POLITICAL HISTORY To say that the rising was a religious one, as suggested by Lingard and Professor Rogers, is hardly correct ; that wire-pullers took advantage of the ill- feeling caused by the recent changes to enlist men disaffected from these sources is highly probable, but the petition addressed by the rebels to the king speaks for itself, and, moreover, Mary, afterwards queen, who was writing from the spot and whose sympathies would have been wholly with a religious rising, said, ' it was touching no part of religion.' Indirectly, of course, the suppression of the monasteries and the way in which monastic lands had fallen into the hands of people more anxious to make the utmost penny out of them than promote the public interest, may have had something to do with the movement.* The movement was, in fact, one by men who had real rights over the waste lands held in common and who were injured by excessive enclosures. That there was a real grievance is sufficiently shown by the fact that on I June, 1548, a government proclamation against enclosures had been issued, and also against negligence in letting houses fall to decay and unlaw- fully converting arable land into pasture. This seems to have had a quieting effisct for a time, but three parliamentary bills framed in the interests of the commoners were lost. The rising began by the destruction of the ' fences ' with which one John Green of Wilby had enclosed part of Attleborough Common. This took place on 20 June, 1549, and was followed by an interval of quiet until the beginning of July, though it appears that secret meetings were held during this interval.^ A ' play ' held at Wymondham, in commemoration of the translation of St. Thomas a Becket, was the pretext for another gathering ■of the malcontents,' and the leaders held conferences with those assembled to witness the processions and interludes, with the result that a crowd went to one Hobartson's of Morley, about two miles off, and having thrown down some fences returned to Wymondham.* Very soon afterwards some more fences at Hethersett, the property of Serjeant Flowerdew, who appears to have been very unpopular in the neighbourhood, were thrown down.^ It happened that Flowerdew was at feud with the Ketts, who also had enclosed lands, and, angry at his hedges being destroyed, he bribed the rebels to destroy those belonging to Kett also.* When they came to Kett's property the latter not only agreed to his own enclosures being levelled but joined heartily in the proceedings, and then led the commons again to Flowerdew's estate and ruined the rest of his hedges which had been previously spared.^ It is very noticeable that, as in the former rebellion of Litester, the leaders were men of some position and wealth, who had a stake in the country, which it is not probable they would have risked except for good ' Their petition was in the main moderate and reasonable. First and foremost they demanded that there should be no more enclosures. Heavy feudal dues shifted from lord to tenant, the creation of new copyholds, the increase of customary rents by arbitrary fines were other subjects of complaint. In the appeal for the enfranchisement of all bondmen we see the growing consciousness of the value of individual liberty. The multiplication of pigeon-houses and the ravages of the lord's rabbits were vital matters to the small holder. And besides these purely social and economic troubles the commons complained of scandalous, inefficient, and non-resident clergy, and protested against excessive tithes. Harl. MS. 304, fol. 75. ' Russell, Kelt's Rebellion in Norf. 25. ' Nevylle, De Furoribus, Norf. Ketto Duce, 28. ' Russell, op. cit. 25.
- Ibid. 27. * Ibid. ' Nevylle, op. cit. 21.
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