ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



An Act for the dissolution of chantries, hospitals and free chapels was 

 passed in 1545 ;^ but provision only being made in this Act for the surrender 

 of these foundations to Henry VIII, a new Act^ was passed in 1548, after 

 Henry's death, in much the same terms but omitting hospitals. This Act 

 gave to the crown all colleges, free chapels, and chantries existing within the 

 last five years, with all their lands and rents. All endowments for obits or 

 anniversaries, and the property of all gilds and brotherhoods went in the 

 universal confiscation. The Acts of the Privy Council^ record that 



the Lower House did not only reason and argue against that article made for the guyldable 

 lands, but also incensed many others to hold with them, amongst the which none were 

 stifFer nor more busyly went about to impugne the said article than the burgesses for the 

 town of Lynne in the county of Norfolk. 



Though there is little ground for finding in Ket's Rebellion of 1549 any 

 sympathy with the old forms of the church, and though in his petition the 

 only demands of a religious nature made are those for clerical residence and 

 diligence in teaching, the rising was the direct outcome of this series of 

 suppressions and confiscations. A certain religious aspect was given to the 

 assembly on Mousehold Heath, by the presence of a chaplain, the vicar, 

 Thomas Conyers, who daily said prayers ; and Dr. Matthew Parker (later the 

 archbishop), a Norfolk man, preached to the rebels.* Though Robert Ket 

 is described as a tanner, he held the manor of Wymondham from John Dudley, 

 earl of Warwick. The parish church of Wymondham was the nave of the 

 priory church, and after the dissolution, the men of Wymondham bought 

 from the crown the choir and other parts of the monastic building. The 

 immediate cause of the outbreak was the action of the royal grantee, John 

 Flowerdew of Hethersett, who, in spite of this purchase, stripped the lead 

 from the roofs and carried away the bells. The Kets, as the chief people 

 in the place, resented this, as well as the harsh conduct of the new landlords 

 in the enclosure of common lands, and a riot at Wymondham, in which the 

 fences of Flowerdew and Ket were both torn down, started the movement. 

 After the duke of Warwick had finally reduced the insurrection, Robert Ket 

 was executed at Norwich, 7 December, 1549, but his brother William was 

 sent to Wymondham, and hanged from the church tower. 



The changes in doctrine and ritual were many and violent in the short 

 reign of Edward VI ; and his officials seem to have found it impossible to 

 cope with the amount of church property to be disposed of in Norfolk ; 

 there was probably much embezzlement of church plate and valuables, partly 

 by the churchwardens and partly by other parishioners, who must have felt 

 that they were after all annexing what was their own, and not the king's. 

 The injunctions for the removal of such images as led to superstition seems to 

 have been interpreted in a manner which led to a great loss of beautiful 

 objects, and much destruction of stained glass. 



The Inventories of Church Goods and Ornaments for Norfolk in 

 6 Edward VI, at the Public Record Office furnish very sorrowful reading. 

 List after list of valuable embroideries and plate ends with the direction ' to 

 be occupied and used in the administration of Divine Service the sayd ij 

 chales and ij bells,' or even in one case with ' the chales weying xiij onces, & 



' Stephens, Hist, of the Engl. Ch. iv, 231. ' Ibid. 250. 



' Vol. ii, 193, 6 May, 1548. * Fuller, Ch. Hist, iv, 43. 



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