Kett's Rebellion

Question 1

Why was enclosure a particularly bad issue for the people of Norwich?

Answer 1

• many independent, small farmers were badly affected by enclosure of wooded pastoral areas by gentry and yeomen farmers
• frustrations as Norfolk was a rich wool county and some farmers had began to specialise in sheep farming
• price of wool increased and new landowners who had newly acquired landed property were making profits by rearing sheep

Question 2

What was the trigger cause connected to the 6th - 8th July?

Answer 2

• entire community around Wymondham gathered to enjoy a play and drunken feast
• anger and high spirits overflowed and there was a breaking down of enclosure fences (including those of local lawyer - John Flowerdew)

Question 3

What did Flowerdew do? How did he react?

Answer 3

• encouraged them to attack the hedges of local landowner - Robert Kett
• he welcomed their actions and assumed leadership

Question 4

Why did Kett join the rebellion?

Answer 4

• felt genuine guilt over the enclosures

- venting frustration over his social ambition as a man at the fringes of gentry

Question 5

When the rebels encamped themselves on Mousehold Heath on 12th July - what did Kett do?

Answer 5

• placed himself under the tree (‘Tree of Reformation’) where justice had traditionally been passed to settle local disputes

Question 6

From the 12th July - what were the next few steps?

Answer 6

• crowd grew to 16,000
• Kett produced their articles
• waited for the inevitable government response

Question 7

How did Somerset react?

Answer 7

• he responded positively and persistently tried to negotiate
• perhaps he intended to forge a new political relationship with the ‘middling sort’ or was playing for tim?

Question 8

What happened on 21st July?

Answer 8

• York Herald arrived to offer full pardon to those who dispersed

Question 9

What did the rebels use to take Norwich on the 22nd July after the negotiation had been dismissed?

Answer 9

• canon from coastal defences

Question 10

Who led the small 1,800 army that Somerset sent to Norwich to negotiate and cut off rebel supply lines?

Answer 10

• Marquis of Northampton

Question 11

After a full pardon was offered and the majority rejected it - what did Kett have to do?

Answer 11

• attack

Question 12

How did the revolt become a full-scale rebellion?

Answer 12

• Northampton retreated
• commissions issued for militias to be raised in all counties around Norfolk
• troops taken from garrisons and Scottish border
• mercenaries employed

Question 13

What was Kett’s fatal mistake?

Answer 13

• abandoning the stronghold on Mousehold Heath and taking up hastily constructed defences in the Vale of Dussindale

Question 14

What was the eventual outcome?

Answer 14

• 3,000 rebels slaughtered

- MacCulloch only found clear evidence of 49 executions

Question 15

What evidence would suggest enclosure was a main cause of Kett’s rebellion?

Answer 15

• Norfolk and Suffolk had diverse agricultural patterns/ systems of land-holding
• first article opposed any future enclosure
• over previous half-century: more enclosures had been created because there was more money in the sale of wool and other animal products

Question 16

In May 1548 - what government action was taken against enclosure?

Answer 16

• royal deer park at Hampton court was disparked

Question 17

In June 1548 - what government action was taken against enclosure?

Answer 17

• commission of inquiry led by John Hales to investigate the extent to which existing legislation on enclosure was being enforced in the Midlands
• proclamation issued against men being “driven to extreme poverty and compelled to leave the places they were born” due to enclosure

Question 18

How successful was Hales’ inquiry?

Answer 18

• unusually large number of rural riots broke out, including Buckinghamshire where Hales was investigating
• Council voiced opposition to Somerset’s policy and accused Hales of stirring up trouble
• work was an eventual failure and didn’t manage to bring proceedings against any enclosers

Question 19

Why might rents be a cause of the Kett’s rebellion?

Answer 19

• increase in rents in time of rapid inflation

- trend of rack-renting due to high inflation

Question 20

Why might have Somerset’s policies encouraged rioting?

Answer 20

• perceived sympathy with struggles of poor and social/ agrarian problems
• some rebels confident of Protector’s support

Question 21

What evidence might suggest to rebels that they would get Somerset’s support?

Answer 21

• gave support to the ‘Commonwealth men’ - clients included men such as the radicals Thomas Becon and William Turner and he appointed Hugh Latimer to preach at court
• these ‘commonwealthsmen’ presented a version of the commonwealth, informed by evangelical religion, in which the gentry were lambasted for failing to fulfil their Christian duty to be just to their tenants
• attacked landlords’ greed with the language in which Somerset’s instructions to his enclosure commissioners of 1548 was phrased (offers the clearest sense of where his sympathies seemed to lie) - echoed the view of the commons that it was greedy gentry who were the cause of their grievances
• created a special tax on sheep with higher rate for flocks on enclosed land
• enclosure commissions of 1548 and 1549 with the aim of preventing the decline of tillage and the illegal enclosure of common land, as well as to punish landowners guilty of contravening enclosure laws
• private Act of Parliament he promoted to give security [to his tenants]

Question 22

What evidence is there that Kett’s rebellion was motivated by opposition to bad government in East Anglia?

Answer 22

• rebels picked out gentry and JPs (justices of the peace) in county for the most vehement attack - in articles and actions
• Kett criticised the local gentry, JPs and landowners who betrayed the peasantry
• to prove that the quality of governance of country was a major concern - Mousehead Heath camp was ran effectively and fairly - had own court

Question 23

What evidence is there that Kett’s rebellion was motivated by religion and the clergy?

Answer 23

• thoughtful calls for more competent and involved clergy
• concerns with poor quality of priests and their failure to fulfil duties
• one article requested they did more to educate the poor
• another article requested that they were priests for the whole community, not just chaplains for the gentry

Question 24

How were the rebels’ inclination towards Protestantism shown?

Answer 24

• demands for the congregations to choose their own clergy
• use of new Prayer Book at Mousehead Heath
• reflected views of evangelical John Hales - underlying belief that property should be of benefit to all ie. redistribution of wealth (very radical idea that not even more Protestant reformers would have agreed with)

Question 25

In what way was the rebellion motivated by personality clashes?

Answer 25

• in Norfolk, the first fences to be destroyed were those of Flowerdew - had outraged the village of Wymondham with his aggressive greed

Question 26

Why would Somerset be lenient towards the rebels?

Answer 26

• MacCulloch: main motive behind Somerset’s determination to remedy the grievances of the vulnerable tenant farmers = evangelical religion
• by middle decades of the 16th century, reformers were claiming that although works were not necessary for salvation they were a Christian obligation and animated faith

Question 27

Why might Somerset’s commonwealth tendencies not contributed massively to the rebellion?

Answer 27

• the popular idea of the commonwealth was understood in traditional terms and had nothing to do with Somerset’s version of it
• the rebels wanted low rents, long leases and generous userights
• when population growth meant land was no longer abundant and thus the tenants began facing shorter terms of occupancy and higher rents, they blamed greedy gentry
• their view of commonwealth had little correlation with what religious obligation the gentry had

Question 28

What evidence is there that the local misuse of office and dominance of the gentlemen contributed to the rebellion?

Answer 28

• number of ‘Kett’s Demands’ complain about the misuse of local office
• articles 12 and 18 refer to the two local officers of the Court of Wards who were in a position to assist the gentry and local nobility in the lucrative purchase of wards and leases of the wards’ lands
• article 27 makes clear the belief that the king’s ‘good laws [meant for their protection] … had been hidden [i.e. not enforced] by [the] Justices of the Peace, Shreves, Escheators and other your officers’