The Rebellion That Started Because a Lawyer Paid a Bribe
Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the TudorsShow Notes
In July 1549, a crowd in Norfolk showed up to tear down Robert Kett's fences. Instead of stopping them, he agreed with them, helped pull down his own hedges, and led them to Norwich. What followed was seven weeks of about 16,000 people running the county from a camp on Mousehold Heath, with a court, a supply system and a signed list of demands. It ended at the Battle of Dussindale on 27 August 1549.This one has been on my list for seventeen years and I somehow never made it. Fixing that today.
Related video on Tudor Vagrancy laws that I mentioned:
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More from Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the Tudors
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This summer I travelled around the south of England staying in historic inns, and stop number three was the White Horse in Dorking, Surrey. There's been a building on this spot since at least 1278, when it belonged to the Knights Hospitaller, and it later became one of the big coaching inns on the road from London to Horsham.
Henry VIII didn't dismantle the Church in England. He took it over, one step at a time, and the plan looks an awful lot like a hostile corporate takeover. Squeeze the leadership, take the board, cut off Rome, audit everything, find some dirt, close the small houses first, and then come for the big ones.
By All Saints' Day in Tudor London, the sun was down by quarter past four. In the final episode of our autumn series, we find out how the Tudors got ready for the long dark, in their bodies, in their homes, and in their hearts.
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