Chapter 15 - Opposition and Conformity

Question 1

Timeline of key chronology from March-August 1549?

Answer 1

• March: Commotion in Lincolnshire
• May: Commotion in Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Lent, Sussex, Essex, and Staffordshire
• May-June: Western Rebellion
• July: Commotions in Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Warwickshire, Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire
• July-August: Kett’s Rebellion
• August: Commotions in Leicestershire and Rutland

Question 2

Who was Lord Russell?

Answer 2

• John Russell, First Earl of Bedford (c1485-c1555), serves as Lord Admiral and Lord Provy Seal
• He was given land around Tavistock in Devon by Henry VIII following the dissolution of the monasteries
• He was keen to protect his property in 1549 but had limited time to establish his authority in the region

Question 3

What was the cause of the Western Rebellion?

Answer 3

• The principal cause of the Western Rebellion was religion
• The conservative counties of Devon and Cornwall were hostile to any change to Catholic practices and the intervention of the government in their beliefs
• The first indication of discontent came in April 1547 when William Body, the government’s agent to Cornwall, inflamed the localities as he attempted to carry out the destruction of all images

Question 4

What was the response to William Body’s inflammation of localities?

Answer 4

• In response, a mob, led by the priest of St Keverne, set upon Body and killed him
• The dissolution of the chantries and the undermining of local guilds which supported masses and prayers for the dead, and provided lights for the rood and images, caused further disquiet in the city
• However, it was the announcement on Whitsunday 1549, that the liturgy of the new Prayer Book must be used uniformly that transformed opposition into full scale rebellion

Question 5

How did the rebellion start?

Answer 5

In Devon and Cornwall risings began independently as the government attempted to introduce the new liturgy on one of the most Holy Days of the Church year: the day on which the Church celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles

Question 6

How did the uprisings spread?

Answer 6

• The army of rebels from across the south-west congregated and camped outside Clyst St Mary, occupying the main road to Exeter
• The protest attracted further support and much of the region supported the stand against the government’s representative, Sir Peter Carew

Question 7

Who did Somerset appoint to deal with the rebellion?

Answer 7

• Somerset appointed Lord Russell to restore law and order, but with an inadequate force
• By the 2nd of July the rebels numbered to 2,000 and were advancing on Exeter behind the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ
• As the mayor refused the demands, the siege of Exeter began and the demands of the Western Rebels were delivered to Somerset

Question 8

What was a sacring bell?

Answer 8

A bell, or bells, rung at the point in Mass when transubstantiation occurred; it could also be rung at other sacramental points, e.g. during the last rites

Question 10

How did Somerset finally deal with the Western Rebellion?

Answer 10

• On the 28th July, Lord Russell was urged to attack and Regina control of Exeter, which was accomplished with the arrival of an extra 1,000 troops
• Having gained the regional capital, Russell marched through the rebel stronghold of Sampford Courtenay with 8,000 men
• The protracted fight by the rebels had little chance of success; the rebellion collapsed and reprisals began
• Across the region, 4,000 men were said to have been killed by the royal army - perhaps the most poignant was the execution of Robert Webb, the priest of St Thomas in Exeter, who was hanged on a gallows erected on his Church tower in his vestments with a ‘holy water bucket, a sprinkler and sacring bell’

Question 11

Why is the Western Rebellion often referred to as the Prayer Book Rebellion?

Answer 11

• The Western Rebellion is often referred to as the Prayer Book Rebellion as it is seen as a response to religious change imposed by the government
• However, there were other reasons why the people of the south-west rebelled in 1549

Question 12

What were the other reasons that people rebelled in 1549?

Answer 12

• The government’s attacks on enclosure through the taxes on sheep was a particular concern in a region which had always been enclosed and where the majority of farming was pasture rather than arable
• The articles written by the rebels also challenged the position of gentlemen and their right to employ servants
• The objection to the sale of chantry land was also an attack on those who were profiting from the sale of Church property
• Perhaps the issue which most cornered the people of the south-west was the wholesale interference of the government in a fiercely independent region. Up until 1549, government influenced had been weak; Somerset’s financial and religious policies presented a serious challenge to that independence

Question 13

Who was Robert Kett?

Answer 13

• (1492-1549) was a wealthy yeoman farmer who was about 57 at the time of the rebellion
• His family had held land in the areas since the 12th century
• The local community looked up to him as he had been involved in saving the parish church in Wymondham when the abbey was dissolved
• Kett had been a member of a Catholic guild but was sympathetic to new religious ideas

Question 14

What was the Kett’s Rebellion?

Answer 14

• The protest in East Anglia had a less obvious single cause than those int he South-West
• The affected areas of Norfolk and Suffolk had diverse agricultural patterns and systems of land-holding
• Nevertheless, the core rebellion primarily revolved around enclosure; the initial riot involved the destruction of hedges, set to enclose land
• Norfolk was a rich wool county and some farmers had begun to specialise in sheep faring - the increase in the price of wool encouraged some of whom had newly acquired landed property, to increase their profits by turning their land over to sheep - Robert Kett was himself a landowner

Question 15

What was a main concern of Kett’s rebels in 1549?

Answer 15

• The second major concern of those who rebelled in 1549 was related to the increase in rents; rack-renting was the means by which unscrupulous landlords passed the costs assocaited with high inflation onto their tenantry
• The underlying cause was perceived to be bad government; Kett criticised the local gentry, justices of peace and those landowners who had betrayed the peasantry
• Kett and the rebels appealed over the head of those involved in local government to Protector Somerset - the rebels highlighted the Protestant concept of the common-wealth, in Kett’s emphasis on the use of property by all, rather than a few

Question 16

What did the Kett’s Rebels demand (Economic)?

Answer 16

1. No Lord should pasture animals on the commons (a reference to an effect of enclosure)
2. Rent prices of copyhold land (land based on manorial records), meadowland and the marshes should be set at the 1485 levels
3. Land that was held in freehold should not be converted to copyhold
4. No man worth £401 or over a year to keep cattle or sheep except for their own subsistence (a direct attack on gentlemen farmers)
5. Lower the tax levied on the inheritance of land

Question 17

What did the Kett’s Rebels demand (Political)?

Answer 17

1. The political roles of priests and vicars should be limited in the towns and the villages
2. Parishioners should have the right to control their own priests

Question 18

What did the Kett’s Rebels demand (Social)?

Answer 18

1. If priests of vicars earn above £10 a year they should teach the poorer children
2. Rights for fisherman should be secured

Question 19

What was rack-renting?

Answer 19

Excessive or extortionate rent which is often frequently increased

Question 20

Who were yeoman farmers?

Answer 20

Substantial landowners below the rank of gentlemen or nobility

Question 21

What was the trigger for the Kett’s rebellion?

Answer 21

• The trigger for the rebellion in Norfolk was a play on the life of Saint Thomas Becket, when anger and drink combined in an attack on property of John Flowerdew who had recently enclosed his land
• To divert the mob, Flowerdew encouraged an attack on his neighbour’s property, but Robert Kett joined with other yeoman farmers in the riot

Question 22

Where did the peasants reside?

Answer 22

• By the 10th of July the rebels had reached Norwich and camped on Mousehold Heath
• Robert Kett placed himself under a tree where justice had traditionally been passed to settle local disputes; it was a court of common law
• From Mousehold Health the rebels sent their demand to Somerset

Question 23

How was Somerset’s response to Kett’s Rebellion from different from previous rebellions?

Answer 23

• Somerset responded positively to the rebels demands and tried to engage them in negotiation
• Somerset offered pardons to the protestors; unsurprisingly, following the action of Henry VIII in 1536, they though that they were being duped - Somerset persisted that they weren’t
• It is not clear why, he may have intended to forge a new political relationship with the ‘middling sort’ or playing for time whilst the armed forced involved elsewhere

Question 24

Who was Sir Thomas Becket?

Answer 24

• The reason for the play of Saint Thomas’s life being a trigger for a riot is uncertain
• Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was martyred in 1170 by the agents of Henry II when he stood up against the monarch to defend the privileges of the Church and the encroachment by the King
• Becket was regarded as the protector of those who objected to increase in taxes - it is likely that it was his stand against increased government intervention that sparked off the riot
• Saint Thomas was the patron saint of the dissolved abbey at Wymondham

Question 25

What were the actions of the Kett rebels in July?

Answer 25

- On the 21st of July, the York Herald arrived at the Mousehold to camp to offer a pardon to all those who dispersed - Promises were made about reducing the price of wool and appointing commissioners to reform abuses - Kett refused to negotiate - After the Herald’s departure the rebels armed themselves with a cannon from the sea defences and by the evening of the 22nd of July they took Norwich

Question 26

How did Somerset respond to the Kett’s rebels after their action in July?

Answer 26

- Somerset sent a small army of men to Norwich to negotiate with with rebels; once again a pardon was offered to the rebels by the commander of the force, William Parr, Marquis of Northampton - Initially, Northampton gained control of Norwich, but Kett refused the offer of a pardon and retook the city

Question 27

What did the privy council deem the Kett’s rebellion as?

Answer 27

- The rebellion was viewed as a crisis by the government and the Privy Council believed that Somerset had lost control of the region - Commissions were issued to raise a militias across the country, troops were taken from the Scottish Borders and mercenaries were deployed - The force of 12,000 men led by the Earl of Warwick arrived outside Norwich on the 23rd of August