POLITICAL HISTORY 



Catholic gentry of the district, Jerningham, Bedingfield, Drury, Skelton, and 

 others. She was further immensely strengthened by a great personal animus 

 felt locally by the county people against Northumberland for his having, when 

 earl of Warwick, suppressed their ' reasonable ' insurrection of a few years 

 before. From Kenninghall Mary moved south to Framlingham,' a strong 

 castle better fitted to resist any sudden attack than Kenninghall. Measures 

 were taken by the duke of Northumberland to intercept her if she fled the 

 country, and six ships of war were watching the Norfolk coast to stop her, but 

 whatever her faults were, the queen was as dauntless as her sister and had no 

 thoughts of flight. Bad weather driving these ships into Yarmouth, Sir Henry 

 Jerningham boarded them, and finding the sailors and captains well disposed 

 towards Mary quietly took possession of them.^ Mary, meanwhile, had again 

 written to the House of Lords requesting their attendance with all the men 

 they could raise, and they, finding how popular feeling went, at length on 

 19 July, proclaimed her queen in London (she had already been proclaimed 

 at Norwich ' and Cambridge). She now had only to disband her forces, which 

 by this time numbered 14,000, and go to London to take up the reins of 

 government. The only opposition in the county was at Lynn,* where Robert 

 Dudley (who had married Amy Robsart in 1550) proclaimed Jane as queen 

 on 18 July, but met with little sympathy or support, and in the following 

 year he and others were tried for this and sentenced to death, though the 

 sentence was not carried out. 



While referring to the proclamation of Jane, it is curious to note that 

 when she was proclaimed in London a potboy called Gilbert Potter ° was 

 bold enough to call out that he thought Mary had the better title, for which 

 he was placed in the Cheapside pillory and had his ears cut off". Later on 

 Queen Mary not unnaturally rewarded him, and from the fact that this reward 

 took the form of land in South Lynn,* it may be inferred that this bold lad 

 was Norfolk by birth.'' 



One of Mary's first acts was to release the duke of Norfolk and restore 

 him to all his honours and possessions. She is said to have made promises to 

 her Norfolk supporters that she would tolerate the new religion, and after- 

 wards to have put Mr. Dobbs,' a gentleman who lived near Wymondham, 

 into the pillory for reminding her of them, but this seems more than doubtful. 

 Still there is no doubt that there was dissatisfaction in Norwich and elsewhere 

 at the strong line she took, for in 1554 a man had his ears nailed to the 

 pillory for writing ' unfittmg songs' about her, and Richard Sotherton' 'grocer' 

 had to execute a bond not to sell any seditious books against her. 



In 1555 a schoolmaster called Clover, of Diss, and three brothers 

 called Lincoln, got up a small insurrection which ended in nothing except the 

 hanging, drawing, and quartering of the four promoters.^" 



After the loss of Calais, 2,000 men from Norfolk and Suffolk were to be 

 levied under the duke of Norfolk to help Philip in trying to recover the 

 town and in defending Guisnes, but shortly afterwards the levy was recalled 



* Stow, op. cit. 611. ' Ibid. ' Ibid. 6lo. 



* Mason, Hii(. of Nor/. 144, quotes an ancient roll of Lynn. ' Stow, op. cit. 610. 



* Parkins, //«/. FreebriJge Hundred, 165. 



' There are still Potters at Gayton who may be his descendants. 



' Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 268. ' Ibid. 269, 270. '° Stow, op. cit. 628. 



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