Kett's Rebellion, 1549

In 1549, there was injustice and unrest in the land. Wealthy landowners were enclosing common land for grazing, forcing ordinary people out of their homes and livelihoods. There were peasant demonstrations across East Anglia and the Midlands and the King was an inexperienced boy, whose decisions were taken for him by a ‘Protector’.

In Wymondham, in July, people took the law into their own hands and started tearing down enclosers’ fences. When they came to those of Robert Kett, he was convinced by their arguments and joined them in pulling down his own fences.

Kett was a contented yeoman farmer, tanner and, with his brother William, was responsible for the saving of what remains of Wymondham Abbey from destruction following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In his fifties, Kett had everything going for him, but he elected to lead the popular movement in a march on Norwich - then England’s second city - to press their demands for fairness.

This was no socialist revolution, merely a call for justice within the traditional social framework - indeed, Kett and his following remained loyal to the King at all times. The march assembled at what is known as Kett’s Oak, outside Wymondham, on 9th July.

Kett's Heights, seen from the bottom of Gas Hill, Norwich. The remnant of St. Michael's Chapel can just be made out to the right of the 1970s beacon, below the beak of the tree shaped like a bird's head.

Refused entry to Norwich on the West, Kett skirted the city via what is now Bowthorpe and Drayton, before setting up camp on Mousehold Heath, on the 12th of July. Then, Mousehold stretched much further south than it does today and the main part of Kett’s camp was around the area today known as Camp Grove, with key centres at the former St. Leonard's Priory, the 'Oak of Reformation' (more or less where the water tower now stands) and the ruins of St. Michael’s chapel, once known as Kett's Castle, on the steep hillside today called Kett's Heights.

The camp of thousands of people (men, women and children) was organised on a just basis and criminality was controlled, even when the fighting began, with grievances aired and justice dispensed at ‘The Oak of Reformation’.

Kett’s people sought the co-operation of the City, but the gates (at Bishop’s Bridge) were closed to them, so the rebels took them by force. A royal army sent against them was defeated, despite the inclusion of mercenaries from as far away as Italy.

Standing on Bishop's Bridge today, looking West along Bishopsgate: the gatehouse would have been immediately in front of the line of bollards in 1549. Picture from August 1999.

However, a subsequent Government force pushed Kett out of the city. Realising the tide was turning, Kett’s host moved off Mousehold to a place, probably just to the North of the modern city centre, known then as Dussindale (and probably not the modern Dussindale Park), where an old prophecy said that there would be a great victory.

Unfortunately, and predictably, the victory belonged to the Government forces and 3000 Norfolk people were slain on 27th August. They are buried in an unmarked mass grave - to rival those in Kosovo. Robert and his brother were taken to London and tried for treason. On 7th December, William was hung, with bitter irony, from Wymondham Abbey, and Robert from Norwich Castle, in chains.

Kett’s fight for justice could be seen as doomed from the start, but, along with other events, it sowed a seed. Who knows if we would have the degree of freedom and democracy we have today if it had not been for Kett? Indeed, local historian, John Pound, sees the perceived threat of a repeat rising of the poor in Norfolk as significant in the establishment of the first Poor Law.

The story of Kett’s Rebellion carries with it other echoes too. His vision of justice and livelihood for the ordinary people, the sacrifice of so many lives in August - at harvest time - and the significance of the oak tree ties in uncannily with aspects of the festival of Lammas.

Cow Tower, so named because it stands in a water meadow once known as Cowholme, was part of the city's mediaeval defences. It was quite damaged in Kett's bombardment. Picture from August 1999.

At this time, the spirit of the grain, John Barleycorn or the Corn King if you will, is cut down in his prime to provide sustenance for the people, with a seed sown for new life next year. It is a time of sacrifice, of tension, of fretting about whether to leave the crop a few more days for the grain to swell some more, and risk its destruction in a sudden storm, symbolised by the dark symbol of Lammastide, the blasted oak. The oak appears elsewhere in myth and legend, being sacred to the Anglo-Saxon Thunder God, Thunor, who also concerns Himself with the livelihood of the common folk, and to Robin Hood, archetypal spirit of the wildwood and friend to the poor.

What’s more, there are patterns in the land. One thinks of the story of William Rufus, who, in 1100, died in an oak tree in a hunting accident. About 1500 years before Kett, Queen Boudicca of the Iceni took a stand against injustice and for the people and the land, leaving the crops standing in the fields - and met a fate similar to that of Kett. Both they and their people made the sacrifice necessary to provide hope for the future.

There are many subtle parallels between the stories of Kett and Boudicca. Kett’s in comparison was the more successful, save that it is not a comparison. As T.H. White gave as Merlyn’s final lesson to King Arthur, immediately prior to his fateful final battle with Mordred’s forces and apparent fruitless demise (in his intended conclusion to The Once and Future King (1958), published later and separately as The Book of Merlyn (1977, Collins), pp. 127-8.):

"You will fail because it is the nature of man to slay, in ignorance if not in wrath. But failure builds success and nature changes. A good man’s example always does instruct the ignorant and lessens their rage, little by little through the ages, until the spirit of the waters is content..."

This friendly encounter between Robert Kett and the Norwich dragon, commemorating 450 years since Kett’s Rebellion, was chosen as the logo for the 1999 Norwich Beer Festival, organised by the Norwich and Norfolk Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale. Robert Kett would doubtless have supported a campaign which promotes traditional ales and local breweries. It was based on a joint design by the author and Helen Surman. Reproduced here courtesy of Norwich & Norfolk CAMRA.

It took a long time for Kett’s image to be rehabiliatated. His branding was traitor until the twentieth century. Norwich City Council at last admitted the designation ‘hero’ in 1949, 400 years after its predecessors at first connived with Kett, then relievedly put themselves under the Earl of Warwick’s protection. A commerative stone was placed in the wall of the Castle, Robert Kett’s site of execution. In 1999, Norfolk people celebrated the 450th anniversary of Kett’s Rebellion, with a moving free play in parks and schools, a festival in the Ketts’ home-town of Wymondham, a commemorative ale brewed by Norfolk’s Woodforde’s Brewery and the honour of commemoration in the 1999 logo of the annual CAMRA Norwich Beer Festival. But the City Council, perhaps still afraid for its decorum, remained silent. Six people laid a wreath, spoke and sang at the Castle plaque on the date of the execution.

As well as remembering Kett, people are still striving for access to land. The land-rights campaign, The Land Is Ours marked the 450th anniversary of Kett’s rebellion by setting up camp at the former David Rice Hospital in Drayton, to the North-West of Norwich, drawing attention to the plight of the site and to the parlous state of the neglected and vandalised buildings there. They were evicted, but managed to stimulate local people to carry on the campaign to try to safeguard public access to the grounds (although unfortunately it petered out before achieving very much).

Locally, people still have to be vigilant to maintain the memory. Recently, new 'social' housing was built at the foot of Gas Hill, below Kett's Heights. The City Council wanted to name the access road after Flowerdew, arch-enemy of the ketts' in Wymondham. Prompt protests by local people led to it being named William Kett Court, after Robert's brother. In 2004, a new Thorpe Hamlet village sign was erected at the bottom of Kett's Hill. The design commemorates Kett's rebellion. Read more here.

Part of the 'Kett's Camp' set up by The Land Is Ours East Anglia at the former David Rice Hospital in Drayton, NW of Norwich, in July 1999.

Kett's Rebellion, and Thorpe Hamlet's part in it, left us a real legacy of democracy and humanitarianism. It has also left us with a duty, for the sakes of the Ketts and of the 3000 rebels who died at Dussindale and before, to guard against the erosion of justice in the modern age, whatever the cost in terms of our personal comfort.

The memorial to Kett's Rebellion placed by The Land Is Ours East Anglia at the former David Rice Hospital in Drayton.

Note

To find out more about Kett's Rebellion, read Adrian Hoare (1999) An Unlikely Rebel: Robert Kett and the Norfolk Rising, 1549 Geo. R. Reeve Ltd., 9-11 Town Green, Wymondham, Norfolk NR18 0BD, I.S.B.N. 0-900616-55-5, £3.95.