Protector Somerset and the 1549 Rebellions: New Sources and New Perspectiv

English Historical Review

Volumn 114, Issue 455, 1999, Pages 34-63

  Shagan, Ethan H ^a  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 85190746594     PISSN: 00138266     EISSN: 14774534     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ehr/114.455.34     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Gilbert Burner, History of the Reformation of the Church of England (7 vols., Oxford, 1865), v. 284. All quotations in the main body of this article have been modernized to facilitate comprehension. The letters in the documentary appendix have been printed as they appear in the original manuscript, but with abbreviations expanded in brackets and superscripted letters set with the rest of the text.
2. r, calendared in C. S. Knighton (ed.), Qalendarof] SftateJ PfapersJ Domestic [ofthe Reign of] Edward VJ(i547—'SS}] (London, 1992), no. 356.
3. J. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials (3 vols. in 6, Oxford, 1822), II. ii. 429-37; quotations on pp. 432 and 430-1.
4. PRO, SP 10/8, fo.57' (CSP Domestic, Edward VI, no. 330).
5. Martin A. S. Hume etal. (ed.), Calendar ofLetters, Despatches, andState Papers, Relating to the Negotiation Between England and Spain (hereafter CSP Spanish) (13 vols. in 18, London, 1861-1954), 'x. 395
6. W. K. Jordan, Edward VI: The Young King (London, 1968). An important earlier version of this thesis is A. F. Pollard, England under Protector Somerset (London, 1900). The revisionists have not been entirely fair in their characterizations of Professor Jordan's position. While at times stressing Somerset's idealism, at other times Jordan criticized the Protector's 'recklessness in his use of power' and called the charges of collusion with the rebels 'no more than a crude propaganda piece, a thin and tawdry fabric with which to clothe conspiracy': Jordan, Edward VI: The Young King, p. 523.
7. C. S. L. Davies, 'Slavery and Protector Somerset: The Vagrancy Act of 1547', Economic History Review, 2nd ser., xix (1966), 533-49.
8. G. R. Elton, 'The Good Duke', in his Studies in Tudor andStuart Politics and Government (4 vols., Cambridge, 1974-92), i. 236.
9. M. L. Bush, The Government Policy of Protector Somerset (London, 1975); quotations from pp. 88, 91, 98 and 99.
10. v. They are not entirely new to modern scholars, having been noticed by Professor Barrett L. Beer in his Rebellion and Riot: Popular Disorder in Englandduring the Reign ofEdward VI (Kent State, Oh., 1982). Beer cited these letters eight times (pp. 108, 118, 118-19, 142 (twice), 146-7, 148, and 149-50) but used them only to extract nuggets of information about the conduct and beliefs of the rebels, not as evidence for the government's policy towards the risings. Moreover, Beer seems not to have been aware of their intrinsic importance, since he failed to indicate either the nature of the source or that it was previously unknown to scholars. The only other historian to have noticed the letters is Nicholas Tyacke in his 'Introduction: Re-thinking the 'English Reformation', in Tyacke (ed.), England's Long Reformation, pp. 13-14- Tyacke uses them only briefly in his discussion of the religious dimensions of the 1549 revolts. The letters are thus analysed in depth and reproduced here for the first time.
11. By 'popularity', I mean a conscious effort to appeal downward for support from those outside the political establishment, creating a power-base independent of either the court or local affinities. Such efforts would become increasingly common among aristocrats in the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods; one obvious example is the Earl of Essex's popularity with the citizens of London: see Mervyn James, Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 448-50.
12. BL, Add. MS 48018, retro of unnumbered folio just before fo.i.
13. 1), an example of Somerset's common practice of using the royal 'we', a practice which irritated many of his peers on the Privy Council: see Jordan, Edward VI: The Young King, P- 495
14. For analysis of the functioning of the Privy Council in this period, see Dale Hoak, The King's Council in the Reign of Edward VI (Cambridge, 1976). Hoak's analysis suggests that any letters issued in the name of the King or the council were heavily influenced by Somerset himself.
15. The one partial exception is that, while not acknowledging his source, John Hayward quoted extensively from Letter 1 in his The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixth (London, 1630), pp. 68-70. Hayward wrongly assumed that this letter reflected grievances received from Norfolk - an easy mistake to make without access to the letter to the Suffolk commons on the same day-so we may assume that he saw only Letter 1 and not Letter 5. It is unclear where he obtained a copy of this letter, but the fact that he did so provides useful confirmation that the letters in this manuscript are genuine.
16. P. L. Hughes and J. F. Larkin, (ed.), T[udor] R[oyal] Proclamations] (2 vols., New Haven, 1964-69), i. no. 334; S.T. Bindoff, Kett's Rebellion, 1549 (London, 1949), p. 5: Anthony Fletcher and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions (4di edn., London, 1997), p. 70.
17. Letter 4, £389". For the date of the beginning of the Oxfordshire risings sometime very close to 7 July, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven, 1996), pp. 430-1.
18. Kett's articles can be found in BL Harleian MS 304, fos.75-7, and have been printed in Fletcher and MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions, pp. 144-6. Fletcher and MacCulloch have numbered the articles for convenience, and their numbering system is adopted here.
19. v-39o'.
20. r. It is unclear whether this herald was ever sent. On 17 July, the Council wrote, 'As to your desire to send articles unto us of your griefs, when we shall have received them by this herald who expressly is sent unto you for them, the same being reasonable, we shall return such answer as shall be convenient.' This implies that the herald who was supposed to deliver Letter 2 was also supposed to receive the Norfolk commons' grievances. However, in Letter 1, written the following day, the Norfolk commons were told that although they had asked for a herald, the government preferred to 'avoid the delay of sending to and from' by simply responding to Suffolk grievances they had already received (Letter 1, fo^SST. There are three possible answers to this apparent contradiction. Either the herald was sent to Norfolk on 17 July but the government did not wait for his return before sending letters 1 and 5; or Letter 2 was rendered obsolete before it could be sent and thus never left Westminster; or the Norfolk commons in Letter 1 are a different set of Norfolk commons from those in Letter 2. The second of rJiese options seems least likely, since the official apparatus at the conclusion of Letter 2 implies that the copy Beale saw was not a draft.
21. For the altercation between Lee and Somerset, see the letter from Paget to Somerset dated 8 May 1549, printed in Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, II. ii. 248. In Strype's transcription, 'Lee' is wrongly transcribed as 'Alte', but this error is corrected in Barret L. Beer and Sybil M. Jacks (ed.), 'The Letters of William, Lord Paget of Beaudesert, 1547—1563', Camden Miscellany, xxv (1974), p. 33.
22. A particularly pertinent example of this strategy is John Hales's speech to the commons in 1548, in which he described what he claimed would be the effect of the enclosure commissioners' work: 'When other people that hate God and his Word should perceive that we that have professed God's word in the lips bring forth the fruit thereof, that is charity and mercy to our poor neighbors, they should no longer call us heretics, but should be forced to love and embrace God and his Word with us' (BL, Lansdowne MS 238, 63.323').
23. v).
24. Burnet, History of the Reformation, v.284.
25. r-i6'; STAC 3/1/76; and many others.
26. Calendar ofthe Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, Edward V7(6vols., London, 1924-9), ii. 27-9. This grant was itself an act of propaganda, containing a long preamble praising Protector Somerset for his military achievements against the Scots and for his humility in refusing many grants of land he had been offered.
27. A comparable gesture had been made as early as May 1548, when the Crown disparked the chase at Hampton Court in response to a petition from 'many poor men of the area'. Somerset also enacted private legislation to improve the security of tenure of his own tenants: see Bush, Government Policy, pp. 43-4,55-6.
28. Fletcher and MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions, p. 146 (article 27).
29. For a contemporary discussion of attempts to subvert the enclosure commissions, see John Hales's writings in BL, Lansdowne MS 238, fos.291-325.
30. r. These letters show that as late as 18 July, the government was as concerned with risings in Suffolk as in Norfolk. In fact, the government issued an elaborate response to grievances from Suffolk and then sent it to both Suffolk and Norfolk, rather than waiting for grievances from Kett and his company. This evidence provides a final confutation of Julian Cornwall's deeply misconceived attempt to downplay the significance of the Suffolk risings: see Julian Cornwall, 'Kett's Rebellion: A Comment', Past and Present, xciii (1981), 160-4.
31. MacCulloch and Fletcher, Tudor Rebellions, pp. 144-5.
32. The grievances concerning landed men's professions, multiple occupations, and clerical pluralism can be found variously reflected in Mousehold articles 29, 4, 12, 25, 26, 8 and 15. The grievance concerning pluralities of farms is not in the Mousehold articles.
33. Indeed, it is an anachronistic prejudice which leads us to conceive of'progressive' politics and arbitrary government as antithetical concepts. Somerset, like William Cecil after him, believed that in practice arbitrary rule could only be maintained through the consent of the governed, while the goal of such arbitrary rule was the 'freedom' offered by the liberation of the Gospel and the proper ministration of God's Word.
34. Examples of Somerset's campaign of self-representation are too numerous to catalogue. Some examples include: his erecting of lavish buildings; his patronizing of continental reformers such as Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli; his attempts to restructure the curricula of the universities; his support for the commissions for the redress of enclosures; and his enacting of regulations through propagandistic proclamations rather than parliamentary legislation.
35. For an excellent account of the tensions and hostility created by Somerset's policy among the landed elites of Kent, see J. D. Alsop, 'Latimer, the "Commonwealth of Kent" and the 1549 Rebellions', Historical Journal, xxviii (1985), 379—83.
36. J. S. Brewer et al. (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (22 vols. in 35, London, 1862-1932), XJX, i. nos.533, 762; no. 762; BL, Harleian MS 442, fo.197'.
37. For the significance of East Anglian support in Mary's 1553 coup d'etat, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Suffolk andthe Tudors: Politics and Religion in an English County, if00-1600 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 309-10.
38. I owe this observation to Peter Lake. The most succinct statement of the revisionist position in mid-Tudor religious history can be found in Christopher Haigh, English Reformations (Oxford, 1993)
39. Michael Bush, The Pilgrimage of Grace: A Study of the Rebel Armies of October i$}6 (Manchester, 1996), p. n.
40. v
41. r
42. PRO, E 163/16/14. This petition was discovered by Richard Hoyle, and I owe my knowledge of it to him, through the mediation of Diarmaid MacCulloch.
43. John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, ed. G. Townshend and S. R. Cattley (8 vols., London, 1837—41), viii. 121-30. While Foxe dates this petition to 1556, Nicholas Tyacke dates it to 1554: Tyacke, 'Introduction: Re-thinking the 'English Reformation', p. 21.
44. It is suspicious that the crisis in the Privy Council broke in thefirstweek of October, exactly the time when the Parliament was supposed to meet according to Somerset's revised schedule (Letter i, io.^ilT). While there are other reasonable explanations for the timing of the coup, Warwick and the other conspirators might have acted specifically in order to prevent the recalling of Parliament. I owe this observation to Diarmaid MacCulloch.
45. N. Pocock (ed.), Troubles Connected with the Prayer Book 0/1549 (Camden Soc, new ser., xxxvii, 1884), p. 76.
46. PRO, SP10/9, fo.ii' (CSP Domestic, Edward VI, no. 378). The word 'godly' is spelled here as it appears in the MS, but may have been intended as 'goodly'.
47. Another possibility is that as an experienced military leader Somerset was aware that an untrained force could have accomplished little against Warwick's army. We thus cannot discount the idea that it was practical considerations rather than ideology which prevented Somerset from transforming the Council's putsch into a civil war.
48. The nine letters reproduced here are number i to 9 in the margin of the original MS, being the first nine documents of the section entitled 'Messages and l[ett]res written to Rebelles in the time of warre and commocions'.
49. r, 176*, 416", etc.
50. The comparable passage in Letter 5 shows that the word 'teachinge' is a scribal error for 'touching'.
51. Thomas Gawdy was a Norfolk Justice of the Peace and was elected to Parliament from Lynn in 1547. He was also a prominent lawyer, with the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Oxford among his clients. He was probably a Protestant by 1549, although his position is somewhat ambiguous; he had vigorously opposed the Chantries Act in 1547, but by 1553 was counted among the MPs who 'stood for the true religion': S. T. Bindoff(ed.), The House ofCommons, i$op—i$$S (3 vols., London, 1982), ii. 199-201.
52. The Suffolk knight Sir Henry Doyle was assessed to furnish one light horse and one demilance for the King's army in July 1548, marking him as a wealthy gentleman but not unreasonably so by the standards of the county: CSP Domestic, Edward VI, no. 137.
53. One 'Thomas Parys of the Exchequer, gentleman' was granted a 'void plot of land' in London on 6 November 1548, but this may or may not be the same man: Calendar ofPatent Rolls, Edward VI, v.335-6.1 have been unable to identify any other references to 'Tho. Peres'.
54. William Rainsford, an Oxfordshire gentlemen, was wealthy enough to be asked to furnish one light horse and one demilance for the King's army in July 1548: CSP Domestic, Edward VI, no. 137. In August 1549 he was among a group of gentlemen charged with hanging rebels in Oxfordshire: ibid., no. 329.
55. It is unclear who this man is; it might be the John Thomas of London who was assessed at £200 in goods in 1548: ibid., no. 171).
56. This letter is undated, but almost certainly dates from early July, since on 10 July the Council reported to Lord Russell that the Hampshire rebels had 'not only confessed their faults with very lowly submission, but also for religion declared themselves': Pocock (ed.), Troubles Connected with the Prayer Book, p. 24.
57. It is possible that 'William Essex' is a representative pseudonym. None the less, one 'Essex' from the county of Essex was recommended for hanging on 18 September (misprinted August) 1549 by Darcy, based on evidence given by Essex's 'boy': CSP Domestic, Edward VI, no. 360.
58. Thomas Darcy and John Gates were both enclosure commissioners (see Bush, Government Policy, p. 47) and both were MPs for Essex in the 1547 parliament. Darcy was Somerset's cousin and occasional client, while Gates was to become one of Northumberland's leading advisers; both were active supporters of Jane Grey in 1553: Bindoff(ed.), The House of Commons, 1509-1558, ii. 14—16, 198-9