At the end of July came William Parr, Marquis of Northampton, with 1,500 soldiers, mostly Italian mercenaries, and a number of country squires with their retainers, to put down the rising. Steward at once admitted him to the city; but Northampton—Henry VIII.’s brother-in-law—was neither a soldier nor statesman, and after two days’ hard fighting he fled from Norwich, utterly defeated.
Ket’s men were badly armed, but they had numbers on their side, and they fought for freedom and for very life. They swam the river, as before, and forced an entrance. “Half dead, drowned in their own and other men’s blood, they would not give over; but till the last gasp, when their hands could scarce hold their weapons, would strike at their adversaries.”
Lord Sheffield fell in the fight on August 1st, killed by a stalwart rebel—one Fulke, a butcher and carpenter by trade—and some hundred of Ket’s men lay dead. The city suffered. Several houses and city gates were fired, and only a heavy rain prevented the flames from spreading. (This same rain drove many of the rebels to take refuge in the cathedral, much to the annoyance of the dean and chapter.)
And now for three weeks Ket had to take charge of Norwich as well as of Mousehold camp, for it was impossible to trust Steward. Many of the wealthier townsmen hastened away to Cambridge and London, leaving their wives and families behind. Trade was at an end.
The state of the city began to be in most miserable case, so that all men looked for utter destruction, both of life and goods. Then the remnant that feared God, seeing the plague thus of sorrow increasing, fell to prayer and holy life, and wished but to see the day that after they might talk thereover, looking never to recover help again, nor to see their city prosper.
The women resorted twice a day to prayer, and the servants (except what must needs stay at home) did the same. When Ket’s ambassadors were sent to any private house they were fain to bake or brew or do any work for the camp, else they were carried as traitors to the Oak. As for trading, there was none in the city, people being forced to hide up their choicest goods, and happy were they that had the faithfullest servants.
They that did keep open their shops were robbed and spoiled, and their goods were measured by the arm’s length and dispersed among the rebels; their children they set away for fear of fire. I, the writer (who was then above twenty-two years of age, and an eye-witness) was present after prayer during this dolorous state, when people met and bewailed the miserable state they were in. (Sutherton.)
But for all their misery the tradesmen of Norwich were in no fear for their lives. The city had done its best to thwart the rising, but Ket treated it generously, allowing neither pillage nor bloodshed—though he did not scruple to take what goods were necessary for his army.[102] It was beyond the power of man to prevent all thieving during those first few weeks of August, for the civic magistracy was gone, and Ket had large responsibilities on his hands.
The hope that the rising would become general turned to disappointment in the weeks that passed after the flight of Northampton. In Suffolk a number of men rose at Ket’s call, and made an unsuccessful attempt to take Yarmouth. A small camp set up at Rising Chase was dispersed, but for a fortnight the peasants gathered at Watton, and stopped the passages of the river at Thetford and Brandon Ferry. For want of leadership they then came on to Mousehold. At Hingham a rising was put down by Sir Edmund Knyvett. And while Ket waited, hoping against hope for better news, the fugitive citizens from Norwich had already persuaded Somerset to send down an army to crush the revolt.
On August 21st the Earl of Warwick, with 14,000 troops, reached Cambridge, and three days later was at Norwich.