A Journey Through Tudor England (31 page)

Kett was a wealthy yeoman, who owned land and a profitable tanning business, and was thus an unlikely rebel. But he quickly
persuaded the crowd not to target him, but instead to adopt him and his brother William as their leaders. Kett led the crowd to congregate at the oak, and on 9 July, they set off for Norwich, liberating enclosures, capturing gentlemen and amassing support along the way. By the time they reached the city, the mob numbered at least 8,000 men strong (some said as many as 20,000). The rebels set up camp on Mousehold Heath (an expanse of common land to the east of the city that still exists), with Kett himself occupying the former palace of the Earl of Surrey.

Establishing a council under another tree, dubbed the Oak of Reformation, Kett’s rebels drew up a list of their grievances that they sent to Protector Somerset, Edward VI’s regent. A royal herald was sent back granting a pardon for those who would disband. Refusing to believe he had done anything requiring pardon, Kett turned it down. Consequently, he and his followers were officially branded traitors. That being the case, they decided to launch a dramatic armed attack on the city of Norwich.

They were, at first, remarkably successful. The rebel fire trounced the city’s retaliations, and they managed to seize the municipal artillery. When the Crown sent a small force of 1,500 men under Sir William Parr, Marquess of Northampton (brother to the late Kateryn Parr) in late July, the rebels were able to overwhelm them in the resultant clashes. Northampton’s right-hand man, Lord Sheffield, was killed in battle by a butcher called Fulke, and the royal forces fled in dismay. The rebels captured more artillery, took control of the city and terrorised the gentry.

By mid-August, the King’s Council redoubled their efforts and assembled an impressive force of at least 6,000 footmen and 1,500 cavalry, led by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick. On arrival at Norwich in late August, and after failed peace negotiations with Kett, Warwick forced his way into the city. For the next three days and nights, battle raged through the narrow lanes of Norwich. In
the city, where cavalry and artillery could not easily be deployed, the rebels, with their local knowledge of the crooked, warren-like streets, held the advantage.

But on 26 August, Warwick received back-up. One thousand foreign mercenaries cut off the rebels’ supply lines into the countryside, and Kett and his army were forced to move from Mousehold Heath down towards the valley of Dussindale. The next day, the two sides engaged in a vicious pitched battle. Each bombarded the other with arrow fire and gunshot. While the rebels had the benefit of numbers, the royal forces had cavalry and, by sunset, the rebel ranks had been broken. Kett fled, but was captured the next day. It is not known how many died (accounts vary from 1,000 to 10,000 dead), but all agreed that the losses were horrifying.

For the next ten days, Warwick remained in Norwich, exacting his retribution. Under martial law, he authorised the executions of at least 300 rebels: in one area, at the Magdalen gates (which were where Magdalen Street meets Magpie Road today) thirty rebels were hanged, drawn and quartered on just one day.

Kett and his brother were interrogated in Norwich Castle, transported to London to stand trial in November and convicted of high treason, before being taken back to Norfolk to receive punishment of the most awful kind. On 7 December, William Kett was hanged from Wymondham Abbey’s West Tower, while Robert was hanged in chains — in the gibbet irons over several days — from Norwich Castle.

The town sign of Wymondham depicts Kett, while everything in the town, from schools to garden centres, bears his name. Kett is, appropriately, commemorated by a plaque on the former Becket Chapel (once owned by the abbey and now Wymondham Arts Centre), next door to the fifteenth-century Green Dragon Inn, which Kett and his rebels would have known.

‘For the King’s Candle before Our Lady of Walsingham, and to the Prior there for his salary, NIL.’

W
alsingham is a small, peaceful, rural village in north Norfolk that was once home to the most important shrine to the Virgin Mary in Britain, and that still attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to walk in the footsteps of medieval and Tudor monarchs on pilgrimage.

Legend has it that in the mid-eleventh century Richeldis de Faverches had a vision of the Virgin Mary, who asked her to build a replica of the Holy House at Nazareth in Norfolk, which she did. In 1153, her son, Geoffrey, founded an Augustinian priory next door. The Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham was associated with many miracles of healing; the relic that was held in highest regard was the ‘Milk of Our Lady’, preserved in a vial on the High Altar.

Nothing today remains of the original shrine, but its place can be seen in the grounds of the abbey (accessed through Shirehall Museum), along with the Priory Gatehouse, magnificent fourteenth-century Great East Window, refectory, undercroft and twin
wells. These peaceful grounds, with their carpet of snowdrops at the beginning of spring, still have a tangible sense of awe and holiness. Walsingham also has the ruins of a Franciscan friary, a sixteenth-century octagonal pump house (which would have been the main water supply for the village) in the main square, many medieval and sixteenth-century timber-framed buildings and two modern shrines: a neo-Italianate Anglican shrine in town and a Roman Catholic shrine at the Slipper Chapel. The Slipper Chapel was built in 1325, and was a place where pilgrims would stop, say Mass and remove their shoes to walk barefoot for the last mile of their pilgrimage.

The height of Walsingham’s fame came in Tudor times when it was common currency in moments of distress for people to call on ‘Our Lady of Walsingham’ for help and comfort, vowing to go on pilgrimage to see her if the danger passed.

Nor was Walsingham just for common people. Henry VII went on pilgrimage to Walsingham three times between 1486 and 1505. On his last visit, he took his son and heir, Henry, with him, marking the first visit of the man who would bring Walsingham to its tragic end. Henry VII even remembered Walsingham in his will, commissioning an image of himself kneeling, cast in silver gilt, to be given to the Lady Chapel at Walsingham. Henry VIII also made many generous payments and donations to Walsingham. In 1511, he donated a rich collar of rubies and £1 3s 4d to Walsingham, and contributed £20 for glazing the windows in the Lady Chapel. He also later made annual payments for a singing priest and the King’s Candle.

Walsingham was an obvious place to go to mark victory and success. Henry VIII’s first pilgrimage to Walsingham as king was made on 19 January 1511 to celebrate and give thanks for the birth of his son Henry (sadly the baby died at just seven weeks of age). Katherine of Aragon visited Walsingham to rejoice after the
victorious battle of Flodden Field in 1513, and the shrine evidently remained in her affections as, in her will, she left a bequest to enable someone else to go to Walsingham on pilgrimage. Cardinal Wolsey, too, went on pilgrimage to Walsingham in 1517 having survived the sweating sickness, in order to thank the Virgin Mary and in the hope that she would ‘correct the weakness of his stomach’.

Like all other abbeys and shrines, Walsingham suffered at Henry VIII’s hands during the dissolution (see F
OUNTAINS
A
BBEY
and H
AILES
A
BBEY
), when the famous image of the Virgin Mary was taken to London to be burned. It was a great blow to English spirituality: who should one call on for help in times of trouble? Who praise in moments of victory?

Henry VIII’s expenditure accounts sum it up most poignantly: ‘September 29, 1538, For the King’s Candle before Our Lady of Walsingham, and to the Prior there for his salary, NIL.’

‘Nature never formed anything more beautiful and she exceeds no less in goodness and wisdom.’

Erasmus’s description of Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII

I
n the lovely town of Bury St Edmunds, at the corner of the precinct of the ruined medieval abbey, is the impressively large parish church that is the final resting place of Princess Mary Tudor, Queen of France, Duchess of Suffolk and Henry VIII’s younger sister.

It is certainly a beautiful and peaceful place. Of particular note are the ceilings, which Mary would have known and which are a striking example of late medieval art. The hammer-beam ceiling with its carved angels, dating from around 1445, is impressive, but the red, gold and blue chancel ceiling, and the lozenged ceiling of John Baret’s Chapel with its gold and mirrored stars that twinkle in the light, invite wonderment.

Mary’s tomb lies in a quiet spot at the far eastern end of the church next to the altar. It seems an unassuming, even ignoble, grave for a woman who was daughter of a king, sister of a king, wife of a king and grandmother to a queen.

Mary was born to Henry VII and Elizabeth of York on 18 March 1496, their third daughter and fifth child of eight. Only four out of the couple’s eight children lived beyond infancy, and when Mary was just six, one of her remaining brothers, Arthur, and her mother died within a few months of each other. Soon after, her sister, Margaret, left for Scotland to marry James IV. Mary must surely have been traumatised by the loss, and we know that she became close to her only surviving brother, Henry.

A princess of marriageable age was a precious commodity. In Mary’s case, this was exaggerated by her great charm, graceful poise and exceptional good looks (an Italian observer described her as ‘a nymph from heaven’). When she was eleven years old, terms were agreed for a marriage between the young princess and the son of Philip the Handsome, Prince Charles of Castile. The betrothal took place in December 1508 by proxy, with the Sieur de Berghes standing in for Mary’s eight-year-old groom-to-be. Although Charles and Mary never met during their engagement, there was childish romance: he sent her a pendant of diamonds and pearls inscribed, ‘Mary has chosen the best part, no one shall take it from her.’

After Philip the Handsome’s death, Henry VIII renewed the treaty for Mary’s engagement with Charles’s grandfather, the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian. It stipulated that the wedding should take place before 15 May 1514. As the date approached, Mary’s trousseau was prepared, including four coffers full of gold and silver plate. But Maximilian was considering other brides for his heir and the date passed. So, under instruction, on 30 July, Mary formally repudiated the marriage contract. A week later, ever obedient to the political concerns of her brother (and perhaps mindful of her motto, ‘The will of God suffices me’), the beautiful eighteen-year-old princess promised to marry the feeble and pockmarked fifty-two-year-old King of France, Louis XII.

They were married by proxy on 18 August, with the Duc de Longueville representing Louis. The ceremony even went so far as to symbolise the consummation by the Duc pressing his bare leg against Mary as the couple laid side by side in bed, fully dressed. A second wedding took place in October once Mary had travelled to France, with both Louis and Mary dressed in gold brocade trimmed with ermine. Mary was then crowned Queen of France in the Abbey of St Denis on 5 November, before entering Paris the next day in a long and extravagant procession. The celebrations were followed by days of festivities, including jousting, at which a visiting Englishman, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, excelled: a fact which did not go unnoticed by the young bride.

Louis was very proud of his young wife, and even gave her the famous ‘Mirror of Naples’: a pendant with a diamond ‘as big as a person’s finger’ and a pearl beneath that was ‘the size of a pigeon’s egg’. He wrote to Henry VIII on 20 December to say how delighted he was with his marriage. However, as contemporary commentators had feared, the union did not agree with his health. After less than three months of marriage to his energetic young bride, Louis died on 1 January 1515.

In accordance with French tradition, the widowed Mary, dressed in white robes, remained in a swathed room for forty days (earning her the title ‘the White Queen’). The next in line to the throne, Louis XII’s cousin and son-in-law Francis I, could not be crowned as king until it had become clear that she had not conceived a son (in sixteenth-century France, women were not allowed to inherit the throne).