Tudor Revision

Rebellion

• ·         The year 1549 was perhaps the worst year for the whole of the Tudor period.
• ·         There were major rebellions in East Anglia and the south-west, as well as considerable levels of disorder throughout much of the rest of the country.
• ·         It was, according to John Guy, “the closest thing Tudor England came to a class war.”
• ·         To make matters worse, Somerset’s government found it difficult to cope with the rebellions, not least because the thin resources of the Tudor State were overstretched with substantial numbers of troops engaged in the garrisoning of the south of Scotland, while others were stationed in the south-east of England to ward off potential French invasion.
• ·         There were a number of reasons for rebellion and disorder:

o   In some parts of the country religious reasons predominated.

o   In the Midlands and East Anglia agrarian and social grievances were most important, with the Council receiving numerous reports of riots and of uprooting of enclosures.

o   Resentment of taxation appears to be a consistent factor.

• ·         Most of the risings died out fairly quickly, either because of insufficient support or through prompt action from the local nobility and gentry, such as the Earl of Arundel who managed to calm matters down in strategically sensitive Sussex.
• ·         Arundel heard grievances and punished a few oppressive landlords and disorderly peasants even-handedly, restoring what he considered to be a ‘quavering quiet.’
• ·         Similar methods seemed to work in Cambridgeshire, Yorkshire and the Midlands.
• ·         However, the south-west lacked a residential aristocrat of Arundel’s stature who could bring matters under control, and both the Western Rebellion and Kett’s Rebellion in East Anglia required significant military action to suppress them and restore order.

The Western Rebellion, 1549

• ·         The Western Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall was prompted particularly by religious grievances.
• ·         This rebellion has been described as the ‘prayer book rebellion’ on account of the description by the rebels of the new Book of Common Prayer as a ‘Christmas game.’
• ·         However, the rebels had had little chance to experience the new prayer book and the actual religious grievances ran much deeper.
• ·         The extent of resentment in Cornwall was evident in the murder at Helton in April 1548 of William Body.
• ·         This archdeacon’s insensitive approach to the removal of traditional objects of veneration had preceded the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer by over a year, and demonstrated the level of tension which already existed in the country.
• ·         The rebels wanted to reverse the religious reforms which were destroying the way in which people had experienced religion.
• ·         Both the traditional rituals of the church services and much of the Church’s wider role in the community had gone.
• ·         However, the rebellion was also provoked by the distrust between the rural labourers, on the one hand, and the landowners on the other, and grievances over taxation.
• ·         The peasant labourers resented the sheep tax, which they regarded as an imposition by an uncaring and ignorant government in London.
• ·         Sheep tax had been introduced in March 1549. It was intended to deter the conversion of arable land to pasture, which was often accompanied by enclosure and driving out of the poor; while its application might have made some social sense in, for example, the east Midlands, it proved a significant burden on hill farmers who struggled to make a living from sheep farming on marginal highlands such as Exmoor and Dartmoor.
• ·         Their resentment had been made worse by its implementation by insensitive local officials.

Kett’s Rebellion in East Anglia

• ·         There was little evidence in East Anglia of conservative religious tendencies among the leadership, and the rebels at Norwich had services conducted according to the Book of Common Prayer.
• ·         What the Norwich rebels shared with the Western Rebellion, however, was a sense of class antagonism which was less evident in those counties where the ‘commotions’ were more easily resolved.
• ·         Diarmaid MacCulloh has emphasised a number of specific grievances:

o   Hatred of local government officials

o   Resentment of the abuse by landowners of the Norfolk foldcourse system

o   The release of pent-up frustration about the maladministration locally of the Howards.

The suppression of the rebellions

• ·         Somerset had appointed Lord Russell, a rising nobleman with estates in the West Country, to deal with the Western Rebellion.
• ·         Eventually Russell had enough forces, including foreign mercenaries (professional soldier who offers his services to the highest bidder), to be able to defeat the revels at Clyst Heath near Exeter on 4^th August.
• ·         The government’s original attempt to crush the East Anglian rebellion by the Earl of Northampton had ended in humiliating failure.
• ·         Somerset was forced to send an army including foreign mercenaries under the command of the Earl of Warwick to deal with the rebels.
• ·         On 27^th August the rebellion was brutally suppressed and Kett was convicted of high treason and hanged.