Part 7 (1/2)

But though the method was revolution and the goal social democracy, Ket was no anarchist. He proved himself a strong, capable leader, able to enforce discipline and maintain law and order in the rebel camp. And with all his pa.s.sionate hatred against the rule of the landlord, Ket would allow neither ma.s.sacre nor murder. There is no evidence that the life of a single landowner was taken while the rising lasted, though many were brought captive to Ket's judgment seat.

Ket was equally averse from civil war between the citizens of Norwich and the peasants. When the Mayor of Norwich, Thomas Cod, refused to allow Ket's army to cross the city on its way to Mousehold Heath, where the permanent camp was to be made, Ket simply led his forces round by Hailsdon and Drayton, and so reached Mousehold on July 12th without bloodshed. A week later, and 20,000 was the number enrolled under the banner of revolt--for the publication of ”The Rebels' Complaint” and the ringing of bells and firing of beacons roused all the countryside to action.

On Mousehold Heath, Robert Ket, with his brother William, gave directions and administered justice under a great tree, called the Oak of Reformation.

Mayor Cod, and two other respected Norwich citizens, Aldrich, an alderman, and Watson, a preacher, joined Ket's council, thinking their influence might restrain the rebels from worse doings.

Twenty-nine ”Requests and Demands,” signed by Ket, Cod, and Aldrich, were dispatched to the King from Mousehold, and this doc.u.ment gave in full the grievances of the rebels. The chief demands were the cessation of enclosures, the enactment of fair rents, the restoration of common fis.h.i.+ng rights, the appointment of resident clergymen to preach and instruct the children, and the free election or appointment of local ”commissioners” for the enforcement of the laws. There was also a request ”that all bond men may be made free, for G.o.d made all free with His precious bloodshedding.”

The only answer to the ”Requests and Demands” was the arrival of a herald with a promise that Parliament would meet in October to consider the grievances, if the people would in the meantime quietly return to their homes.

But this Ket would by no means agree to, and for the next few weeks his authority was supreme in that part of the country. He established a rough const.i.tution for the prevention of mere disorder, two men being chosen by their fellows from the various hundreds of the eastern half of the county.

A royal messenger, bearing commissions of the peace to certain country gentlemen, falling into the hands of Ket, was relieved of his doc.u.ments and dismissed. Ket then put in these commissions the names of men who had joined the rising, and declared them magistrates with authority to check all disobedience to orders.

To feed the army at Mousehold, men were sent out with a warrant from Ket for obtaining cattle and corn from the country houses, and ”to beware of robbing, spoiling, and other evil demeanours.” No violence or injury was to be done to ”any honest or poor man.” Contributions came in from the smaller yeomen ”with much private good-will,” but the landowners generally were stricken with panic, and let the rebels do what they liked. Those who could not escape by flight were, for the most part, brought captive to the Oak of Reformation, and thence sent to the prisons in Norwich and St. Leonard's Hill.

Relations between Ket and the Norwich authorities soon became strained to breaking point. Mayor Cod was shocked at the imprisonment of county gentlemen, and refused permission for Ket's troops to pa.s.s through the city on their foraging expeditions. Citizens and rebels were in conflict on July 21st, but ”for lack of powder and want of skill in the gunners” few lives were lost, and Norwich was in the hands of Ket the following day. No reprisals followed; but a week later came William Parr, Marquis of Northampton--Henry VIII.'s brother-in-law--with 1,500 Italian mercenaries and a body of country squires, to destroy the rebels. Northampton's forces were routed utterly, and Lord Sheffield was slain, and many houses and gates were burnt in the city.

Then for three weeks longer Robert Ket remained in power, still hoping against hope that some attention would be given by the Government to his ”Requests and Demands.” Protector Somerset, beset by his own difficulties, could do nothing for rebellious peasants, could not countenance in any way an armed revolt, however great the miseries that provoked insurrection.

The Earl of Warwick was dispatched with 14,000 troops to end the rebellion, and arrived on August 24th. For two days the issue seemed uncertain--half the city only was in Warwick's hands. The arrival of 1,400 mercenaries--”lanzknechts,” Germans mostly--and a fatal decision of the rebels to leave their vantage ground at Mousehold Heath and do battle in the open valley that stretched towards the city, gave complete victory to Warwick.

The peasants poured into the meadows beyond Magdalen and Pockthorpe gates, and were cut to pieces by the professional soldiers.

When all seemed over Ket galloped away to the north, but was taken, worn out, at the village of Swannington, eight miles from Norwich.

More than 400 peasants were hanged by Warwick's orders, and their bodies left to swing on Mousehold and in the city. Robert Ket and William Ket were sent to London, and after being tried and condemned for high treason, were returned to Norwich in December for execution. Robert Ket was hanged in chains from Norwich Castle, and William suffered in similar fas.h.i.+on from the parish church at Wymondham--to remind all people of the fate that befall those who venture, unsuccessfully, to take up arms against the government in power.

So the Norfolk Rising ended, and with it ended all serious popular insurrection in England. Riots and mob violence have been seen even to our own time, but no great, well-organised movement to overthrow authority and establish a social democracy by force of arms has been attempted since 1549.

The characters of Robert Ket and his brother have been vindicated by time, and the rebel leader is now recognised as a disinterested, capable, high-minded man. Ket took what seemed to him the only possible course to avert the doom of a ruined peasantry, and failed. But his courage and humaneness are beyond question.[47]

The enclosures did not end with the sixteenth century, and for another one hundred years complaints are heard of the steady depopulation of rural England. In the eighteenth century came the second great series of enclosures--the enclosing of the commons and waste s.p.a.ces, by Acts of Parliament. Between 1710 and 1867 no less than 7,660,439 acres were thus enclosed.

To-day the questions of land tenure and land owners.h.i.+p are conspicuous items in the discussion of the whole social question, for the relations of a people to its land are of very first importance in a democratic state.

CHAPTER IV

THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN

PARLIAMENT UNDER THE TUDORS

The English Parliament throughout the sixteenth century was but a servile instrument of the Crown. The great barons were dead. Henry VIII. put to death Sir Thomas More and all who questioned the royal absolutism.

Elizabeth, equally despotic, had by good fortune the services of the first generation of professional statesmen that England produced. These statesmen--Burleigh, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Walter Mildmay, Sir Thomas Smith, and Sir Francis Walsingham--all died in office. Burleigh was minister for forty years, Bacon and Mildmay for more than twenty, and Smith and Walsingham for eighteen years.[48]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR JOHN ELIOT]

Parliament was not only intimidated by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, its members.h.i.+p was recruited by nominees of the Crown.[49] And then it is also to be borne in mind that both Henry and Elizabeth made a point of getting Parliament to do their will. They governed through Parliament, and ruled triumphantly, for it is only in the later years of Elizabeth that any discontent is heard. The Stuarts, far less tyrannical, came to grief just because they never understood the importance of Parliament in the eyes of Englishmen in the middle ranks, and attempted to rule while ignoring the House of Commons.