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

With the artillery in rebel hands atop Kett's Hill, on 25th August Mayor Codd, Deputy Mayor Steward and the great and good of the city pleaded with Warwick to withdraw his forces from the city as it was the merchants and citizens who were bearing the brunt of the battle, especially as the army was quartered in the market place which was being peppered by Mile's guns.

Ambrose Dudley, Third Earl of Warwick. His dad was in charge of the royal army during the rebellion but Ambrose wrote a reasonably unbiased account in a letter after the event.

Alas, poor Warwick (sorry) … He now found himself in a bit of a quandary. Kett had stolen his artillery and turned it against him, the Norwich city authorities wanted him and his army out of the city; on the other side the Norfolk gentry urged him to slaughter the peasants they had turned off their lands and Warwick was well aware that crossing a river and charging up a steep hill into the teeth of Kett's artillery would be suicide.

He considered a withdrawal, planning to break down the bridges to prevent Kett from pursuing him. Fate was against the rebels, however, as the very next morning Somerset's reinforcements of a thousand fresh mercenaries with new artillery and cavalry arrived at the city gates.

Biff! Pow! Clonk! Whinny! … &c.

Not the Battle of Dussindale, via the interweb.

This spelled doom for the rebels. Leo Jary, on page 38 of his excellent (and dirt cheap*) little book, Rewriting the Rebellion, provides a clear map of the battleground and a site section showing how Kett and Miles used the ground to the advantage of their artillery. You'll have to buy the book to see it. Ha!

 * https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kett-1549-Rewriting-Leo-Jary/dp/1909796573

Kett positioned his artillery on the hill atop what is now Silver Road and moved his forces forward to the flatter area just north of the city walls. He had heard tell of the massed cavalry of landowning gentry out for revenge and so chained the gentry he had managed to capture across the front of his lines to prevent being charged, as well as digging in lines of pointed stakes facing the cavalry.

Miles used Warwick's own saker cannon against him, opening the battle at nine in the morning with a heavy bombardment, using the technique of bouncing cannonballs down the slope to cause maximum carnage against massed infantry and cavalry, ripping off arms, legs and heads with each bounce.

Accounts of the forces ranged against one another vary wildly, depending on the bias of the old writers, but most modern commentators seem to put it like this: up on Mousehold Heath, the non-combatants from Kett's rebels, women, children, cooks, laundresses, et al numbered around eight thousand, while Kett's main battle force down by Silver Road was between ten and twelve thousand, consisting artillery, infantry (landless villagers armed with pitchforks, clubs and whatever the blacksmith could cobble together) and primarily - and most crucially - longbowmen.

In preparation for the battle, Miles' artillery had battered Pockthorpe, Magdalen and St.Augustine's Gates to prevent Warwick's forces flanking them, forcing Warwick to use Coslany Gate to the west to issue his men onto the battlefield. The threat to the gates meant he was forced to leave a large contingent in the market place as a city guard. Even so, Warwick's battle array was around fourteen-thousand professional soldiers, consisting arquebusiers and pikemen (the dreaded Swiss Landsknechts), plus large mercenary infantry contingents and the cavalry of landed gentry and their attendant thugs.

Interestingly (at least to me), in his post-battle letter, Ambrose Warwick berates his dad for only bringing hunting bows and crossbows to the battle, which were no match for Kett's English longbows. It was the rebels' expertise with the longbow that kept the battle raging from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. Ambrose writes of arrow storms decimating his father's foot soldiers and pikemen and concludes, "The battle was so manfully fought on both sides, it could hardly be judged which side was likely to prevail."

Kett's use of his captured gentry as human shields didn't pay off as the mounted gentry who had whipped up Warwick to attack simply (and chivalrously) rode down their fellow landowners, trampling them beneath heavy hooves before themselves getting tangled up in the spiked defences and shot to shit by the rebel longbowmen. Utter stupidity and arrogance bring their own rewards …

Eventually, however, after seven gruelling hours the professional mercenaries with their arquebuses and pikes began to wear down the villagers armed with longbows, pitchforks and clubs. Seeing the end was near, Kett fled north to Swannington, probably heading for the coast, while his brother, rather unwisely simply rode home. The rebels surrendered and other than obvious ringleaders and ex.soldiers like Miles, were offered terms by Warwick. 

The surviving beaten rebels collected up their families and trudged back to what was left of their villages or for those who had been evicted during the enclosures, wandered into the lanes of Norwich to add to the misery of the overcrowded slums.

Kett was caught in a farmhouse at Swannington, childminding for the farmer's wife who had gone to St.Margaret's church to tell her hubby. After torture and "confession" in Norwich Castle, he was hanged from the battlements; his brother hanged from Wymondham Abbey's west tower and many more hanged from such places as Kett's Oak.

The memorial plaque at Norwich Castle, courtesy Old Dive.

Next time, the aftermath …

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