an arquebusiers under Battista Spinola. He
then resolved to attempt the relief of Exeter, which was now reduced to
extremities. He attacked the rebels, drove them from all their posts,
did great execution upon them, both in the action and pursuit,[***] and
took many prisoners. Arundel and the other leaders were sent to London,
tried, and executed. Many of the inferior sort were put to death
by martial law:[****] the vicar of St. Thomas, one of the principal
incendiaries, was hanged on the top of his own steeple, arrayed in his
Popish weeds, with his beads at his girdle.[v]

* Hayward, p. 292. Holingshed, p. 1003. Fox, vol. ii, p.
Euro61[** Unreadable in the OCR Scan] Mem. Cranm. p. 186.

** Heylin, p. 76.

*** Stowe's Annals. p. 597. Hayward, p. 295.

**** Hayward, p. 295, 296.

v Heylin, p. 76. Holingshed, p 1026.

The insurrection in Norfolk rose to a still greater height, and was
attended with greater acts of violence. The populace were at first
excited, as in other places, by complaints against enclosures; but
finding their numbers amount to twenty thousand, they grew insolent, and
proceeded to more exorbitant pretensions. They required the suppression
of the gentry, the placing of new counsellors about the king, and the
reestablishment of the ancient rites. One Ket, a tanner, had assumed
the government over them; and he exercised his authority with the utmost
arrogance and outrage. Having taken possession of Moushold Hill near
Norwich, he erected his tribunal under an old oak, thence called the oak
of reformation; and summoning the gentry to appear before him, he gave
such decrees as might be expected from his character and situation. The
marquis of Northampton was first ordered against him; but met with a
repulse in an action, where Lord Sheffield was killed.[*] The protector
affected popularity, and cared not to appear in person against the
rebels; he therefore sent the earl of Warwick at the head of six
thousand men, levied for the wars against Scotland; and he thereby
afforded his mortal enemy an opportunity of increasing his reputation
and character. Warwick, having tried some skirmishes with the rebels,
at last made a general attack upon them, and put them to flight. Two
thousand fell in the action and pursuit: Ket was hanged at Norwich
Castle, nine of his followers on the boughs of the oak of reformation;
and the insurrection was entirely suppressed. Some rebels in York