict with Flowerdew. Having listened to the rioters' grievances, Kett decided to join their cause and helped them tear down his own fences before taking them back to Hethersett where they destroyed Flowerdew's enclosures.

"By bearing a confident countenance in all his actions, the Vulgars took him (Kett) to be both valiant and wise, and a fit man to be their commander"

Sir John Hayward, Life of King Edward VI

Kett's Oak, beside the B1172, near Hethersett, Norfolk

The following day, Tuesday 9 July, the protesters set off for Norwich. By now Kett was their leader and they were being joined by people from nearby towns and villages. A local tradition holds that a meeting point for the rebels was an oak tree on the road between Wymondham and Hethersett, where nine of the rebels were later hanged. Known as Kett's Oak, it has been preserved by Norfolk County Council. The oak became a symbol of the rebellion when an oak tree on Mousehold Heath was made the centre of the rebel camp, but this "Oak of Reformation" no longer stands.

Mousehold camp

Kett and his followers camped for the night of 9 July at Bowthorpe, just west of Norwich. Here they were approached by the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, Sir Edmund Wyndham, who ordered them to disperse. The response was negative, and the sheriff retreated back to Norwich. Next the rebels were visited by the mayor of Norwich, Thomas Codd, who met a similar response. The following night the rebels camped at nearby Eaton Wood and then, having been refused permission to march through Norwich to reach Mousehold Heath north-east of the city, crossed the River Wensum at Hellesdon and spent the night at Drayton. On Friday 12 July, the rebels reached Mousehold, where they had a vantage point overlooking Norwich, and set up the camp that was their base for the next six and a half weeks. The camp was the largest of several rebel camps that had appeared in East Anglia that summer. The rebels were known at the time as the "camp men" and the rebellion as the "camping tyme" or "commotion tyme".

An early 19th-century painting of Mousehold Heath by local artist John Crome

Kett set up his headquarters in St Michael's Chapel, the ruins of which have since been known as Kett's Castle. Mount Surrey, a house built by the Earl of Surrey on the site of the despoiled St Leonard's Priory, had lain empty since the Earl's execution in 1547 and was used to hold Kett's prisoners. Kett's council, which consisted of representatives from the Hundreds of Norfolk and one representative from Suffolk met under the Oak of Reformation to administer the camp, issuing warrants to obtain provisions and arms and arrest members of the gentry. According to one source the Oak of Reformation was cut down by Norwich City Council in the 1960s to make way for a car park, although Reg Groves wrote in the 1940s that had already been destroyed. The camp was joined by workers and artisans from Norwich, and by people from the surrounding towns and villages, until it was larger than Norwich, at that time the second-largest city in England with a population of about 12,000. The city authorities, having sent messengers to London, remained in negotiation with the rebels and Mayor Thomas Codd, former Mayor Thomas Aldrich and preacher Robert Watson accepted the rebels' invitation to take part in their council.

Once the camp was established at Mousehold the rebels drew up a list of 29 grievances, signed by Kett, Codd, Aldrich and the representatives of the Hundreds, and sent it to Protector Somerset. The grievances have been described by one historian as a shopping-list of demands but which nevertheless have a strong logic underlying them, articulating "a desire to limit the power of the gentry, exclude them from the world of the village, constrain rapid economic change, prevent the overexploitation of communal resources, and remodel the values of the clergy". Although the rebels were all the while tearing down hedges and filling in ditches, only one of the 29 articles mentioned enclosure: 'We pray your grace that where it is enacted for enclosing, that it be not hurtful to such as have enclosed saffren grounds, for they be greatly chargeable to them, and that from henceforth no man shall enclose any more.' The exemption for 'saffren grounds' has puzzled historians; one has suggested that it may have been a scribal error for 'sovereign grounds', grounds that were the exclusive freehold property of their owners, while others have commented on the importance of saffron to local industry. The rebels also asked 'that all bondmen may be made free, for God made all free, with his precious blood shedding.' The rebels may have been articulating a grievance against the 1547 Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds, which made it legal to enslave a discharged servant who did not find a new master within three days, though they may also have been calling for the manumission of the thousands of Englishmen and women who were serfs. (In 1549, an Act Touching on the Punishment of Vagabonds and Other Idle Persons avoided the word "slave" but retained many of the harshest provisions of the 1547 Act.)

The truce between the city and the camp was ended on 21 July by a messenger from the King's Council, York Herald Bartholomew Butler, who arrived at Norwich from London, went with city officials to Mousehold, proclaimed the gathering a rebellion, and offered pardon. Kett rejected the offer, saying he had no need of a pardon because he had committed no treason. York Herald lacked the forces to arrest the rebels and retreated into Norwich with the Mayor. Kett and his followers were now officially rebels; the authorities therefore shut the city gates and set about preparing the city defences.

Fall of Norwich

Norwich at the time of Kett's Rebellion

Kett was now left with a decision. He would not, probably could not, disperse the camp, but without access to the markets of Norwich, his people would starve. It was therefore decided to attack Norwich.

In the late evening of 21 July 1549, rebel artillery positioned on and beneath Mount Surrey, the heights opposite the Bishopsgate bridge, at the top of which now stands a memorial to the rebellion, opened fire. The bombardment and the response from the city's artillery entrenched next to the bridge and around the Cow Tower lasted through the night.

At first light on 22 July, Kett withdrew his artillery. The city defenders had repositioned six artillery pieces in the meadow behind the hospital (now the cricket ground of Norwich school) and were laying down such an accurate fire that the rebels feared the loss of all their guns. Under a flag of truce the rebels demanded access to the city, which the city authorities refused.

Kett's artillery, now on the slopes of Mousehold Heath, opened fire on the city. The guns in the hospital meadow could not reach far enough uphill to return the fire. At this point an assault began, ordered by Kett or perhaps by other rebel leaders. Thousands of rebels charged down from Mousehold and began swimming the Wensum between the Cow Tower and Bishops Gate. The city defenders fired volleys of arrows into the rebels as they crossed, but could not stop the attack. A running battle ensued. In the market square the York Herald tried to address the rebels, but as threats were made against him he fled in fear of his life. England's second largest city was in the hands of a rebel army.

Attacks on the rebels

The King sent the Marquess of Northampton with 1,500 men, including Italian mercenaries, to quell the rebellion. As he drew near to the city he sent forward his herald to demand the surrender of the city. The Deputy Mayor, Augustine Steward, responded. It was conveyed that the rebels had retreated back to the safety of the high ground overlooking the city. Kett had already seen how difficult it was to defend miles of walls and gates and had instead chosen to withdraw. It was much more prudent to allow Northampton's tiny army to defend the city while he again laid siege to it.

On the night of 31 July, the Royal army made its defensive preparations and started patrolling the city's narrow streets. Around midnight alarms rang out, waking Northampton. It appeared hundreds of rebels were using the cover of darkness and their knowledge of the maze of small streets and alleys around Tombland to launch hit-and-run attacks on Royal troops. Lord Sheffield suggested constructing ramparts along the eastern side of the city, which was open to attack, and warned that the rebels were crossing the river around Bishopsgate with ease.

By 8 am the following morning, 1 August, the ramparts were strengthened between the Cow Tower and Bishopsgate, so Sheffield retired to The Maid's Head inn for breakfast. A little after this, Northampton received information that the rebels wished to discuss surrender and were gathering around the Pockthorpe gate. Sheffield went with the Herald to discuss this apparent good turn of events with the rebels. On arrival, Sheffield found no rebels at all. It appears to have been either a false rumour or a diversion, as at that point thousands of rebels again began crossing the River Wensum around Bishopsgate.

Northampton's main force was in the market place. As the attack developed, he fed men through the streets into a growing and vicious street battle across the whole eastern area of the city. Seeing things going the rebels' way, Sheffield took command of a body of cavalry and charged the rebels across the cathedral precinct, past St Martin at Place Church and into Bishopsgate Street. Outside the Great Hospital in Bishopsgate Street, Sheffield fell from his horse into a ditch. Expecting then to be captured and ransomed, as was the custom, he removed his helmet, only to be killed by a blow from a rebel, reputedly a butcher named Fulke.

With the loss of a senior commander and his army being broken up in street fighting, Northampton ordered a retreat. The retreat did not stop until the remnants of the Royal Army reached Cambridge.

The Earl of Warwick led the force that defeated the rebels

The Earl of Warwick was then sent with a stronger army of around 14,000 men including mercenaries from Wales, Germany and Spain. Warwick had previously fought in France, was a former member of the House of Commons and subsequently the Privy Council, making him a strong leader. Despite the increased threat, the rebels were loyal to Kett throughout and continued to fight Warwick's men.

Northampton served as Warwick’s second-in-command in the second attempt to deal with the rebel host, this time with a much larger force. Warwick managed to enter the city on 24 August by attacking the St Stephen's and Brazen gates. The rebels retreated through the city, setting fire to houses as they went in an attempt to slow the Royal army's advance. About 3 pm Warwick's baggage train entered the city. It managed to get lost and rather than halting in the market place it continued through Tombland and straight down Bishopsgate Street towards the rebel army. A group of rebels saw the train from Mousehold and ran down into the city to capture it. Captain Drury led his men in an attempt to recapture the train, which included all the artillery. He managed to salvage some of the guns in yet another fierce fight around Bishopsgate.

At 10 pm that same night shouts of "fire" started. The rebels had entered the city and were burning it. Warwick was in the same trap as Northampton had been, surrounded inside a city in danger of being burnt to the ground.

At first light on 25 August the rebels changed tactics. Their artillery broke down the walls around the northern area of the city near the Magdalen and Pockthorpe gates. With the north of the city again in rebel hands, Warwick launched an attack. Bitter street fighting eventually cleared the city once again. The rebels bombarded the city throughout the day and night.

On 26 August, 1,500 foreign mercenaries arrived in the city. These were German "landsknechts", a mix of handgunners and pikemen. With these reinforcements and the townsfolk, Warwick now had an army so formidable it could no longer hide within the city. Kett and his people were aware of this, and that night they left their camp at Mousehold for lower ground in preparation for battle.

During the morning of 27 August, the armies faced each other outside the city. The final battle took place at Dussindale, and was a disaster for the rebels. In the open, against well-armed and trained troops, thousands were killed and the rest ran for their lives.

The location of Dussindale has never been established. The most popular theory is that the dale began in the vicinity of the Plumstead Road East allotments that swept into Valley Drive and into the present remnant of Mousehold, into the Long Valley and out into what is now Gertrude Road and the allotments. In Victorian times this area was known as 'Ketts Meadow'. The name Dussindale has been given to a recent housing development in nearby Thorpe St Andrew.

Aftermath

About 3,000 rebels are thought to have been killed at Dussindale, with Warwick's army losing some 250 men. The morning after the battle, 28 August, rebels were hanged at the Oak of Reformation and outside the Magdalen Gate. Estimates of the number vary from 30 to 300. Warwick had already executed 49 rebels when he had entered Norwich a few days before. There is only one attested incident in which the rebels had killed in cold blood: one of Northampton's Italian mercenaries had been hanged following his capture.

Kett was captured at the village of Swannington the night after the battle and taken, together with his brother William, to the Tower of London to await trial for treason. Found guilty, the brothers were returned to Norwich at the beginning of December. Kett was hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle on 7 December 1549; on the same day William was hanged from the west tower of Wymondham Abbey.

Legacy

"In 1549 AD Robert Kett yeoman farmer of Wymondham was executed by hanging in this Castle after the defeat of the Norfolk Rebellion of which he was leader. In 1949 AD - four hundred years later - this Memorial was placed here by the citizens of Norwich in reparation and honour to a notable and courageous leader in the long struggle of the common people of England to escape from a servile life into the freedom of just conditions"

Plaque on the wall of Norwich Castle

In 1550, the Norwich authorities decreed that in future 27 August should be a holiday to commemorate "the deliverance of the city" from Kett's Rebellion, and paid for lectures in the cathedral and parish churches on the sins of rebellion. This tradition continued for over a century.

The only known surviving eye-witness account of the rebellion, a manuscript by Nicholas Sotherton, son of a Norwich mayor, is hostile towards the rebels. So too is Alexander Neville's 1575 Latin history of the rebellion, De furoribus Norfolciensium. Neville was secretary to Matthew Parker, who had preached to Kett's followers under the Oak of Reformation on Mousehold, unsuccessfully appealing to them to disperse. In 1615 Neville's work was translated into English by Norfolk clergyman Richard Woods under the title Norfolke Furies and was reprinted throughout the following century. Kett's name was thus kept alive as a "reviled symbol of rustic violence". It was only in the 19th century that more sympathetic portrayals of the rebellion appeared in print and started the process that saw Kett transformed from traitor to folk hero. An anonymous work of 1843 was critical of Neville's account of the rebellion, and in 1859 clergyman Frederic Russell, who had unearthed new material in archives for his account of the rebellion, concluded that "though Kett is commonly considered a rebel, yet the cause he advocated is so just, that one cannot but feel he deserved a better name and a better fate".

Robert Kett's death is commemorated in 2011

In 1948, Alderman Fred Henderson, a former mayor of Norwich who had been imprisoned in the Castle for his part in the food riots of 1885, proposed a memorial to Kett. Originally hoping for a statue, he settled for a plaque on the walls of Norwich Castle engraved with his words and unveiled in 1949, 400 years after the rebellion. In the 21st century the death of Kett is still remembered by the people of Norwich. On 7 December 2011, the anniversary of his death, a memorial march by members of Norwich Occupy and Norwich Green Party took place and a wreath was laid by the gates of Norwich Castle.

The Oak of Reformation on Kett House, an office block in Station Road, Cambridge; Willi Soukop, sculptor

After the rebellion the lands of Kett and his brother William were forfeited, although some of them were later restored to one of his sons. In the longer term the Kett family do not seem to have suffered from their association with the rebellion, but to have prospered in various parts of Norfolk. George Kett, a descendant of Kett's younger brother Thomas, moved to Cambridge and co-founded the architectural masonry company of Rattee and Kett. George Kett's son, also George, was mayor of Cambridge on three occasions and compiled a genealogy of the Kett family.

The rebellion is remembered in the names of schools, streets, pubs and a walking route in the Norwich and Wymondham area, including the Robert Kett Junior School in Wymondham, Dussindale Primary School in Norwich, the Robert Kett pub in Wymondham, Kett House residence at the University of East Anglia, and Kett's Tavern in Norwich, and in a folk band, Lewis Garland and Kett's Rebellion, and a beer, Kett's Rebellion, by Woodforde's Brewery in Norwich.

Kett's rebellion has featured in novels, including Frederick H. Moore's Mistress Haselwode: A tale of the Reformation Oak (1876), F.C. Tansley's For Kett and Countryside (1910), Jack Lindsay's The Great Oak (1949), Sylvia Haymon's children's story The Loyal Traitor (1965), Margaret Callow's A Rebellious Oak (2012), and C.J. Sansom's Tombland (2018); plays, including George Colman Green's Kett the tanner (1909); and poetry, including Keith Chandler's collection Kett's Rebellion and Other Poems (1982). In 1988 British composer Malcolm Arnold produced the Robert Kett Overture (Opus 141), inspired by the rebellion.

Bibliography

• Beer, B.L. 1982 Rebellion and Riot: popular disorder in England during the reign of Edward VI. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press
• Clayton, J. 1912 Robert Kett and the Norfolk Rising. London: Martin Secker
• Cornwall, J. 1977 Revolt of the Peasantry 1549. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
• Groves, R. 1947 Rebel's Oak: the story of the great rebellion of 1549. London: Red Flag Fellowship
• Land, Stephen K. (1977). Kett's rebellion: The Norfolk rising of 1549. Ipswich: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-084-0.
• MacCulloch, Diarmaid (8 January 1979). "Kett's Rebellion in Context". Past & Present. 84 (1): 36–59. doi:10.1093/past/84.1.36. ISSN 0031-2746. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
• Russell, Frederic William (1859). Kett's rebellion in Norfolk. London: Longmans, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
• Wood, Andy (2002). Riot, rebellion and popular politics in early modern England. Social history in perspective. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-333-63761-6.
• Wood, Andy (2007). The 1549 rebellions and the making of early modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-83206-9.
• Wyler, S. 2009 A history of community asset ownership. London: Development Trusts Association

External links

• Virtual Norfolk: The 'Commotion Time' in Norfolk: Kett's Rebellion of 1549
• Audio of a talk on Robert Kett by Peter Clark for Bristol Radical History Group.
• Reconstructing Rebellion: Digital Terrain Analysis of the Battle of Dussindale (1549)

Category:Enclosures Category:History of Norfolk Category:Battles involving Norfolk Category:History of Suffolk Category:1549 in England Category:Tudor rebellions Category:16th-century rebellions Category:Conflicts in 1549 Category:Edward VI of England Category:16th century in Norfolk Category:Wymondham, Norfolk Category:16th-century military history of the Kingdom of England