A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



Geoffrey or John le Litester, the nominal head of the rebelHon, till he is 

 killed at North Walsham), the insurgents met on Mousehold Heath, near 

 Norwich. They are then said to have sent a peremptory message to Sir 

 Robert Salle, the temporary keeper of Norwich, to come out and confer 

 with them, threatening to force the city if he did not. He is said to have 

 ridden out alone and, having scornfully refused the suggestion to turn traitor 

 and join the rebels, to have been killed near Magdalen Chapel on the verge 

 of the heath, while fighting on foot, after having slain twelve of his 

 opponents — all of which is told graphically by Froissart.^ The rebels then 

 entered and plundered the city, but only one man seems to have been 

 murdered, viz. Reginald de Eccles,' a justice of the peace, who was in the 

 abbot of Hulme's house at Heigham. They appear to have seized four 

 knights, de Scales, William de Morley, John de Brewes, and Stephen Hales, 

 who are said to have been forced by Lister to serve him on bended knee.* 



On the 1 8th they compelled the prioress of Carrow to give up certain 

 deeds and court rolls, which they burned, and on the same day proceeded to 

 Yarmouth and made the burgesses surrender their charter of liberties, which 

 they destroyed.* While there they murdered three Flemings, plundered 

 Fastolfs house at Caistor, burnt the court rolls of St. Benet's Abbey, which 

 were apparently given up without resistance. The Bromholm rolls were 

 also burned. By this time Spenser, the fighting bishop of Norwich, had 

 returned to his diocese, and was probably at St. Benet's Abbey, then a 

 fortified place. The rebels attacked it by night, but were beaten off, this 

 being their first check. ^ A ' Wat Tyler ' now appeared, this name being 

 probably assumed to encourage the rebels, and tried unsuccessfully to capture 

 John Holkam, 'Justice of our Lord and King' at Thursford. Gurney, the 

 steward of the duke of Lancaster, also escaped, though his house was 

 plundered. On the 21st the rolls of Binham Abbey were burnt.* At 

 Lynn the rebels murdered Flemings, while round about Felbrigg, in the 

 duke of Lancaster's country, they burnt the court rolls and plundered 

 property. 



The first success of the rebels had been largely due to the indecision of 

 the lay officers of the county. The bishop of Norwich, however, Henry Le 

 Spenser, gathered his retainers at Burley Manor in Rutland and hurried 

 south. Detached parties of the rioters were dispersed and the prisoners 

 hanged. By the time he reached Norwich the local gentry had recovered 

 from the first surprise, and rallied to the episcopal standard. The commons 

 retired to North Walsham,^ and there threw up hasty intrenchments and a 

 barricade of windows, shutters, and doors, while their transport was laagered 

 in the rear. The bishop determined to attack at once, ordered the trumpets 

 to sound the charge, and lance in rest led his horsemen across the 



' Chronicles (ed. Lyons), ii, cap. 77, 1859. He was a well-known fighting man of the period, of the Sir 

 John Hawkwood type ; of great strength and size, not a gentleman born, and had been knighted for valour and 

 made M.P. for the county, 1378. In the account given of his death by Thomas of Walsingham {Hist. Angl. 

 (Rolls Ser.), ii, 5) he is said to have been one of the knights who were captured by the insurgents ; this would 

 absolve him of the imprudence generally ascribed to him of riding out alone from the city entrusted to him. 

 See article by G. R. Howlett in Korf. Antiq. Misc. (2nd ser.), vol. i. 



' Rising in East Anglia, 30. 



' T. Walsingham, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 5, 6. 



* Rising in East Anglia, 32. ' Ibid. 34 Anct. Indict. No. 128 Norf. TunsteJ. 



* Ibid. 35. ' Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 7. 



484 



