Tombland

When the group arrived at Kett’s property, he not only agreed to his enclosures being pulled down, but assisted in their removal. ¹⁰ He then accompanied the party back to Wymondham. Next day, 9 July, the rebels began a march to Norwich, pulling down enclosures along the way, including those of Flowerdew who must have run away as he does in Tombland , as he was not heard of again until after the rebellion. Already Kett seems to have been accepted as leader, and he made a speech outside Hethersett where, according to Neville, he promised ‘that they should have him, not only as a companion, but a Captaine: and in the doing so great a worke, not a fellow, but a leader, Author and principall ...’ ¹¹ Thus Kett effectively took an oath to the rebels, rather than, as would have been usual for a leader, the other way round. Kett was undoubtedly leader of the Mousehold camp during its existence, but he was no dictator. Unfortunately, we have no direct descriptions of his manner and personality – I have had to invent these, as well as his appearance.

NORWICH TO MOUSEHOLD

Arrived outside Norwich, the rebels were joined by supporters from the city carrying little boughs as a sign of support, ¹ and together they proceeded to pull down the newly enclosed Town Close. It is likely that by now the rebels had decided on their destination: Mousehold Heath, on the other side of Norwich, a barren area of grassland stretching six miles eastwards. ² This followed the pattern of setting up camps outside towns. The heath rises steeply from the River Wensum, making an ideal defensive position. Mousehold also had a large wooded area, Thorpe Wood, to the south, giving access to a source of timber. The heath, however, suffered the disadvantage of being waterless, rain being quickly absorbed by the light soil.

Mayor Codd and the city council refused a request by the rebels to march through Norwich to Mousehold. Rather than attack the city walls they went the long way round, via Drayton Wood, going up to the heath from there, where it was more accessible. They arrived on 12 July. En route an attempt to get the rebels to disperse, accompanied by an offer of hospitality (a traditional way to check riots), was made by Sir Roger Wodehouse, but it led only to him being stripped (this was to be a common humiliation, removing the fine clothing that represented gentleman status) and cast into a ditch, where he would have been killed but for the intervention of a servant. ³ This is the only account of serious violence against gentlemen, as opposed to humiliating them and taking them prisoner.

WHO WERE THE REBELS?

According to Neville, 2,600 rebels were present at the foundation of the camp. ¹ People now flocked there from all over north and central Norfolk. There are contradictory accounts of how many were there once the camp was fully established, varying from six to twenty thousand. During the seven weeks the camp existed numbers would have varied, probably increasing during July and decreasing in August when the camp, originally part of a huge network, became isolated as other camps went down, and the threat of a very large army being sent against Mousehold grew. It is important to realize that the camp was a dynamic, not static, entity. In August, as the more fearful perhaps left, and the hard-core rebels from other camps that had been put down arrived, Mousehold probably became more radicalized as well as smaller.

The Historical Atlas of Norfolk suggests a county population of 112,000 in the 1520s, one of the densest in England. ² Given national population rise since then, this could have taken Norfolk to around 136,000 by 1549. ³ The camp was drawn from twenty-five of the thirty-three regional Norfolk Hundreds, plus one from Suffolk. Men from the other Hundreds may have gone to camps in south Norfolk. This would reduce the population pool for the camp to say 100,000. The adult male population would have been around 36,000 but would include the old and infirm, and those who needed to remain behind to look after farms and businesses. I suggest an average camp population of around eight to nine thousand.

To this of course must be added the number of supporters among the poor of Norwich, perhaps 4,000, who would likely have gone to and fro between camp and city once the rebels annexed Norwich, and who certainly participated in the three military actions.