Rebellions Flashcards
Rebellions - sources
John Hales “discourse on the common weal”
Fletcher and MacCullogh sources: Pontefract articles, Pilgrimage of Grace ballad, Amicable Grant
Shakespeare’s Henry V
Key rebellions
1525 - Amicable Grant 1536 - Lincolnshire Rising and Pilgrimage of Grace 1549 - Western and Kett's Rebellion 1554 - Wyatt's Revolt 1569- Northern Rebellion 1595 - apprentice food riots in London 1596 - Oxfordshire Rising 1601 - Essex's Rebellion 1607 - Midlands Revolt 1639 - Bishops Wars 1626 - Western Rising 1663 - Farnley Wood Plot 1678 - Titus Oates and the Popish Plot 1685 - Monmouth's Rebellion
Key impetus for rebellions
Religion (P of G, Northern, Bishops, Titus, Monmouth)
Economy (Amicable G)
Enclosure (Kett, Ox (?))
Politics (Essex, Northern, Farnley, Monmouth)
Key riots
Legal definition of riot: more than three people "with the intent of breaking the peace" 1600 - Shrove tuesday riots 1668 - Brothel riots 1675 - weaver's riots Anti-land improvement riots
Types of social unrest, and change over time
F+MacCullogh - ‘high’ (who ruled) vs ‘low’ (how ruled), most successful rebellions bridged both. Over the period conflict in low politics “moved from direct action in the countryside to alternate arenas”
Wood - social relations “difficult interplay of petition, negotiation, threat, and patronage”.
Underdown - By the late 1620/40’s labourers and peers “arguing over the same political issues”
E. P. Thompson - acts of patronage “helped oil the machinery of social relations”
Kesselring: religion “a filter through which other grievances are understood and articulated”
Wood: even in arms commons “represented their demands in written, legalistic documents”
Northern Rebellion - key events
1569 - Kesselring - Northumberland met with Northern gentry at Barnard Castle; people moving to Durham for safety. Sussex, president of Council of the North and friend of Norfolk, attempted and failed to raise forces.
Trigger for events: messenger from E summoning earls to court mistaken for warrant for Northumberland’s arrest.
Durham cathedral mobbed and Cath service held, prot. items destroyed, led by Northumberland. Marched w. banner of 5 wounds of Christ. Book burning and reassembly of old Catholic treasures in the provinces. Commons forcibly made by earls to march. Marched to York but turned back because of rumours of Warwick’s force.
Kesselring - rebels = 3500 footmen and 1600 horsemen. 80% had no link to the earls.
Pilgrimage of Grace - key events
1536, in response to HVIII’s Act of Supremacy and dissolution of mons.
Began with Lincolnshire rising, then a rising at Louth which spread to Lincoln - commons joined by prominent villagers (Robert Aske, lawyer) - 28-35,000 in total. Many at Boston refused to rise and instead asked Shrewsbury for help/advice.
Carried the banners of the 5 wounds of christ. Circulated handbills. Violence on property (eg. Lady Willughby)
F+M - 16 of 55 monasteries dissolved by the Act of Suppression restored by Pilgrims.
Gunn - 216 executed, martial law, no gains achieved.
P of G - commentary
Language of ‘Pilgrimage’ = self-fashioning/claiming an identity other than unrest
James - “moulding the revolt into a process of armed petitioning” (lincoln). Letters from the gentry: “explicitly not on their own behalf, but as representatives of the commons”; withdrawal of gentry support = collapse of rebellion. Those involved ‘flavoured’ demands with their own interests.
Shagan - “an elaborate act of political theatre”
Hoyle - “clear that the initiative lay with popular unrest” (gentry forced to lead)
Kett’s Rebellion - events
1549 - Wood - Kett (middling sort), rose in Norfolk and attacked enclosures. Moved on to attack Norwich with kett as leader. Established a council at Mousehold Heath - coordinated - variety of camps led by village elites. Priests wrote rebels demands (enclosure, return to original religion)
Somerset offered an enclosure commission in localities. Mil. forces sent to quell rebels; 3 days fighting in Norwich, Warwick had 14000 men; slaughter at Dussingdale by troops, Lord Sheffield murdered, Kett executed. Harder for gentry to organise rebellion after this.
Kett’s rebellion - commentary
Wood - “Largest and most popular challenge to the authority of the English gentry and nobility”.
Led to downfall of protector Somerset.
Jones - 18 rebel camps found. Only evidence for 49 of the total death sentences being carried out. Somerset “redeployed” the trad. Lang of governance and obedience “to provide boundaries for constructive dialogue” betw. king and people - had “respect” for commoners where peers did not.
Northern Rebellion - commentary
Jones - Defeat of Northern Earls a “turning point” in religious rebellions (less because gentry defeated ie. mode lost legitimacy)
Kesselring - desire to “restore” not “overthrow”
“conspicuously aristocratic”; in 1566 2/3 of Northern JP’s = catholic. 700 ordered to be executed. rebellion “proved that Northern feudalism and particularism could no longer rival Tudor centralisation”. Rebel participation = debate - for “coercion and cash” or “religious ardour”. 1560’s rel tensions less high because of the “gradual and adaptive nature” of change - YET Young in York and Pilkington in Durham.
Western Rebellion - commentary
Wood - Very “fluid divisions” between social and religious grievances. 1536/49 = people saw themselves connected with the defence of the church and commonwealth, with the removal of church plate etc. seen to benefit a vague class of ‘rich oppressors’
Oxfordshire Rising - events
WALTER: 1596 (year of harvest failure and much po. disorder. Food riots in SE and SW, previous year = apprentice riots in London.)
Initial response = petition to Lord Norris (unanswered and he stopped any attempts to halt the flow of grain to London.) then threat of action. Bradshaw and Steer proposed a rising at Yarnton, but failed to rouse support.
Oxfordshire Rising - commentary
Walter - failed because of the “inability of rural and urban poor to unite”
Severe response - 20 key conspirators executed, general inquiry into enclosure, publicly renewed measures to combat scarcity (books of orders, no tolls on imports of grain) and 2 bills passed on the issue.
Anti-land improvement riots
Sharp - riots only after “more peaceful means of seeking relief had failed” - petitions emphasised “the possibility of violence” if measures were not forthcoming.
eg. Derby in 1560’s (disruption of trade)
Gender
Capp - authorities considered women’s protests as “misguided but not politically threatening”
Hales - Discourse of the common weal - quotes
PRINTED 1581 - “dialogue” form; knight - “the king must be served and the common weal”, but cannot afford to “waight on the courte” and have two homes in London/country.
Husbandman - “these inclosures do undo us all” and “men doe lack livings”
Doctor - “an empire or a kingdom is not so much won or kept by the manhood or force of men as it is by wisdom and policy”
Western Rebellion - events
1549 - Wood - context of abrupt religious change under EVI in contrast to conservatism of HVIII (Act of Uniformity, new Prayer Book, new schools and hospitals). People rose in Cornwall and Devon, led by local gentleman Arundel, and established a camp at Bodmin; besieged Plymouth and seiged Exeter. Used the Banner of the 5 Wounds of Christ. Sent a list of articles to the government. Royal forces intervened under Lord Russel. Slaughter at Stampford Courtenay, main leaders trialled and executed in London. Cornish gentry distanced themselves.
Causes of the Northern Rebellion
Kesselring: triggered by M QoS arrival in England (w. plans to marry duke of Norfolk), also E’s seizure of an Italian fleet going to Spanish in Netherlands, insecure protestantism (dislike of Pilkington, Durham, Young, York, who were both militant and instilled Protestant measures poorly eg. couldn’t hear services), E’s placement of supporters in the North (areas of loyalty during rising), Catholicism? 2/3 JP’s catholic in 1566 (F+M)
