Tombland

Parish priests were heavily criticized for their ignorance, absenteeism, involvement in land purchase, and failure to preach. Such priests should be ‘put from their benefices and the parishioners there to choose another or else the patron or lord of the town’. Here was another request for involvement of the commons in rural institutions.

The petition, then, wished to keep the manorial system intact, and end the ‘seigneurial offensive’ against common land. However in the provisions dealing with the abuses of royal officials and members of the clergy, it looked to a substantial step forwards in popular representation and participation in rural institutions.

An interesting trio of articles has examined Somerset’s dealings with the rebels through surviving letters to them. ⁷ Ethan Shagan has argued that letters between Somerset and the rebels showed a dialogue in which Somerset made some substantial concessions. M. W. Bush and G. W. Bernard, however, more plausibly argue that Somerset was being disingenuous, and while he probably had some sympathy with some rebel demands – as we have seen, he had accepted the ‘agrarian’ explanation for inflation and believed in reform – he was as ferociously opposed to commoner assertiveness as Henry VIII would have been. He made it plain in his letters, at length and in fierce language, that commoners had no right to set up camps and make demands – that it was a defiance of the true order of society – but that if they dispersed they would receive pardons, while their grievances would be dealt with by the commissioners or Parliament. In some ways this recalled Henry VIII’s initial conciliatory response to the Pilgrimage of Grace, but as with Henry the threat of force always lay behind the promises, and sometime around mid-July the policy of appeasement changed to one of destroying the camps by military force unless they agreed to disperse.

I do not think Somerset ever intended that commoners should have a say in running things. Though he made occasional concessions to the camp-men – such as agreeing to reform of the fee-farm of tolls on his own land at Thetford – these were very minor. There has been argument over whether another letter to the Thetford rebels actually acceded to the commons’ desire for a role in appointing commissioners, but the letter is so garbled that it is impossible to gather its meaning. ⁸ Somerset, by then, must have been under tremendous strain. Shagan’s argument – that the camps and Somerset were engaged in a dialogue, a mutual feedback system – flies in the face of the facts. What was happening was the reverse of a dialogue; it was a deception, an attempt by Somerset to buy time, and around 17 July (interestingly, the date the commissioners arrived in Kent but failed to get the Canterbury camp to disperse) he turned from appeasement to confrontation. False hopes had been created – in these circumstances it was not unreasonable for Robert Kett to hope for a sympathetic response, so that when the royal Herald arrived at Mousehold Heath on 21 July, the confrontational nature of his message can only have caused shock and anger, as I have portrayed in Tombland .

The coming of a royal Herald had been preceded by the delivery of a letter to Kett the day before. If, as is possible, this was Letter No. 2 appended to Shagan’s 1999 article quoted above, ⁹ it consisted of a particularly fierce diatribe, stating that it would allow the rebels to petition the coming Parliament with their grievances provided they dispersed. Otherwise it offered nothing new.

The Herald’s visit to the camp was a moment of high drama. He rode up to Mousehold from Norwich, accompanied by Codd and Aldrich and the city sword-bearer, Pettibone; he allowed himself to be led to the Oak of Reformation, and there delivered to the massed camp-men a proclamation that roundly abused them as traitors and, particularly, ‘Kett, man of mischief’. It offered a pardon to those who dispersed – and nothing else. Kett responded angrily that ‘hee had not offendid or deserved the Kings pardon and soe requird as many as would ... to take his part and remain’. ¹⁰ Neville reports Kett asking the company ‘not to leave him, nor to be fainthearted, but remember with what conditions they bound themselves, either to other, and that he for his part was ready to bestow his life (if need were) for their safetie’. ¹¹ The Herald then accused Kett of high treason, and ordered Pettibone to arrest him, but the threatening demeanour of the camp-man forced the Herald’s party to flee. A minority (we do not know how many) did accept the pardon and left the camp, but the great majority remained. ¹²

Back in Norwich, the Herald ordered Codd and Aldrich to shut the gates against the rebels ‘and keepe them from victual’. ¹³ This emphasizes the importance, mentioned above, of Norwich market in feeding the rebels.

ARMED CONFLICTS : 21 JULY TO 1 AUGUST