Kett's Rebellion - Mousehold Camp

Mousehold Camp

Kett and his followers camped for the night of 9 July at Bowthorpe, just west of Norwich. Here they were approached by the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, Sir Edmund Wyndham, who ordered them to disperse. The response was negative, and the sheriff retreated back to Norwich. Next the rebels were visited by the mayor of Norwich, Thomas Codd, who met a similar response. The following night the rebels camped at nearby Eaton Wood and then, having been refused permission to march through Norwich to reach Mousehold Heath north-east of the city, crossed the River Wensum at Hellesdon and spent the night at Drayton. On Friday 12 July the rebels reached Mousehold, where they had a vantage point overlooking Norwich, and set up the camp that was their base for the next six and a half weeks. The camp was the largest of several rebel camps that had appeared in East Anglia that summer. The rebels were known at the time as the "camp men" and the rebellion as the "camping tyme" or "commotion tyme".

Kett set up his headquarters in St Michael's Chapel, the ruins of which have since been known as Kett's Castle. Mount Surrey, a house built by the Earl of Surrey on the site of the despoiled St Leonard's Priory, had lain empty since the Earl's execution in 1547 and was used to hold Kett's prisoners. Kett's council, which consisted of representatives from the Hundreds of Norfolk and one representative from Suffolk met under the Oak of Reformation to administer the camp, issuing warrants to obtain provisions and arms and arrest members of the gentry. According to one source the Oak of Reformation was cut down by Norwich City Council in the 1960s to make way for a car park, although Reg Groves wrote in the 1940s that had already been destroyed. The camp was joined by workers and artisans from Norwich, and by people from the surrounding towns and villages, until it was larger than Norwich, at that time the second-largest city in England with a population of about 12,000. The city authorities, having sent messengers to London, remained in negotiation with the rebels and Mayor Thomas Codd, former Mayor Thomas Aldrich and preacher Robert Watson accepted the rebels' invitation to take part in their council.

Once the camp was established at Mousehold the rebels drew up a list of 29 grievances, signed by Kett, Codd, Aldrich and the representatives of the Hundreds, and sent it to Protector Somerset. The grievances have been described by one historian as a shopping-list of demands but which nevertheless have a strong logic underlying them, articulating "a desire to limit the power of the gentry, exclude them from the world of the village, constrain rapid economic change, prevent the overexploitation of communal resources, and remodel the values of the clergy". Although the rebels were all the while tearing down hedges and filling in ditches, only one of the 29 articles mentioned enclosure: "We pray your grace that where it is enacted for inclosyng that it be not hurtfull to suche as have enclosed saffren grounds for they be gretly chargeablye to them, and that from hensforth noman shall enclose any more". The exemption for saffron grounds has puzzled historians; one has suggested that it may have been a scribal error for "sovereign grounds", grounds that were the exclusive freehold property of their owners, while others have commented on the importance of saffron to local industry. The rebels also "pray that all bonde men may be made ffre for god made all ffre with his precious blode sheddyng." The rebels may have been articulating a grievance against the 1547 Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds, which made it legal to enslave a discharged servant who did not find a new master within three days, though they may also have been calling for the manumission of the thousands of Englishmen and women who were serfs. (In 1549, an Act Touching on the Punishment of Vagabonds and Other Idle Persons avoided the word "slave" but retained many of the harshest provisions of the 1547 Act.)

The truce between the city and the camp was ended on 21 July by a messenger from the King's Council, York Herald Bartholomew Butler, who arrived at Norwich from London, went with city officials to Mousehold, proclaimed the gathering a rebellion, and offered pardon. Kett rejected the offer, saying he had no need of a pardon because he had committed no treason. York Herald lacked the forces to arrest the rebels and retreated into Norwich with the Mayor. Kett and his followers were now officially rebels; the authorities therefore shut the city gates and set about preparing the city defences.