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

Many and wondrous are the books that have been written about Kett's Rebellion. I've cut out 42,904 words from this talk as I got a teensy bit carried away with the daily details, personalities, speeches, weapons, battles and the mooning boy taking a dump in front of York Herald.

Kett's Oak, one of the Fifty Great British Trees, half way between Hethersett and Wymondham on the old A11; gathering point for the start of the rebellion and from the branches of which nine of the rebels were later hanged. Courtesy the interweb.  

(I know I've taken several photos of the oak but I'm buggered if I can find 'em).

[Should anyone wish to go spelunking down the rabbit hole …

Read everyone from Blomefield (1753) through to Leo Jary (2018) for all the details of who did what to whom, when, and with what weapons; I'll just whiz through a few of my favourite bits in this talk. Highly recommended is also the detailed and impartial account in Rawcliffe and Wilson's "Mediæval Norwich" … The Oxford History is less sympathetic but there's a rip-roaring fictional account in C. J. Sansom's excellent historical murder mystery "Tombland" (for which Leo Jary was historical consultant and Sansom appends a 50 page essay on the rebellion at the end of the novel).

Don't read Sotherton as he was a later mayor of Norwich and wrote a wildly partisan account. As always for Norfolk History, Blomefield is the best (and most entertaining) place to start: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-hist-norfolk/vol3].

Good old Henry the Eighth having gasped his last profanity at his festering leg, the realm was now in the hands of the young King Edward the Sixth with Edward Seymour (brother of Henry's third wife Queen Jane), First Duke of Somerset acting as the Protector of England.

Edward Seymour (Somerset), Lord Protector of the Realm, via the interweb.

Terrible choice in hats, stupid millennial ginger beard

and a body that looks like it must have an equator rather than a waistline.

Shifty eyes, too. Don't trust the bugger.

With the rising howl of peasant protest against the enclosures causing an increase in incidences of brown-trousering among the gentry, Somerset attempted to defuse the situation by reducing the amount of land being illegally enclosed, which grievously pissed off the gentry as the landless villagers took it as a sign that they could rip up the enclosure fences and use the common land once more.

At the beginning of July 1549, a gang of villagers headed to Hethersett to destroy the illegal enclosure fences of Sir John Flowerdew, wrecker of Wymondham Abbey during the Dissolution and locally loathed lawyer. Flowerdew simply bribed them to rip up his neighbour's fences instead, his neighbour being yeoman farmer Robert Kett … Big mistake!

Rather to their surprise, Kett helped the villagers take down his own fences, persuaded them to accept him as their leader and promptly led them next door where together they ripped up Flowerdew's enclosure before gathering as many as would join them at Kett's Oak in preparation for marching on Norwich. Enough, it was decided, was definitely enough.

Norwich at the time of Kett's Rebellion. Or at least the closest we'll get, being a 1581 coloured version of William Cuningham's 1558 map. 

This shows Norwich from the west, the way which Kett's forces approached the city. If you enlarge it and look under the left-hand end of the main title panel you'll see St.Leonard's Church, just to the left of which is the un-labelled St.Michael's Chapel, used by Kett as his headquarters; the remains of which are known today as Kett's Castle and are currently undergoing restoration.

Snapped by Old Dive from "The Printed Plans of Norwich, 1558 - 1840".

As the rebels approached Norwich the next day, their numbers swollen by town and country folk rushing to join them, the mayor of Norwich, one Thomas Codd, came out of the gates with a delegation to prevent them entering the city.

So Kett and his rebels simply went round it, three days later forming a huge camp on the heights above Bishop's Bridge, where Kett set up his headquarters in St.Michael's Chapel, from where the whole city was visible, spread out beneath him.

                                     View of Norwich from "Kett's Castle" via the interweb.

So, the stage was set … find out next time what happened when Somerset heard news of the rebellion.

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

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

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions … Thanks, Henry for your thirty-third Act … NOT!

Henry VIII's Dissolution Order.

via British Library's Flickr resource.

But before we get to that one, between 1532 and 1539 (too late for poor, toasted Thomas Bilney alas), Henry, desperate to be rid of his legitimate wife, Catherine of Aragon and to marry Anne Boleyn employed first, Cardinal Wolsey and then Thomas Cromwell to petition the Pope for a divorce. When this was not forthcoming (cutting a very long story very short) he took matters into his own hands and issued a series of statutes, effectually renouncing the authority of the Pope and declaring himself head of the Church of England.

One of the statutes is pictured above. Starting with the richest and working his way down to the smallest, he ordered the Dissolution of the Monasteries, taking all their land, money and properties and then selling the places off to his mates. The Duke of Norfolk got Castle Acre and the Franciscan and Augustinian priories and promptly stripped them of anything of value and demolished the rest. The Blackfriars somehow managed to survive.

The cute little cloister at St.Helen's Hospital. Courtesy Old Dive.

Norwich Cathedral and St.Helen's (then St.Giles') hospital next door were spared this fate, however; a charter of 6th April 1539 gave them the escape clause of changing into prebendaries and secular canons "whereby the prior and monks are changed from the monkish state into a dean and chapter, and so made secular priests and altered their cowls."

The Carnary Chapel in the Upper Close, from 1540 the basis of the Norwich School for Boys.

Courtesy Old Dive.

The Carnary Chapel was converted to a school, of which it is still a part, and the prior, after three-hundred-years of arguing, bickering, riot and murder, finally had to give up all claims on Tombland and the cathedral's outlying estates, including the lucrative St.Benet's Abbey on the River Bure, nestled in the heart of the Norfolk Broads.

Painting of the remains of St.Benet's Abbey by Old Dive.

Anyhoo, after decades of fires, sweating sickness, rampant dung-heaps and Black Death, just before he popped his clogs, Henry the Eighth used his thirty-third Act to try and make things a little easier for the good but long-suffering folk of Norfolk. Said Act tried to protect the local wool-based economy and stated that any Worsted cloth not made in Norwich or the surrounding villages was banned and would be impounded and destroyed.

Traders selling "Worsted" or "Norwich White" cloth made elsewhere would suffer grievous penalties.

Ah, the road to Hell &c …

Enclosure map of Eddingthorpe, North Walsham, Norfolk.

Courtesy, historic-maps.norfolk.gov.uk (fun site … go play there).

The wealthy landowners of Norfolk took one look at the Act, whooped it up and went on a greed-spree, enclosing common land left, right and centre to raise yet more sheep, sheep being far more profitable than villagers, who were denied access to grazing grounds and summarily kicked off the estate, often with entire villages destroyed and turned over to fenced-off sheep meadows.

The rich got richer and the poor got poorer - not that that was anything new; people have been complaining about it since the Bronze Age and we still complain about it today, but nothing will ever be done about it … if the top one percent owns nearly everything then all it means is that Crapitalism is working just fine. The poor don't matter. Bleed 'em dry, then turn 'em into Soylent Green.

For generations before 1549 the rich landowners and lords had fenced off areas of common land, privatising their use. "They increased rents, extended their deer parks and sheep flocks until villagers and small landholders set aside their traditional differences and joined forces against the common enemy: the gentry." (Andy Wood, from "Kett's Rebellion" in Rawcliffe and Wilson's "Mediæval Norwich").

The rural poor, kicked off the large estates, poured into Norwich, the resulting overcrowding helping the spread of disease and antagonising the city poor, already royally hacked off by the richer citizens encroaching on their properties. Time to light the blue touch-paper and stand well back …

Unlike the English people of today, back in 1549 the good folk of Norfolk really knew how to be revolting. Nary an ironic protest tee-shirt, nor a poorly punning placard was to be seen; instead they went for pitched artillery battles, mass slaughter and serious royal arse-kicking.

Next time, the Kett hits the fan …

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

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 

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

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

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

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

Norwich Castle as it would have looked between Tudor and Georgian times.

The Bigod Tower on the right hand elevation, Edward the First's palace (by now the Shire Hall) sticking out behind and the old Shire House to the right. Courtesy Norfolk Museums Service.

As Henry the Eighth had not yet split with the Pope by declaring himself head of the Church of England, back in Norwich Castle the torturing of Lollards was gradually giving way to the torturing of early Protestants as the movement grew. A couple of examples should suffice to demonstrate the sheer stupidity of religious fundamentalism (plus ça change, &c.).

Churchy folk doing their Christian duty, as depicted on the interweb.

In 1511, f'rinstance, "One Thomas Bingey, an old, reverend man, was burnt at Norwich because he had not received the sacrament of 14 years and abhorred the Popish ministrations." (Blomefield).

The best known victim of Henry the Eighth's spate of Norwich burnings was the similarly named Thomas Bilney. An excellent scholar, he had been converted at Trinity Hall in Cambridge* to the writings of Martin Luther, as Lollardy evolved into Protestantism.

* A brief aside, apropos of nada … A couple of years back,  I was architectural historian and consultant for the restoration of the Tudor panelled rooms at Trinity. Here are some pics of the work:

Entrance Hall. West wall. That's Katherine Parr over the fireplace and Anne of Cleves to the right.

All Trinity pics, courtesy of Old Dive.

Entrance Hall. North wall. More Tudor portraits.

Dining Room.

Large Drawing Room, with Holbein of Elizabeth the First.

Anyhoo … enough of that. Bilney was not one to hide his light under a bushel and proceeded to preach against Popery wherever he could find an audience. After some months, word reached the authorities and Cardinal Wolsey had him arrested and tried, eventually banging him up in Norwich Castle for a bit of torture to force him to recant (which he didn't).

 

Strappado, one of many torture methods used at Norwich Castle.

Courtesy the interweb.

Saturday, August the nineteenth, 1531, the sheriff's officers came to Norwich Castle armed with halberds and led Bilney down through Tombland, across Palace Plain and along Bishopgate, through the stinking rain of chamberpots to the place of execution at the Lollards' Pit.

"Put another Lollard on the barbie!"

I shall let Blomefield take up the narrative of poor Bilney …

"Then the officers put reeds and faggots about his body, and set fire to the reed, and made a very great flame, which sparkled and deformed his visage, he holding up his hands and knocking upon his breasts, crying out some times Jesus and some times Credo, which flame was blown away from him by the wind, which was that day and two or three days before, exceeding high, and so for a little while he stood without the flame, the flame going and coming three times before the wood took sufficient fire to consume him, after which he yielded up the ghost, and his body bowed down upon the chain; then an officer smote the staple out of the stake with his halbard, and his body fell into the bottom of the fire, and then throwing wood on it, it was quite consumed."

Nice …

Tudor era prisoners' graffiti in the King's Chapel at Norwich Castle. Courtesy Old Dive.

During the reign of the Tudors it is recorded that the main basement of the castle keep was a series of large cells-cum-torture-chambers while prisoners awaiting torture were housed on the main floor, the surviving prisoners' carvings on the chapel walls and in the basement date from this period.

Norwich itself was in pretty much the same shape as the castle, with great swathes of "void ground" where the fires of the previous 26 years had "burned and utterly consumed, to the great heavinesse, discomfort, loss and hindrance" of the populace.

These "desolate and vacant grounds, many of them nigh adjoining to the high streets, replenished with much uncleannesse and filth, to the great annoyance of said inhabitants and other of the King's Subjects passing by the same" were being used as dung heaps and rubbish dumps.

So in 1534 an Act was passed that gave the owners of such grounds two years to clear them up and to build on them with walls of brick and mortar or flint. Should they not do this the land would be taken by the city with no compensation.

Next time, we shall explore the events leading up to Kett's Rebellion.

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.

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 

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

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

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

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

Much of great interest happened outside Norwich during the reign of Henry the Seventh but you'll have to discover that for yourselves as this talk is Norwich-based. In the city, both the fabric and the religious BDSM behaviour at the castle continued to deteriorate and the handbag fight between city and priory dragged on and on …

One of the many delightful and informative woodcuts from Old Dive's 1621 Foxe,

this one of Archdeacon Philpot about to be burned at Smithfield.

Things were still a big bunch of no fun at all for any Lollards imprisoned at the castle. In July 1499, a Lollard named Babram was burned at the stake in the Lollards' Pit by Bishop's Bridge. A little later, one Rob Adams, a clerk, was burned for heresy. Though my Foxe has many dozens of fine woodcuts, it doesn't illustrate these two, so instead I give you the death of Archdeacon Philpot (above).

Flames seemed to be the 'in' thing at Norwich during these days. In 1505 the whole city went up in a massive conflagration (again).

The London Chronicle informs us that "this yere was grete parte of the cyte of Norwych brent."

As if that wasn't shitty enough the following year the sweating sickness returned and carried off a vast chunk of the citizenry. Then in 1507 the hastily rebuilt city burned down yet again … Twice!

On the 31st of March that year, Thomas Norrice was burned at the stake, then on the 25th of April a fire started that "burned with great violence" for four days.

 

The former Popinjay pub (now the Ribs of Beef), adjoining Fye Bridge with the site of Pierre the Chyrurgeon's house behind (grey roof). Courtesy Google Maps

To cap it all, someone set fire to a Frenchman's house, a chyrurgeon named Pierre, on the 4th of June. This conflagration spread to the Popinjay pub next door, which then set fire to the river … yup, the river!

You know you're in trouble when even your RIVER catches fire! Via the interweb.

The Wensum was "so stopped up with rubbish" that the fire spread along it and "made the greatest havock on the river from the bottom of Tombland, through St. Andrew's and up into the city."

An old roll in the herald's office records that "Norwych was burnyd to the noumbir of 18 score of howsholdys and mo and most parte of ther goodys."

Blomefield records 718 houses and buildings burnt to the ground. All in all, not a fun time to live in Norwich (as we seem to find in every century so far).

Next time, churchy folk do their Christian duty … you might want to bring a sick bag.

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.

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 

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

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

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

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

While new King Henry the Seventh rode north to beat the crap out of Lambert Simnel's army, Norwich's long-simmering town and cowl niggle-fest once more threatened to get out of hand.

Simnel, by-the-bye, being but a child under the influence of uppity Irish lords, was pardoned by the king and thrown, like Steerpike, into the royal kitchens as a "spit-turner". Henry was proving a far better king than the Plantagenets and Angevins … recall if you will the fate of poor Pierre Basile, skinned alive and torn apart by horses.

Bishop's Bridge. Photo courtesy Old Dive.

So anyhoo … back in Norwich, down by the river, the mayor and aldermen fixed two large oaken posts at the east end of Bishop's Bridge (right hand end in the photo above), to set the boundaries of the city's liberties.

The tenants of the priory pulled them up the following night, whereupon the city indicted them for riot. This barney betwixt town and cowl had simmered and festered for over two-hundred years with much pettiness and pouting by all parties.

By-the-bye, the oak post you can see in the middle of the river on the photo above is the current demarkation line, with another post about a dozen miles downstream at Langley marking the extent of the city's ownership of the river.

The Wensum at Pull's Ferry, looking toward Bishop's Bridge. Painting by J.S.Cotman from one of Old Dive's many books of his works.

The sheds on the left were directly opposite Ferry Road and our office.

For those of you pining for more news of the stink along the Great Cockey, it's your lucky day. The king (having recently been in Norwich and experienced the gag-inducing stench for himself) made an Act that "No butcher, or butcher's servant, shall slay any beast within the walls of the city, under the penalty of 12d. every ox an 8d. every other beast."

At which, the butchers, tanners, horners, curriers and all our favourite reeking trades upped sticks and moved across the river to stink up Riverside Road (then a mud lane running through our front car park before the river was embanked).

My creepy fingers are crap at spellinge.

By 1491 the animosity between the city and the priory and monks threatened to spill over once again into violence, akin to the great riot and burning of 1272. Henry the Seventh stepped in to try to sort out the mess, writing to the mayor:

"By the Kyng.

Trusty and welle belovyd we grete you welle, and whereas we be enformed that many old grete grugges and maters of variaunce and debate, have been hangyng by many yeres passed, betwixt the Pryour and churche of the cathedral churche of our cite of Norwich and ther predecessours on the partye, and you the Mayor, the Shireeves and Comynalte of our sed cite, and your and their predecessours on that othyr partye, wherin many communications and treatyse have ben made by diverse notable persons, for th'appesying of the same.

But as we ben enformed, have taken none effect. And therby gret inconveniens be lykly to ensue …"*

Henry went on to the effect that both parties had better bloody well sort it out or he would fine them two-hundred pounds.

* One of the great pleasures of researching primary documents is observing the development of spelling between Middle English and Modern, The king's scribe in the above would have been using the very best of the then current spellings. Fun!

"Mutter, mutter, spuffle, rhubarb, rhubarb,

gibberish, balderdash and big fees."

via the interweb.

The city and priory representatives were summoned to appear before the king and his attorney general. If you thought Jarndyce v. Jarndyce was the ultimate demonstration of the stupidity of the old court of chancery, the city of Norwich v. Norwich Cathedral Priory gives it a run for its money, kicking off a monstrously expensive flurry of lawsuits which carried on long after the king's death.

Blomefield puts it: "The chief thing still in question the whole matter came to nothing but continual suits, indictments and animosities subsisted between them the whole reign."

Lawyers … Huh!

Next time: Fire and Blood!

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.

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 

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

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

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

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

BURN THE HERETICS!

Harri Tudur.

aka Henry the Seventh and his creepy fingers.

Courtesy the interweb.

Having dispatched Richard the Third (in no uncertain terms … see the autopsy photos in the previous post) at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1486, Harri Tudur, grandson of Owen Tudur of Anglesey, anglicised his name to Henry Tudor and became the first Tudor monarch, Henry the Seventh.

While he was settling his bottom onto the throne of England, over in Ireland one Lambert Simnel, claiming to be Edward Plantagenet, one of the dead princes in the Tower, got himself proclaimed king and began making preparations for invading England (where he would get his arse kicked).

Hearing rumour of this planned invasion, the freshly crowned Henry the Seventh began a grand tour of his new realm to drum up support against the usurper, starting here in East Anglia … naturally.

Norwich Cathedral from Lower Close, courtesy Old Dive.

After visiting Bury St.Edmunds, Henry spent the Christmas of 1486 in Norwich, though holding his court at the Cathedral Priory rather than at the castle as the keep was now ruinous, with prisoners chained and Lollards tortured in the basement (all very Harrenhal) and the roof and walls full of holes from the robbing out of building materials.

Just behind the building on the left in the photo above is the priory cloisters and the refectory and royal quarters were along the south range.

Blomefield relates that upon the entry of the king, "he was received by the mayor, sheriffs, aldermen and all the masters or wardens of the crafts or companies, all new-clad in scarlet, the mayor, in the name of the city, made him a handsome present and feasted him and his nobles grandly, the city having raised 140l. for that purpose."

Having eaten and drunk his way through the equivalent of £162,455.59 worth of yummies (thanks again to the Bank of England's wonderful inflation calculator) the king toddled off to Walsingham to get God's support for his campaign.

Walsingham Priory, Norfolk … There used to be more of it.

Courtesy the priory website.

Henry desired the city of Norwich to provide a hundred horsemen, well-armed, and to provide them with pay for six weeks' campaigning. As we didn't have a hundred horsemen the city authorities bribed the Earl of Oxford with "50l. in hand paid" to let Norwich off the hook.

Around this time, according to Holinshed, "a new kind of sickness suddenly invaded this land, passing through the same from the one end to the other, in which time many died in this city" (Norwich).

Not the sweating sickness, but St.Vitus' Dance, as the interweb appears to lack a sweating sickness image, darn it. But you get the picture … partying skellingtons &c.

Blomefield tells us, "It seized them with a sudden burning sweat (for which reason it was called the sweating sickness), which so violently distempered their blood with ardent heat that scarce one in an hundred escaped alive, upon which account it was also called the dead sweat: for all, in a manner, as soon as it took them, or in a very short time after, yielded up the ghost; and what was worse, as it appeared afterwards, the same persons were liable to the same disease again and again, but by God's blessing, and observation made on the distemper, a remedy was found by a learnèd native of this city, who generously published it to all the world. Of whom I shall speak in his proper place."*

* Blomefield then forgets to speak of the learnèd native of this city, in his proper place or anywhere else. I've searched all eleven volumes and can't find the bugger.

Next time: the Great Cockey Stink moves to our office car park, town and cowl bring in the lawyers and the king's spelling sucks.

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.

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 

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

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

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

Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Fifth - The Fall of the Plantagenets - Chapter V

Alas and alack for the poor Lollards! Those who were not burned at the stake in the Lollards' Pit were kept at Norwich Castle, locked in the basement dungeon on a diet of mouldy bread, foul water and torture.

Fun with Fustigatio. Photo courtesy Old Dive.

On Saints' Days the unhappy Lollards were taken outside, handed a votive candle and forced to march - men, women and children, naked except for a piece of cloth tied in front of their genitals -  three times around the cathedral and then three times around the marketplace before offering their candles at the Catholic altar of St.Peter Mancroft.

While they marched, they underwent "fustigatio" which meant being beaten by the mob with cudgels and osiers. There were an awful lot of Saints' Days …

Another delightfully descriptive woodcut from Old Dive's Bumper Book of Burnings.

Up at the castle, not much happened for a while … apart from the screaming. Blomefield records that on December the twentieth, 1456 Norwich experienced an earthquake which did no damage whatsoever.

Elsewhere, as usual, trouble was brewing. A spat between Henry (of the house of Lancaster) and Edward (of the house of York) kicked off in 1455, soon escalating into what was later named the Wars of the Roses. We can ignore all that as it was right up at the other end of the country and didn't involve Norwich Castle one whit. Suffice to say that after much ado, Henry lost his marbles and was murdered in the Tower by Edward, who thus became Edward the Fourth in 1471.

Another bloody king … Edward the Fourth before getting monstrously fat and dead.

Courtesy our infallible friend, Mister Interweb.

The plague came back in 1477 and this time stayed in Norwich for three years, killing around a third of what was left of the population after the last visitation. What with the screaming at the castle and the wailing in the streets, the red crosses painted on doors where families were locked in and left to die (something our incompetent government has not yet tried during Covid19 but I wouldn't put it past them), the cartmens' cries of "Bring Out Your Dead" Norwich at this time would be a pretty damned dumb place to go time-travelling.

In 1480, as if all that wasn't enough, another earthquake hit Norwich, this time getting it right and doing extensive damage. "Many buildings were shaken down" and the city walls left in a real mess. Blomefield provides an itemised list of repairs, the exhaustive length of which reveals the severity of the damage.

1483 saw the death of Edward the Fourth. Records are vague as to what precisely carried him off, but pneumonia, typhoid, dysentery and even poison are mentioned, added to his unhealthy lifestyle (he got monstrously fat and unfit).

Edward the Fifth was but twelve years old when he ascended the throne of England and, together with his younger brother mysteriously disappeared after entering the royal lodgings at the Tower of London.

Later referred to as "the princes in the Tower" it was suspected that pantomime baddie Richard, Duke of Gloucester had them strangled and secretly buried before taking the throne for himself as the rhyming slang Richard the Third.

A typically tacky and kitsch Victorian take on the event. Boo hiss for Richard Crookback.

Last of the Plantagenet kings, Richard Crookback (as Holinshed and Shakespeare named him) recently dug up from under a pub car park in Leicester, did indeed have a deformation of the spine.

Meanwhile, under a pub car park in Leicester, courtesy Current Archæology.

That didn't stop him from being a skilled soldier, however, and at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 he managed to unhorse jousting champion Sir John Cheyne, kill Harri Tudur's standard bearer, Sir William Brandon and get within a sword's length of Harri himself before being overwhelmed by Sir William Stanley's Welshmen.

Richard Crookback's waffy spine. Courtesy University of Leicester.

They hacked him with halberds, driving his helmet into his brain. The autopsy carried out on his remains at Leicester found eleven wounds to his skull …

That's gotta hurt! Photo courtesy University of Leicester.

… the worst being two large, sharp-force trauma injuries to the rear of his skull, a sharp pointed penetrative injury to the top of his skull and part of the rear of his skull hacked away by an edged weapon.

Sic semper tyrannis. Photos courtesy University of Leicester.

Historians generally use this battle as a full stop; the end of 'mediæval England' and the beginning of 'early modern' history. And so shall I.

Back in mediæval Norwich, however, nobody appeared to pay much attention and things went on pretty much as before. In 1490, the rubbish in the castle moat and ditches got so bad that labourers were paid 28s. 6d. to carry muck out of the ditches and cart it over the river to Thorpe, where it was dumped into old chalk workings.

Henry the Eighth later passed a law at Norwich stating, "If any inhabitant within the city shall henceforth be taken in carrying muck, or other filthy things, and putting them in the ditches of the castle, everyone so taken shall forfeit for every time 4d."

Despite this threat of a groat fine per muck-dumping or filthy-thinging, the good folk of Norwich continued emptying their privies by the barrow-load into the castle moat and ditches until the late eighteenth century, providing hours of stinky fun for today's archæologists.

For those of you younger than me, a groat was a four-penny piece … three groats to the shilling.

And so we break off our tale at the end of the Plantagenets and in our next talk we'll be looking at Norwich Castle under the early Tudors and the doomed but glorious Kett's Rebellion.

Nasty stuff but great fun!

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 I: Anglo-Saxon to c.1345: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009

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

Norwich Castle Keep: Romanesque Architecture and Social Context: T. A. Heslop: 1994

The Norman Connections - Castle: Part 1: Norwich Castle: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2010

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

Report on the City Walls of Norwich: The Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society: Feb. 1964 

The Oxford History of England: Volume V "The Fourteenth Century, 1307-1399" May Mc.Kisack (ed): 1959

 The Oxford History of England: Volume VI "The Fifteenth Century, 1399-1485" E. F. Jacob (ed): 1961

Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Fifth - The Fall of the Plantagenets - Chapter IV

And so, with the tragic and squelchy death of Henry the Fifth the kingdom passed to nine-year-old Henry the Sixth under the regency of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.

Incidentally, at a theatre I designed for a London girls' school (see old work posts) I had quotations from Shakespeare carved into the stonework, my favourite being "Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France?" The students opened the theatre with an all girl Henry the Fifth, a memory I shall treasure, probably for all the wrong reasons.

Henry the Sixth, via the interweb.

Around this time the Catholic authorities cracked down on the Lollards, crowding some 120 of them - men, women and children alike - into Norwich Castle keep, where they were tortured and some burned at the stake.

The first sane man in English religious history.

The Lollards were followers of proto-Protestant John Wycliff. Wycliff (or Wycliffe or Wicklyf or whatever) heroically translated the New Testament from the Latin Vulgate into Middle English (Chaucer-speak for those familiar with it) in 1382 and oversaw the translation of the Old Testament.

The Lollards rejected the authority of the Pope which seriously pissed off the English Catholics, scared shitless that people could actually read the Bible and make up their own minds.

The title page from Parts II and III of Old Dive's 1621 copy of Foxe's Acts and Monuments.

My monster-sized 1621 edition of Foxe's Acts and Monuments (later known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs) describes in unnecessarily gory detail (with woodcuts - Yay! - of which you shall see many) the fate of all those burned at the stake, from the first Lollards through to Mad Queen Mary's Merry Burn-a-Thon.

Those Norwich Lollards condemned to death were forced to walk from their torture chamber at Norwich Castle, down through Tombland and across Palace Plain, then along Bishopgate to the river, through a crowd of jeering Catholics armed with full chamberpots and buckets who drenched them in stale urine and ordure on their way across Bishop's Bridge to the chalk pit (originally dug out to provide foundations for the cathedral) where waited the stake.

Lovely …

Around a dozen were burned to death in the chalk pit behind what is now the Lollards' Pit pub, just down the road from the office. There's a plaque beside the river with their names on should you wish to pay your respects.

Next time, fun with fustigatio and the death of Richard Crookback.

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 I: Anglo-Saxon to c.1345: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009

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

Norwich Castle Keep: Romanesque Architecture and Social Context: T. A. Heslop: 1994

The Norman Connections - Castle: Part 1: Norwich Castle: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2010

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

Report on the City Walls of Norwich: The Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society: Feb. 1964 

The Oxford History of England: Volume V "The Fourteenth Century, 1307-1399" May Mc.Kisack (ed): 1959

 The Oxford History of England: Volume VI "The Fifteenth Century, 1399-1485" E. F. Jacob (ed): 1961

Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Fifth - The Fall of the Plantagenets - Chapter III

1345 and Norwich Castle officially becomes a gaol with the sheriff trying to live in the old royal palace and the prisoners in the basement.

Robbed out flintwork. Actually Castle Acre, despoiled by the Duke of Norfolk during the dissolution but pretty much what was going on at Norwich Castle after 1345. Courtesy Old Dive.

So, with the castle now a prison for the felons convicted at the quarterly Shirehall sessions and the Fee walls demolished to help build the city walls, it would appear that the acquisitive folk of Norwich plundered what parts of the keep they could reach to repair their own homes.

By 1371 the sheriff was complaining to Edward the Third that residence in the castle was impossible because it was:

"consumed and spoiled in the houses and habitations, as well as in the walls, timber, lead, as also in other things, so that no man can dwell in it for the safeguard of the castle, nor reside for any other occasion … The stones, timber and lead have been broken down, carried and conveyed away."

By that time, however, Edward the Third was pretty much worn out and couldn't be bothered to reply. Somewhat tardily, in 1390 his successor, Richard the Second authorised extensive repairs to Norwich Castle, bridge, buildings and towers, as the flint walls of the basement had been so robbed out that prisoners could simply walk out through the holes.

The mediæval "floppy" hard hat as seen on the interweb.

Inevitably, just as happens so often today, the masons, plumbers and carpenters of Norwich charged so much that an inquiry followed. Fortunately for our ancestral contractors the Commissioners of Inquiry concluded that 24 marks (£15. 16s. 11d.) charged for the work was justifiable. Further sums spent by the sheriff on the castle over the next decade include an additional £13. 6s. 8d. for "timber, boards, hooks, hinges, nails, lime and sand" plus craftsmen's wages of £12. 2s. 5d. (National Archives: E364/89 13D, quoted in EAA 132).

In general, however, our Norwich ancestors were a pretty slovenly lot. In his 1820s book "The History and Antiquities of Norwich Castle", Samuel Woodward notes that, "Prior to the Fee of the castle coming into the jurisdiction of the city the ditches were kept with great care; but afterwards they were much neglected and were receptacles of the rubbish and filth of the city."

Some of the fly-tippers were caught. At the New Leet of the Castle (trials at the Shirehall) in 1374, one Adam of Hindringham was amerced (fined, in mediæval-speak) for "muck in the highway and carts by day and night, the way deeply fouled and encumbered."

In 1390, Alice, widow of Thomas Norton was presented for allowing her servant to "dump muck near the Shirehouse" and one Thomas Hardegay, "botcher", caused a dead horse to be dumped "in a lane by the Shirehouse".

From here on in the moat and ditches were periodically cleaned but continually re-filled with filth, muck and rubbish by the good folk of Norwich. Blackadder, Baldrick and the baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells would have felt quite at home there. The current moat contains - as we discovered in Part the First - at least five yards depth of the stuff, to the delight of today's archæologists.

After Richard the Second's repairs, nothing else was spent on the structure and Norwich Castle fell into sad decline over the next hundred years.

In the meantime, Henry the Fourth, having wrenched power from Richard the Second (and left him to starve to death in the Tower - dontcha just love the English Royal Family?), gave Norwich its charter in 1404.

Norwich Guildhall with possibly non-mediæval octopus, courtesy Old Dive.

The charter enabled the building of Norwich Guildhall on the site of the old toll house at the northern end of the Norman marketplace. Built between 1407 and 1413, with nineteenth century additions (the bit under the octopus), this continued in use as the seat of governance of the city right up until 1938, when the powers that be simply carried their chairs and tables across the road and took their seats in the newly completed City Hall*.

* Avoided by German bombers during WWII as it was Hitler's favourite English building, having the longest balcony in Europe from which he planned to harangue his victorious hordes.

Norwich City Hall on left and Guildhall on right, seen by Old Dive from Cherry Walk.

Henry the Fourth popped his clogs in 1413, most likely from leprosy, leaving young Prince Hal to become Henry the Fifth and to go on to glory at Agincourt.

The suspiciously clean and polite Battle of Agincourt, painted by a monk at St.Alban's who - I venture to say - may not have been an eye-witness to the mud, blood and slaughter.

Anyhoo … In February 1412, one of the many Great Fires of Norwich took out much of the city, including Blackfriars, which was rebuilt shortly afterwards on a grand scale and survives today as Blackfriars and St.Andrew's Hall.

Blackfriars to the right of the tower, St.Andrews' Hall to the left, now a splendid music venue and one of the Norwich homes of the Britten Sinfonia (see many rave reviews in past posts).

Pic courtesy Rawcliffe and Wilson: Mediæval Norwich.

In 1422, Henry the Fifth died, tragically young, of - you guessed it - arse gravy, the royal disease. His death was described at the time as by "the bloody flux" (dysentery): stomach cramps, fever, vomiting, exhaustion and day after day of non-stop bum gravy.

Next time, things get toasty for the Norwich Lollards.

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 I: Anglo-Saxon to c.1345: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009

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

Norwich Castle Keep: Romanesque Architecture and Social Context: T. A. Heslop: 1994

The Norman Connections - Castle: Part 1: Norwich Castle: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2010

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

Report on the City Walls of Norwich: The Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society: Feb. 1964

The Oxford History of England: Volume V "The Fourteenth Century, 1307-1399" May Mc.Kisack (ed): 1959

 

The Oxford History of England: Volume VI "The Fifteenth Century, 1399-1485" E. F. Jacob (ed): 1961

Old Dive's History of Norwich Castle - Part the Fifth - The Fall of the Plantagenets - Chapter II

1349 and the good citizens of Norwich had just enjoyed what was likely the best four years of their history, being safe inside their walls, untaxed by the Bigods, un-sacked by pillaging armies and happily sniffing up great lungs-full of the fragrant air along the Great Cockey (see Part the Third).

Just their luck then, that this summer saw the arrival of pretty rings of reddish-pink markings on the tops of people's feet.

Buboes courtesy Hieronymus Bosch via the interweb.

Everyone form a ring and sing,

"Ring-a ring-o'-roses,

A pocket full of posies,

A-tishoo, a-tishoo,

We all fall down."

Say hello to the Black Death (omnes: "Hello, Black Death").

Bubonic plague ravaged the city in 1349, with further outbreaks in 1361, 1362 and 1369. While not as deadly as the later pneumonic plague (black buboes in armpits, crotch and neck rather than red, and transmissible Covid19 style rather than by flea bite), it still wiped out a third of Norwich's population (around 25,000 souls before the arrival of the Black Death).

To add to the woes of the good folk of Norwich, Edward the Third had kicked off the Hundred Years War in 1337 and, after the glorious yet almost accidental victory at Crécy and the success of the siege of Calais, he was fast running out of cash to pay his mercenaries. Death and taxes; as inevitable in mediæval times as today.

By 1375, Edward had lost all his French lands except Calais and was gagging for groats, so he hit the English citizens with three crippling poll taxes in four years. What with the earlier "maltolt" wool and linen taxes, the textile workers of Norfolk felt by 1381 that enough was enough. 

Wat Tyler, sporting a Norman name tag, via the interweb.

Great hat, Walt.

Cue the Peasants' Revolt (yay)! The revolt in Norwich was only one of many across the realm, popularly led by anti-poll-tax activist and all-round good egg Walter the Tiler from Kent, known to history as Wat Tyler.

Our own local part of the revolt was led by a dyer from Felmingham, one Geoffrey Litster. Under his leadership the disgruntled textile workers of Norfolk gathered on Mousehold Heath before marching over Bishops' Bridge and Whitefriars' Bridge, up through the city to the castle, where they simply walked in and took over.

King of the Commons … possibly.

Litster held feasts in the Great Hall and was crowned "King of the Commons". He planned to 'liberate' a huge pile of gold from the wealthy and profiteering textile merchants of Norwich and to march to London to bribe the king for a pardon and a charter promising no more poll taxes.

Unfortunately, Litster's men ran into the thoroughly unsavoury Bishop Henry le Despenser, who chased them to North Walsham and summarily executed Litster and other leaders. So ended the Norwich chapter of Wat Tyler's heroic Peasants' Revolt.

Henry le Despenser. Courtesy King's Lynn Minster.

And speaking of revolting … Le Despenser afterwards styled himself the "Fighting Bishop" and carried on the family tradition of heading off abroad to slaughter, rape, loot and burn his way down to Avignon, via a failed siege of Ypres, from whence he was brought back in disgrace and impeached in parliament.

His ancestors included his grandad Hugh le Despenser, a vicious thug and part of Pope Urban V's mad mercenary army, followed by Hugh le Despenser 'the younger', Henry's father, who was convicted of treason and hanged, drawn and quartered.

You really wouldn't want to live next door to them …

Next time: poo, plunder, rubbish and filth, the return of death by arse gravy and more of the stuff that makes history so much fun but that gets left out of school history books, dammit.

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 I: Anglo-Saxon to c.1345: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009

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

Norwich Castle Keep: Romanesque Architecture and Social Context: T. A. Heslop: 1994

The Norman Connections - Castle: Part 1: Norwich Castle: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2010

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

Report on the City Walls of Norwich: The Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society: Feb. 1964

The Oxford History of England: Volume V "The Fourteenth Century, 1307-1399" May Mc.Kisack (ed): 1959

 

The Oxford History of England: Volume VI "The Fifteenth Century, 1399-1485" E. F. Jacob (ed): 1961