POLITICAL HISTORY 



Nayland, Bildcston, Rattlesden, and elsewhere, that it would have been hard for 

 anyone to speak an unfitting word without being seized and sent to him. Sir 

 Thomas Jermyn, under-steward to the duke at Bury, and Sir William Drury 

 and John Spryng, stewards of the liberty of St. Etheldreda, 1 rode with him 

 through the country, and 1,400 or 1,500 tall Suffolk men were ready at an 

 hour's warning. Out of the liberty of Bury alone were 1,000 more men 

 only waiting for harness. Lord Wentworth was to remain to govern the 

 county with Sir Humphrey Wingfield, Sir Thomas Russhe, Sir John 

 Jernyngham, ' a man of good estimation,' to assist him towards the coasts, and 

 about Bury, the abbot. 2 Thanks to the duke's firm not to say rough hand- 

 ling, Suffolk, denuded of her tall men, for the moment was saved from open 

 rebellion ; but through the year individuals continued to be indicted for 

 treasonable utterances, and plays, prophecies, and songs touching the king's 

 honour were common. 3 One mysterious individual who had played too suc- 

 cessfully the part of Husbandry in one of the plays was sought for but 

 not to be found. No games, no assemblies of the people were allowed, and 

 Suffolk reported all quiet. It was the quiet of hopeless regret, for it was 

 now firmly believed through the county that if they had only risen and 

 joined with Lincolnshire and Yorkshire they would have ' gone through the 

 realm.' They were in consequence irritable and inconstant and not in a mood 

 for the levying of the subsidy in 1538,* so that Norfolk advised great firm- 

 ness and the money to be assessed at the quarter sessions by the magistrates. 

 A rumour got about that all unmarked cattle were to be confiscated to the king. 

 Unhappy experience had taught that the flagrant injustice of the order did not 

 show its impossibility, and an unknown rascal in a green coat and riding a 

 fair white gelding was held responsible for the report. 5 Vagabonds were 

 tiumerous, and were ordered out of the county, but as the same measure was 

 in practice in every other county it is not wonderful that their number 

 remained undiminished. Priests and curates were by no means reconciled 

 to the Act of Supremacy, and read so confusedly ' hemming and hacking the 

 Word of God and such injunctions as we have lately set forth ' that no man 

 could understand the true meaning thereof. Such clergymen, with vagabonds, 

 valiant beggars, and readers of the mass of Thomas a Becket, were to be swept 

 up and imprisoned without bail. 



This year (1539) the military force of the county was reorganised, with 

 a view not only to defence but for the advancement of justice and the mainte- 

 nance of the commonwealth. When he had pardoned the poor souls in the 

 Suffolk riots Henry had remarked that it was in his power to cut them to 

 pieces by the sword with their wives and children, and this ' ordering of the 

 Manrede ' was conceived in the same spirit. It was a kind of police 

 and militia system. The king was to appoint four, five, or six men in every 



1 L. and P. Hen. Vlll. ix, No. 642. 



1 The following were commanded to turn out and serve the king's own person L. and P. Hen. Vlll : 

 Sir Charles Willoughby with 100 men ; Sir George Somerset of Badrnundisfield with 40 men ; Sir Arthur 

 Hopton of Westwood with 100 men, served with Suffolk ; Sir Anthony Wingfield of Letheringham with 100 

 men, served with Suffolk ; Sir Thomas Russhe of Chapmans with 60 men ; Sir John Jernyngham of Somerleyton 

 with 30 men ; Sir William Drury of Halsted with 100 men ; Sir Thomas Jermyn of Rushbrooke with loo 

 men ; John Spryng of Lavenham with 60 men ; George Coke of Long Melford with 50 men ; Richard 

 Cavendish of Girminston (f) with 30 men. 



3 L. and P. Hen. nil. xii (i), Nos. 424 and 1 284. 4 Ibid, xii (i), No. 32. 



5 Ibid, xiii (ii), No. 52. 



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