joemasonspage posted: " KETT'S.HEIGHTS This a continuation of the story of Robert Kett which I began on May 17th 2020. On Friday 12th of July 1549 the rebels reached Mousehold Heath. The rebellion had begun in Wymondham six days earlier. There were over 16,000 them by th" joemasonspage
This a continuation of the story of Robert Kett which I began on May 17th 2020.
On Friday 12th of July 1549 the rebels reached Mousehold Heath. The rebellion had begun in Wymondham six days earlier. There were over 16,000 them by the time they camped outside Norwich. Robert Kett himself set up his headquarters in St Michael's chapel on the southern edge of Mousehold Heath. The ruins of this building still stand in the area known as Kett's Heights atop Gas Hill. There is a commanding view of the city from St Michael's chapel.
The rebels drew up a list of 29 demands. These varied greatly, drawing as they did on the many different trades represented by the many various people who made up the rebels. Although only one related to the vexed question on enclosures, by their actions they showed that this was a principal concern. These demands were sent to the Lord Protector Somerset in London. On the 21st July a reply arrived from London. It described the gathering as a rebellion, but allowed the protestors a pardon providing they dispersed. Robert Kett refused, saying he had no need of a pardon, since he had done nothing wrong. Being wildly outnumbered the officials of the City Corporation withdrew and shut the gates of the city, taking particular care with that on Bishops Bridge, directly below Robert Kett's headquarters.
The gathering was now officially declared a rebellion. On the next day (22 July) Kett proposed a truce, but the city fathers rejected it; so Kett's men fell upon the city. They did not attack Bishops Bridge directly, but swam across the river near Cow Tower. The city defenders fired volleys of arrows into the rebels as they crossed the river Wensum, but could not stop the attack and Norwich quickly fell to the rebels. A rump of the city defenders were left and they tried again to negotiate. York Herald, who was the Government representative in the city, once again offered a pardon to the rebels, but was again turned down. York Herald then left for London. Most of the Corporation were rounded up and kept in the Earl of Surrey's house in Surrey Street (where the HQ of Aviva now stands). Mayor Codd was held in the rebel's headquarters at St Michael's chapel.
The young King sent a force of one and a half thousand men under the Marques of Northampton to quell the uprising. The rebels had withdrawn to Mousehold Heath on the approach of the King's men, and Deputy Mayor Augustine Steward (who had remained in the city) let the Government forces into Norwich. On the 31st of July the Royal army had made its defences and started patrolling the city's streets. Around midnight alarms rang out. Hundreds of rebels were using the cover of darkness (and their knowledge of the maze of streets around Tombland) to launch hit-and-run attacks on Royal troops. This was a bloody battle, but the Royal troops were eventually successful. At 8 o'clock on the 1st of August, while the second in command of the King's men (the Earl of Sheffield) was having breakfast at the Maid's Head (still the premier hostelry in the city centre), he heard that the rebels wished to discuss a surrender.
He went to the Pockthorrpe gate (not far from the Maid's Head) to meet the rebels, but there was no one there; this talk of surrender was a ruse; instead the insurgents again forded the river and renewed their attack on the Crown soldiers. Vicious fighting broke out between the two sides, and a cavalry charge down Bishopsgate resulted in the Earl of Sheffield falling from his horse outside the Great Hospital. Expecting to be ransomed, he removed his helmet, only to be killed by a blow to the head. Northampton (in overall command) withdrew his men to a safe distance.
With a force of 14,000 more men under the Earl of Warwick it was inevitable that the King's men would eventually triumph. The untrained rebels were no match for the Italian and German mercenaries ranged against them, but it took the Battle of Dussindale for the rebels to be finally defeated on the 27th of August. It cost the lives of some thousands of local men for loss of about 250 soldiers. Kett was captured just outside the city a day later and was hanged in December. Many of his co-conspirators had already been executed.
I wonder what the ordinary residents of Norwich made of this bloody conflict? All the accounts in the immediate aftermath of the rebellion take the official line that the rebels were treacherous traitors, but this unremarkable. (One of the manuscripts was written by Nicholas Sotherton, whose descendants became the squires of Taverham.) I do not believe that the rebels could have held out for almost two months without considerable local support; what (for example) would such a large force (over 16,000 hungry mouths) have eaten without provisioning from the simple residents of the city? They must have been basically on their side.
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