The Almain Horse came; 4000 German lansquenets; and Italian arquebusiers under Spinola and Malatesta and Captain Gamboa; and marched with Lord Russell and Lord Grey of Wilton to "pacify" the rebels. They pacified them—after some other engagements at Sampford Courtenay, where 3000 men of Devon fell "in the summer gloaming, like stout-hearted, valiant men, for their hearths and altars, and Miles Coverdale, translator of the Bible, and future Bishop of Exeter, preached a thanksgiving sermon among the bodies as they lay with stiffening limbs, with their faces to the sky" (Froude).
"The country knuffs, Hob, Dick, and Hick, with clubs and clouted shoon," were no match for the Almain Horse and Spinola's arquebusiers. "They were slain like wild beasts," says Sir John Hayward.[1] The Vicar of St Thomas's, Exeter, was hanged from his own church-tower, and the number of vagabonds in England was reduced.
It was also reduced in Norfolk. There the rising was more serious still. It was led by a man of great ability, Robert Ket, a landowner. The commons of Norfolk took Norwich, and set up a "Commonwealth." The Marquis of Northampton was defeated fighting in the city streets. Lord Sheffield was slain, and Warwick, just ready to invade Scotland, was obliged to march against Ket instead.[2] And France heard of it, and invaded the Boulonnais.
The enclosers triumphed. Four thousand of the Norfolk rebels were computed to have fallen fighting. Ket was hanged.
The party of the Reformation had committed itself irretrievably to the new landlords, and sermons upon the sin of covetousness had no more effect than King Canute's command to the angry waves to come no farther. No power on earth would make the holders of abbey lands disgorge, or cease to exploit those lands to their own best advantage. Somerset's enemies prevailed; Warwick became supreme, and began to mature his grand
- ↑ The names of fifty-two foreign captains of mercenaries are found in the Acts of Council, with the sums paid them. See "Who killed Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey?" by Alfred Marks, p. 191.
- ↑ The Journal of Edward VI. gives long accounts of the fighting.
