Tombland

Where one matter, which would have been of vital importance to those camping out, is concerned – the weather – we have clues from Sotherton and Neville. July seems to have been hot and sunny, facilitating the early construction work and camp organization. When Matthew Parker visited, he found the men drunk and exhausted due to the great heat. ¹ When the Earl of Northampton’s army arrived on 31 July, they had to rest in Norwich for the night due to heat exhaustion. ² The fine weather was interrupted by at least two very violent thunderstorms. The first was probably during the first fortnight of the camp, because gentlemen were still being brought in from the countryside and one, newly captured, was dragged into the camp in the middle of the storm; ³ the second on 1 August, which was severe enough to douse the fires raging in Norwich after the defeat of the Marquess of Northampton. ⁴ The thunderstorm on 1 August seems to have heralded a change in the weather. Afterwards, Sotherton records the rebels taking shelter from rain in the city churches at night. ⁵ The picture, therefore, looks like a hot, dry July punctuated with severe thunderstorms, followed by a cooler, wetter August. This is the picture I have given in Tombland . The sandy soil of Mousehold Heath would have quickly soaked up rain, but intense thunderstorms would be disruptive, while in hot weather the lack of water would have been a risk to health and a serious discomfort.

I have pictured the camp as setting up its own breweries and bakeries, with barber-surgeons and country craftsmen. There must have been pens for livestock and also – essential in the forthcoming battles – horses, which would themselves have needed training in their new environment.

There were probably elements of fiesta, especially in the first days of the camp. It would be easy to reproduce the games and pastimes of the villages – storytelling, cockfighting, wrestling – and entertainers from Norwich may have come up to stage larger events – pageants, acrobats, bear-baiting, puppeteers and players. The ‘camping game’, a Tudor sport strong in East Anglia – a violent version of football with far more players and fewer rules – may have been played. The camp would no doubt have attracted peddlers with their trinkets and other easily transportable goods – and news of how the rebellions were going elsewhere.

Drunkenness was an issue that could have been more disruptive than it was. Again, if it had been a running problem Neville and Sotherton would have mentioned it. There was a great difference between Tudor ‘small beer’, with its low alcohol content and drunk by everybody, since to drink water was known to risk illness, and ‘strong beer’, far more potent. The beer most commonly brewed in the camp would likely have been ‘small beer’, with the camp authorities likely keeping the supply of strong beer to a minimum.

There is only one recorded incidence of drunken behaviour, when as noted above Matthew Parker came to preach, but decided against it because the men were drunk. ⁶ However he returned the next morning and gave an angry sermon against the camp. Although much has been made of this story, nothing serious happened to him – men went under the stage at the Oak and pricked his feet with spears; not seriously, or he would have been unable to walk away. The purpose was probably to make him dance. For all the indignation with which Neville related the story, it was a minor comic episode, fiesta not violence.

THE ‘PROPHETS ’

There were other, unofficial preachers at the camp – what Sotherton refers to as the ‘prophets’. We know almost nothing about them. The term could refer to several different ideological types, all of which could have been present at the camp.

First there is the ‘fantastical’ prophecy, often claiming to be inspired by Merlin and other ancient writers real or imagined, frequently prophesying the overthrow of the State. They had featured prominently in the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace, notably an adaptation of the ancient ‘Mouldwarp’ prophecy, which had also featured in the Peasants’ Revolt and Cade’s Rebellion, and was reworked in 1536 to foretell the fall of Henry VIII. ¹ Sotherton spoke of ‘faynid prophecies which were phantastically devised which prophecys they ... often cawsid before to bee openly proclaimed in the (Norwich) market and other placis’. ² Who knows what ancient prophecies were remoulded in 1549?

Second, very popular among radical Protestants in the 1540s was the ‘biblical’ prophecy – people selecting texts from the Bible and claiming God had revealed their true meaning to them. This was not limited to the unlearned. John Knox regarded himself as one selected by God to be a prophet. ³ In the atmosphere of the camp, any number of amateur Bible-readers might have believed themselves chosen to be prophets.