Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Sixth - Fire and Rebellion - Chapter VII

Part of Augustine Steward's wonderfully wonky house, viewed from Cathedral Close through the Erpingham Gate. courtesy Old Dive.

Settled in to camp, Kett invited a delegation from the city to negotiate and Mayor Codd, former Mayor Aldritch, preacher Robert Watson and a bevy of Norwich's great and good climbed the hill to St.Michael's Chapel to talk. Many have been the rumours of collusion, though they must remain speculation, most especially of Deputy Mayor Augustine Steward playing both sides against the other, which having read just about every primary source, I choose to believe.

The negotiations were going well enough for the city authorities to allow Kett's men to obtain food from the market place and to generally wander the city unmolested.

Kett and his men had drawn up a list of twenty-nine "grievances" regarding the illegal enclosures, evictions and most especially the plight of the poor at the hands of the rapacious rich. Most of the grievances concerned the behaviour and abuses of the gentry.

Robert Kett's signature at the foot of the twenty-nine grievances.

Courtesy Norfolk Museums Service.

This list, countersigned by Mayor Codd, Aldritch et al, was sent to Somerset in London with an invitation to discuss the issues.

However, on hearing news that up to twenty-thousand revolting peasants were camped on Mousehold Heath overlooking Norwich, asking for their stolen villages and lands back, Somerset, the boy king's Lord Protector, egged on by the enraged gentry sent an army to teach the peasants a lesson about their proper station in life.

Kett's rebellion was only one of many such risings across the whole realm against illegal enclosures and evictions, most of which quickly came to terms with a little show of force.  Kett and his Norfolk men, however, knew from long experience what the pledged word of the gentry meant. Absolutely nothing. Somerset seriously underestimated them; they would not and did not back down.

The force sent against Kett's men was led by the entertainingly incompetent marquis of Northampton and his haughty second-in-command, Lord Sheffield. It consisted of a mix of English soldiers and Count Piero Malatasta's Italian mercenaries, some fifteen-hundred in all. Somerset expected Kett to take one look at the army and plead for amnesty, which is what happened across the rest of the country.

Many of the rebels had by now infiltrated the city, arrested what gentry they could find and locked them up in Norwich Castle. They would continue to carry on a relentless guerilla war against Somerset's forces, using the narrow, winding roads and alleys for street fighting during the following two months.

I walk past this an awful lot and it never fails to raise a grin. Courtesy Old Dive.

With the arrival of Northampton's army in the city the stage was set for the Battle of Palace Plain. Look out of the office windows at the playing fields between the cathedral and the river, together with the adjoining water meadows of St.Giles' Hospital (now the Great Hospital of St. Helen's). This was where Kett planned his battle.

There's a sad little stone plaque on the flint wall of Palace Plain recording the death of Lord Sheffield. It would appear that the previous night, after a forced march, the royal army had availed itself of the hospitality of the city and were somewhat the worse for wear when news came at nine in the morning of the first of August that Kett's rebels were outside Pockthorpe Gate and wished to discuss surrender terms.

Northampton rushed to the scene with a great part of the army, only to find it was a diversion and Kett's main force had swum the river between Bishop's Bridge and Cow Tower and were setting their lines there. Sheffield, by some accounts still drunk, assumed command and proceeded to charge up and down in front of Kett's forces, taunting them. In the midst of this display of arseholery he managed to fall off his horse into a ditch, much to the amusement of the rebels.

Unable to get up due to the weight of his armour and far too far in front of his own men he took off his helmet to show his face.

You'll recall from previous talks that the aristocracy didn't kill one another in battle, they only killed the plebs, offering themselves for ransom instead. Sheffield expected Kett's rebels to recognise an aristocrat, help him up and ransom him off. Instead a butcher called Fulke simply walked up and smashed his head in with a club.

The Wig and Pen, looking across Palace Plain to the site of the battle, via Google Maps.

This kicked things off nicely and within a few hours Kett was completely victorious, the marquis and his army fleeing the field (they didn't stop running until they reached Colchester, sixty miles away).

Next time you're sitting at the tables outside the Wig and Pen enjoying a well-earned pint of local ale (you'll have to wait until Covid is finished), you can picture the battlefield spread out before you, watching the good folk of Norfolk kicking the arse of a royal army whilst glancing across the road to the sad little stone plaque and grinning (at least that's me).

Next time, up at the camp a young boy bares his bottom.

Sources:

Acts and Monuments: Foxe: Old Dive's 1621 edition. 

Francis Blomefield: An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 3: The History of the City and County of Norwich: published 1753 to 1775 

Norfolk Museums Service and the Norfolk Archæological Society

East Anglian Archæology Vol. 132: Norwich Castle: Excavations and Historical Survey: 1978-1988: Part II: c.1345 to Modern: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009

Holinshed's Chronicles: 1577: Old Dive's 1808 edition. 5 Vols.

The Paston Letters: 1422-1509 : Old Dive's 1910 edition: 4 vols.

A History of the County of Norfolk, Vol 2: ed. William Page: 1906

The Printed Plans of Norwich 1558-1840, A Carto-Bibliography: Raymond Frostick: 2002

Norwich Cathedral - Church, City and Diocese: 1096 - 1996: Various Eds. 1996

Norwich Cathedral Close: Roberta Gilchrist: 2005  

Mediæval Norwich: ed: Carole Rawcliffe & Richard Wilson: 2004 

Norwich Since 1550: ed: Carole Rawcliffe & Richard Wilson: 2004 

Norwich - The Growth of a City: Barbara Green & Rachel M R Young: Norfolk Museums Service: 1981

Norwich Houses Before 1700: Vernacular Architecture, Vol 14: 1983

Kett - 1549, Rewriting the Rebellion: Leo R. Jary: 2018

Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk: Frederick William Russell: 1859 

Tombland: C. J., Sansom: 2018 (fictionalised account with historical essay appended)

The Oxford History of England: Volume VII "The Earlier Tudors, 1485 - 1558" J. D. Mackie (ed): 1952