Tombland

The rebels seem however to have had free access to the city, and some gentleman prisoners were moved to Norwich. ⁴ It is clear the rebels were walking freely round the city in mid-July when Matthew Parker arrived. ⁵

Meanwhile the radical Norwich preacher Robert Conyers was appointed to preach twice daily at the camp. No opposition was expressed to his evangelical Protestantism or to the religious settlement; as Greenwood suggests, this probably meant that Norfolk people generally accepted the Reformation, without necessarily wanting it. ⁶ This was all of a piece with the Mousehold leaders’ strategy of proclaiming that they were not rebels at all, merely carrying out the King’s wishes with regard to agrarian reform, and with no complaints about the religious settlement. Kett, and others, may well have been evangelicals, but this can hardly have applied to the whole camp, even if they might have been hostile to traditionalism given its association with the Duke of Norfolk.

FINANCING THE CAMP

To begin with, the camp supported itself through provisions brought by local villages and requisitions from the local gentry. Later, after occupying Norwich, they took more weapons, and the money of rich city gentlemen. However it must be doubted that these resources alone could support eight to nine thousand people for seven weeks. The rebels cannot have immediately eaten the 20,000 sheep quoted by Southwell; after an initial celebratory gorging, it is likely that the remaining sheep, together with cattle and other animals, would have been penned in for later slaughter. There was no shortage of room on Mousehold Heath. This is how I have portrayed matters in Tombland .

Diarmaid MacCulloch has noted two possible further sources of finance – Archbishop Rugge and Sir Richard Southwell. Although both were enemies to religious and political reform, each were actively involved in discussions with Kett. ¹ The content of his talks with Rugge are unknown, but possibly the archbishop offered Kett money in return for leaving diocesan lands and property – and possibly himself – alone. Certainly Rugge was dismissed in disgrace after the rebellion.

Even more interesting is the conduct of Southwell who, as has been noted, was an alternate member of the Council, a leading and highly unpopular Norwich encloser, and a ruthless man. He had been a key figure in providing evidence against the Duke of Norfolk, his former patron, and the Earl of Surrey, in 1546. He was also, as noted above, steward of the Lady Mary’s estates – a link that would continue after Mary became Queen.

In each of the rebellions outside the West Country, leading county figures were sent to negotiate with, or put down, rebellions. With the Duke of Norfolk gone, Southwell was the nearest Norfolk had to a senior political figure. After the Rebellion, he was accused of giving £500 (very roughly £250,000 today) to the rebels. This was far more than other camps received in attempts to buy them off. Of course the Mousehold camp did not disband, although they got the money. After the Rebellion Southwell ended up in the Tower and was then fined £500 for writing ‘bills of sedition with his own hand’. ² Such an action would normally have resulted in execution for treason, yet somehow Southwell, as always, survived.

I suggest in Tombland that he may have done a private deal with Kett to give him the money in return for leaving his own flocks, and the lands of the Lady Mary, alone. In the early days of the Rebellion some fences were pulled down around her Kenninghall estate, but she was then left in peace; remarkably, she sat quietly at Kenninghall, in the middle of rebel territory, throughout the summer. It would be interesting to research what happened to Southwell’s estates during the Rebellion.

If, as I have argued, the rebels had money, where could they spend it? This leads to another vital question – did Norwich market, the heart of the city’s economy, continue to function during the Rebellion? I think it must have done; without a venue to sell their products, Norwich traders and citizens would have found themselves in desperate straits. There was no reason for the rebels to close the market, and every reason to keep it open – they could use the money they had obtained to purchase necessities such as candles, shoes, warmer clothes when the weather got colder, and above all food and brewery supplies. The occupation of the city, to cut the rebels off from the market, may be the true explanation of the ‘blockade’ that forced the rebels to give battle in late August, of which more below.

REIMAGINING LIFE IN THE CAMP

Trying to understand what daily life in the camp might have been like is an exercise in imagination. However, I have tried throughout to base my portrayal on what few indications the sources give, and on the lives and pastimes of the Tudor commons.