oded over many parts of England, was to pass penal legislation for
the homeless and workless--so that it seemed to many that Government had
got rid of Papal authority only to bring back slavery. The agrarian misery,
the violent changes in the order of church services and social customs, the
confiscation of the funds of the guilds, and the wanton spoiling of the
parish churches[46]--all these things drove the people to revolt.

Early in 1549 the men of Devon and Cornwall took up arms for "the old
religion," and were hanged by scores. In Norfolk that same year the rising
under Ket was social, and unconcerned with religion. Lesser agrarian
disturbances took place in Somerset, Lincoln, Essex, Kent, Oxford, Wilts,
and Buckingham. But there was no cohesion amongst the insurgents, and no
organisation of the peasants such as England had seen under John Ball and
his companion in 1381.

In 1548 Somerset, the Lord Protector, made an honest attempt to check the
rapacity of the landowners, but his proclamation and royal commission were
no more successful than Wolsey's had been, and only earned for the
Protector the hatred of the landowners.

The Norfolk Rising was the one strong movement to turn the current that was
sweeping the peasants into destitution. It failed, as all popular
insurrection in England has failed, and it brought its leaders to the
gallows; but for six weeks hope lifted its head in the rebel camp outside
Norwich, and many believed that oppression and misery were to end.

The rising began at Attleborough, on June 20th, when the people pulled down
the fences and hedges set up round the common fields. On July 7th, at the
annual feast in honour of St. Thomas of Canterbury, at Wymondham, a mighty
concourse of people broke down the fences at Hetherset, and then appealed
to Robert Ket and his brother to help them.

Both the Kets were well-known locally. They were men of old family,
craftsmen, and landowners. Robert was a tanner by trade, William a butcher.
Three manors--valued at 1,000 marks, with a yearly income of L50--belonged
to Robert Ket: church lands mostly, leased from the Earl of Warwick.

Ket saw that only under leadership and guidance could the revolt become a
revolution, and he threw himself into the cause of his poorer neighbours
with whole-hearted fervour. "I am ready," he said, "and will be ready at
all times to do whatever, not only to repress, but to subdue the power of
great men. Whatsoever lands I h