Marquis of
Northampton--Henry VIII.'s brother-in-law--with 1,500 Italian mercenaries
and a body of country squires, to destroy the rebels. Northampton's forces
were routed utterly, and Lord Sheffield was slain, and many houses and
gates were burnt in the city.

Then for three weeks longer Robert Ket remained in power, still hoping
against hope that some attention would be given by the Government to his
"Requests and Demands." Protector Somerset, beset by his own difficulties,
could do nothing for rebellious peasants, could not countenance in any way
an armed revolt, however great the miseries that provoked insurrection.
The Earl of Warwick was dispatched with 14,000 troops to end the
rebellion, and arrived on August 24th. For two days the issue seemed
uncertain--half the city only was in Warwick's hands. The arrival of 1,400
mercenaries--"lanzknechts," Germans mostly--and a fatal decision of the
rebels to leave their vantage ground at Mousehold Heath and do battle in
the open valley that stretched towards the city, gave complete victory to
Warwick.

The peasants poured into the meadows beyond Magdalen and Pockthorpe gates,
and were cut to pieces by the professional soldiers.

When all seemed over Ket galloped away to the north, but was taken, worn
out, at the village of Swannington, eight miles from Norwich.

More than 400 peasants were hanged by Warwick's orders, and their bodies
left to swing on Mousehold and in the city. Robert Ket and William Ket were
sent to London, and after being tried and condemned for high treason, were
returned to Norwich in December for execution. Robert Ket was hanged in
chains from Norwich Castle, and William suffered in similar fashion from
the parish church at Wymondham--to remind all people of the fate that
befall those who venture, unsuccessfully, to take up arms against the
government in power.

So the Norfolk Rising ended, and with it ended all serious popular
insurrection in England. Riots and mob violence have been seen even to our
own time, but no great, well-organised movement to overthrow authority and
establish a social democracy by force of arms has been attempted since
1549.

The characters of Robert Ket and his brother have been vindicated by time,
and the rebel leader is now recognised as a disinterested, capable,
high-minded man. Ket took what seemed to him the only possible course to
avert the doom of a ruined peasantry, and failed. But his courage and
humaneness ar