POLITICAL HISTORY In 1 515 took place the romantic marriage between the king's sister Mary, widow of the king of France, and the handsome Brandon earl of Suffolk. After their marriage they made a semi-royal progress to Norwich, where they were sumptuously entertained.' After centuries of trouble the end of the difficulties between the monks and citizens of Norwich, so often referred to in these pages, was at hand, for Cardinal Wolsey came down in 15 17 and began the negotiations which came to a successful ending in 1524." But no sooner was the city dispute happily settled than there were risings in and near the county, one especially of the workers in cloth, who had lost their living owing to the rich clothiers, mostly in Suffolk, having temporarily ceased manufacturing owing to the heavy subsidies placed upon them. The dukes ' of Norfolk and Suffolk acting together seem to have pacified them, and the exaction of the subsidy either ceasing or being eased, things resumed their normal course, but in 1527 and 1529 there were minor riots at Norwich and Yarmouth owing to the scarcity of corn, which were, however, suppressed, and several men executed for their share in them.* As an account in detail of the progress of the Reformation in Norfolk is given elsewhere it is not necessary to do more than mention it here. That Walsingham, a village which was one of the best known places of pilgrimage in England, should in 1537^ be the scene of an insurrection on the lines of the Pilgrimage of Grace of the year before is not to be wondered at, but it appears to have been easily suppressed. Nor was it unnatural that the Catholics should see in the fall of Anne Boleyn a signal proof of divine vengeance. Anne, who was the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a small Norfolk squire, and the niece of Thomas third duke of Norfolk, had entered Queen Katherine's service about 1552. That she was brought to the king's notice with the idea of furthering the fortunes of her father's family is unquestionable, and probably no scheme of the sort ever recoiled with more deadly result on its promoters. Queen Jane Seymour having died, and Queen Anne of Cleves having been disclaimed, the king in i 540 formed an ill-omened match with another Norfolk woman when he married Katherine Howard, the niece of the duke of Norfolk, and first cousin to Anne Boleyn, who paid the penalty of ante- nuptial sins in 1542. There is some reason to believe that the ill-result of this marriage contributed to the disgrace of the duke of Norfolk and the death of his son Henry Howard, the poet-earl of Surrey, in 1547. The latter, as one of the most striking figures in the history of our county, deserves more than a passing notice. Henry Howard, the poet-earl, heir of Thomas duke of Norfolk, by Lady Anne Stafford, his second wife, and born about 1 5 17, was brought up at Windsor as the boy companion of Henry VIII's natural son the duke of Richmond, and was once thought a fitting match for Mary, afterwards queen. He saw service in Scotland, was wounded at Montreuil, became governor of Boulogne, and earned fame as a soldier of ability and a tilter ' Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 193.
- L. and P. Hen. Fill, iv, 655. See also for further details Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 195, 197.
' Holinshed, Chron. (Hooker), iii, 891. * Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 197-8. ' Holinshed, Chron. (Hooker), iii, 945 ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii, pt. ii, 56. 493
