Two days later (23 July) the king himself left Greenwich and rode through the city to Westminster,[pg 432] accompanied by the Lord Protector and other nobles. The mayor and aldermen rode out to Southwark, the former in a gown of crimson velvet, the latter in gowns of scarlet, to meet the royal party, and conducted it as far as Charing Cross, where the aldermen took their leave, the king saluting them and "putting of his capp to everie of them." The mayor rode on to Westminster, where the king and the Protector graciously bade him farewell.[1301]
Ket's rebellion in Norfolk. 1549.
The aspect of affairs began to look black indeed. By the end of the month Exeter was being besieged by the rebels, and on the 8th August the French ambassador, taking advantage of the general distraction, bade the Lord Protector open defiance at Whitehall.[1302] At midnight instructions were sent to the mayor to seize all Frenchmen in the city who were not denizens, together with their property. By this time, however, Exeter had been relieved and the insurrection in the west had been put down. The western insurgents had demanded the restoration of the mass and the abolition of the English liturgy. Contemporaneously with this religious movement another agitation was being made in the eastern counties, and more especially in Norfolk, which had for its object the destruction of enclosures. With the eastern rebels, who placed themselves under the leadership of Robert Ket, a tanner of Wymondham, the Protector himself sympathized at heart, and the council had to exercise no little pressure before he could be induced to send an efficient force to put them down. At length the rebels were met and defeated[pg 433] by a force under the command of the Earl of Warwick, the son of the extortionate Dudley who was associated with Empson in oppressing the city towards the close of the reign of Henry VII. Ket galloped off the field, leaving his followers to be ridden down and killed by the earl's horsemen. He was shortly afterwards captured in a barn, and eventually brought up to London, together with his brother William, and committed to the Tower. Being arraigned and convicted of treason, they were handed over to the high sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. Robert was hanged in chains on the top of Norwich Castle, whilst his brother William suffered a similar fate on the top of Wymondham Steeple.[1303]
The fall of Somerset, 1549.
Somerset's fall was now imminent. The citizens hated him, not for his favouring the reformers, but for the injury he had caused to trade and for his having bebased the coinage still further than it had been debased by Henry VIII. His colleagues in the council, who had been pampered with gifts of church lands, were angry with him for the favour he had shown towards those who raised the outcry against enclosures, and they began to show their independence.
Letter from lords of the council to the City accusing the Protector, 6 Oct.
On the afternoon of Sunday, the 6th October, 1549, a letter was sent to the mayor subscribed by Lord St. John, the president of the council, the earls of Warwick, Southampton and Arundel, and other members of the council, containing a long indictment of the Protector's policy and conduct. He was proud, covetous and ambitious. He had embezzled the pay of the soldiers, with which he was building sumptuous[pg 434] houses in four or five different places. Whilst sowing discord among the nobles, he flattered the commons to the intent that, having got rid of the former, he might with the aid of the latter achieve his scarcely veiled design of supplanting the king himself. They had hoped, the letter continues, to have persuaded the duke by fair means to take order for the security of the king's person and the commonwealth; but no sooner was the matter broached to the duke than he showed himself determined to appeal to the arbitrament of the sword. Such being the case, they on their part were no less resolved, with God's help, to deliver the king and the realm from impending ruin, or perish in the attempt. They concluded by asking the civic authorities to see that good watch and ward were kept in the city and that no matériel of war was supplied to the duke or his followers. Any letters or proclamations coming from the Protector were to be disregarded.[1304]
Letter from Somerset to the mayor, 6 Oct., 1549.
Determined not to be forestalled by his enemies; the duke himself wrote the same day (6 Oct.) to the mayor desiring the City to furnish him forthwith with 1,000 trusty men fully armed for the protection of the king's person. The men were to be forwarded to him at Hampton by the following Monday mid-day at the latest, and in the meantime the citizens were to take steps to protect the king and his uncle, the duke, against conspiracy.[1305]
Conference between the lords and the City at Ely Place, 6 Oct., 1549.