Some years earlier a short-lived but significant movement had been set afoot by one self-styled “John Amend-all,” whose name is sufficient earnest of there being wrongs grievously calling for justice to be done. It had then been said that three or four stout fellows, riding overnight through the towns of Norfolk, with bell-ringing and exhortations to rise, would by morning have collected 10,000 men, and it was now perceived that this had been no idle talk; for 16,000 peasants joined the camp on Mousehold Heath, whence the Ketts and the leading spirits despatched a very moderate and fair-minded petition to the King for redress of their grievances.

Norwich, as the place of residence of many landowners and, as a manufacturing centre, quite out of sympathy with the country people, was meanwhile practically invested by the rebels, who from the commanding heights of Mousehold intercepted everything going in or coming out. There for more than a fortnight they lay, the summer weather in alliance with them, and with raiding parties looting cattle and provisions from all quarters for the feeding of this rustic host, which by this time had increased to 20,000.

Never did rebellion begin in more orderly fashion, for the Ketts, with their chaplain, Conyers, held open-air court on the Heath, and conducted things decently and in order. Food they were obliged to seize, but no violence and no robbery were permitted, and had the Government returned an answer showing any disposition to relieve the peasants from the landlords’ exactions and aggressions, all would have been well. But vague promises, coupled with an offer of pardon for all concerned if they would first disperse and return to their homes, was all the satisfaction they received; and Robert Kett very rightly retorted to the herald who brought this message that “Kings were wont to pardon wicked persons, not innocent and just men.”

Norwich then prepared itself for attack. The Bishop’s Bridge over the Wensum, and the gate that then straddled across it, were put in a condition for defence against the expected descent from Mousehold, and pieces of cannon were mounted on the quays. The next morning the assault was delivered, and Kett’s men, although many were slain by arrow-flights from the defenders, swarmed across the river and seizing the guns, which had refused to shoot, were soon masters of the city. The Mayor, Mr. Alderman Codd, and the principal citizens were made prisoners and marched up to “Kett’s Castle” on Mousehold, where they doubtless expected a violent death, Robert Kett sending down a message that any one coming to Mousehold should have a Codd’s head for a penny. But that was only his humour, with nothing tragical at the back of it, for the worst that befell those prisoners was the being made ridiculous in a mock-court held on the Heath.

Norwich, in despair, welcomed the tardy arrival of some 2,500 men, chiefly Italian mercenaries, under the command of the Marquis of Northampton, but they made little impression, and one of the aliens, being captured, was stripped of his armour and hanged. On August 1st there was renewed fighting in the streets, and Lord Sheffield was killed, at a spot still marked by an inscribed stone. This first force sent against the rebels was by this time defeated with heavy loss, and Norwich remained in the hands of the victorious peasants until August 23rd, when a second expedition, cautiously feeling its way through disaffected East Anglia, appeared at the entrance of the city by St. Stephen’s Gate.

It was not yet too late for the rebels to lay down their poor arms of bows and arrows, scythes, pikes, and bill-hooks, but, fired with the successful bloodshed that had given them possession of the city, they rejected all offers made by the Earl of Warwick, commanding the strong force that now sought entrance. Three days’ fighting, in the city and on the slopes of Mousehold, followed, with varying fortunes, and had it not been for the reinforcements of 1,100 German mercenaries, the rebellion might again have proved successful. As it was, however, their arrival turned the scale. It was at this juncture that, driven from the city, the peasants, remembering the old prophetic verse, moved to the hollow of Dussin’s Dale on Mousehold, where they were to “fill the vale with slaughtered bodies.” Here, they thought, if there was any truth in prophecy, they would achieve the final victory. It never occurred to them that there were two ways of reading that verse, and thus it was here they made their last stand and were cut down in hundreds, grimly fulfilling its words, if not its spirit. Three thousand five hundred of these poor countrymen were slain in this final struggle, and perhaps an equal number had fallen in the almost two months’ fighting and skirmishing of this fatal rising. Thus it ended, but vengeance had yet to take toll of their number. The chiefs of the movement had held their court on Mousehold, under an oak they called the Oak of Reformation, and it was from its branches that nine of them were now hanged. Robert Kett was hanged higher still, three months later, when, after having been sent to London and flung into the Tower, he was brought back and suspended from a gallows on the roof of Norwich Castle. Forty-five minor leaders were hanged, drawn, and quartered in Norwich Market place, and some 250 of the others were plainly hanged, without these fiendish extras. The others, a disheartened mob of 12,000, having learned an unforgettable lesson, were bidden go home, for even the bloodthirsty rage of the victors might well be aghast at the prospect of meting out a like penalty to such a number; and moreover, counsels of prudence and expediency had something to say. “What shall we do, then?” asked the victorious Earl of Warwick, himself a Norfolk landowner, anxious how his lands should be kept tilled if they thus made away with the tillers of them, “What shall we do, then? Hold the plough ourselves, play the carters, and labour the ground with our own hands?” Good Heavens forefend such disaster!

Thus ended the great agrarian uprising of the mid-sixteenth century, and no man can with certainty say that it had any result. It sprang out of the void, and into nothingness it returned. But none the less it behoves us to honour those simple souls who laid down their lives for their immemorial rights in their common and free pasturages, who saw with a manly indignation the preserving of fish in the rivers, and that stopping up of public ways which even in the fierce publicity of our own times requires all the vigilance of a public society to keep in check. Wymondham or Norwich should in public memorial honour the men who by their action said that these things should not be, if they could help, and in laying down their lives for the cause were as truly martyrs as any of those who died for conscience’ sake in religion