The Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Rising of 1549 was a rural rebellion that took place in Tudor England under the rule of Edward VI's Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. Part of a series of disturbances across the country, it took place at the same time as the better-known Prayer Book Rebellion or Western Rising and for many of the same reasons: discontent at the introduction in June 1549 of the Book of Common Prayer, fuelled by economic distress and resentment at enclosures of common land. [1] Kett's Rebellion, which centred on enclosures, took place in the same month, contributing to a growing sense of national disorder in what was popularly known afterwards as "the commotion time".
Based mainly on the fact that, unlike other rebels, he was later tried in London, it is probable that James Webbe, the vicar of Barford St Michael, was the captain of the Rising. Other ringleaders were a wealthy farmer, Thomas Bouldry or Bowldry of Great Haseley, and Henry Joyes, vicar of Chipping Norton. [2]
Unlike the rising in Devon and Cornwall, it does not seem that any gentry became involved, and most of those whose names were to be associated with the Rising were either farmers, artisans, or parish priests. The Rising's quick suppression meant that the rebels' specific demands have gone unrecorded, though they were probably similar to those of the Cornish rising – reinstatement of the Six Articles and the Latin liturgy – with additional local grievances. Joyes, at Chipping Norton, appears to have joined the Rising because the effects of the chantries act had left him to minister alone to 800 parishioners. [3]
It is probable that local resentment at enclosures also played a part, particularly at Great Haseley, where Thomas Bouldry had been lessee of the demesne farm, and where the recently enclosed deer park of Sir John Williams at Rycote House was attacked by a mob who subsequently broke into his house and drank his wine and beer. [4] There had been some minor enclosure riots or disturbances in Buckinghamshire the previous year, though the authorities' response was lenient.
The first clear evidence of an official response to the Rising is a letter from Somerset, the Protector, dated 10 July, in which he refers to persons "nuely assembled" in Buckinghamshire. [5] On the 12th he described to Lord Russell - awaiting reinforcements to suppress the rising in the South-West - a "stirr here in Bucks. and Oxfordshire by instigacion of sundery priests", adding "kepe it to yr. selfe". [5]
The Rising gained momentum and after a brief delay, forces were dispatched in mid July under the formidable soldier William Grey, 13th Baron Grey de Wilton. [6] Accompanying him were 1500 mainly German and Swiss mercenary soldiers, en route to suppressing the West Country disturbances. [7] The place at which Grey's force confronted the rebels is often thought to have been Enslow Hill in Oxfordshire, although an encampment near Chipping Norton has also been suggested. [6] King Edward noted the outcome in his journal for 18 July:
To Oxfordshire the Lord Grey of Wilton was sent with 1500 horsemen and footmen; whose coming with th'assembling of the gentlemen of the countrie, did so abash the rebels, that more than hauf of them rann ther wayes, and other that tarried were some slain, some taken and some hanged. [8]
In the immediate aftermath of the troops' arrival, there were signs that the Privy Council was beginning to regret employing German landsknechts in Oxfordshire, as it was reported that people were threatening to leave not one foreigner alive in England. [9]
The orders given on 19 July by Lord Grey to his lieutenants make it clear there were a large number of summary executions immediately following the confrontation at Enslow Hill, but of the 200 or so taken captive around a dozen ringleaders, a mixture of priests and yeomen, were ordered to be executed for treason in various towns. The executions were to be carried out on the towns' respective market days and the victims' heads were to be set in the highest available spot "for the more terror of the said evil people". [8] James Webbe was hanged, drawn and quartered at Aylesbury on 22 August, and death sentences were carried out on Joyes, who was hanged in chains from his own church tower, Bouldry, and their associates. However, not all those appointed to die were executed, including John Wade, the vicar of Bloxham, who had also been ordered to be hanged from his own steeple: he was spared and was still living at Bloxham in 1553. [2] A number of the Buckinghamshire men were also spared, with the pardons issued to Thomas Kyghtley, George and Thomas Willatt, John Warde and Edward Barton being the only information remaining on the Buckinghamshire insurgents. [10]
Despite the pardons extended to some ringleaders, the Rising in general seems to have been put down with the same pitiless force and brutality that characterised the response to the Prayer Book Rebellion, where large-scale massacres were alleged. Lord Grey needed little encouragement to act with severity and it is clear that many more executions took place than the dozen specified in his order of 19 July . [8] Writing some years later under the pro-Catholic regime of Queen Mary, the poet William Forrest, who had been a monk at Thame (where at least two executions were carried out) around the time of the Rising, described a time in which:
- Downe went the Crosse in every countraye,
- Goddys servauntes used withe muche crudelytee,
- Dysmembred (like beastes) in th'open highe waye,
- Their inwardys pluckte oute and hartis wheare they laye [11]
The countrywide disturbances of 1549 were to play a part in the downfall of Somerset later that year, as he was blamed by other Privy Council members for the discontent and criticised for his response, which varied wildly between the liberally tolerant and the draconian. Somerset appears to have had a good deal of sympathy with protestors against enclosure, if not with the religiously-inspired rebels, and many of those who threw down enclosures had been misled by his earlier pronouncements into believing that they were acting with the King's blessing. [12] Somerset remained a figure of hate for religious conservatives, and his final removal from power in January 1550 was greeted with joyous demonstrations in Oxford. [13]
The Rising was poorly recorded, especially in Buckinghamshire, and was subsequently almost forgotten, even in official records. Nevertheless, it seems to have been well remembered in its local area. Half a century later, folk memories of its suppression served as a partial inspiration of a later attempt, the Oxfordshire Rising of 1596: its leader Bartholomew Steer arranged for the rebels to meet on Enslow Hill, where he said "the [1549] risers were persuaded to go home, and were then hanged like dogs". [14] Though the Rising took place many years before Steer's lifetime he might have learned of it when he worked at Rycote, and he was born in Hampton Poyle, whose incumbent priest was hanged after the events of 1549. [15]
Later academic interpretations of the Rising have varied. A. Vere Woodman, writing the first detailed study of the sources in 1957, argued that there was little apparent link with anti-enclosure protests that had taken place in 1548 and that the rebellion was largely a result of conservatism in the matter of the liturgy, along with the threatened confiscation of church goods and the suppression of chantries. [16] Some later commentators, such as Beer (2005), have sought to stress the rebellion's anti-enclosure aspect. [17]
Year 1549 (MDXLIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. In the Kingdom of England, it was known as "The Year of the Many-Headed Monster", because of the unusually high number of rebellions which occurred in the country.
Kett's Rebellion was a revolt in the English county of Norfolk during the reign of Edward VI, largely in response to the enclosure of land. It began at Wymondham on 8 July 1549 with a group of rebels destroying fences that had been put up by wealthy landowners. One of their targets was yeoman Robert Kett who, instead of resisting the rebels, agreed to their demands and offered to lead them. Kett and his forces, joined by recruits from Norwich and the surrounding countryside and numbering some 16,000, set up camp on Mousehold Heath to the north-east of the city on 12 July.
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Viscount Beauchamp, also known as Edward Semel, was an English nobleman and politician who served as Lord Protector of England from 1547 to 1549 during the minority of his nephew King Edward VI. He was the eldest surviving brother of Queen Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII.
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland was an English general, admiral, and politician, who led the government of the young King Edward VI from 1550 until 1553, and unsuccessfully tried to install Lady Jane Grey on the English throne after the King's death. The son of Edmund Dudley, a minister of Henry VII executed by Henry VIII, John Dudley became the ward of Sir Edward Guildford at the age of seven. Dudley grew up in Guildford's household together with his future wife, Guildford's daughter Jane, with whom he was to have 13 children. Dudley served as Vice-Admiral and Lord High Admiral from 1537 until 1547, during which time he set novel standards of navy organisation and was an innovative commander at sea. He also developed a strong interest in overseas exploration. Dudley took part in the 1544 campaigns in Scotland and France and was one of Henry VIII's intimates in the last years of the reign. He was also a leader of the religious reform party at court.
Robert Kett was the leader of Kett's Rebellion.
The Prayer Book Rebellion or Western Rising was a popular revolt in Cornwall and Devon in 1549. In that year, the first Book of Common Prayer, presenting the theology of the English Reformation, was introduced. The change was widely unpopular, particularly in areas where firm Catholic religious loyalty still existed, such as Lancashire. Along with poor economic conditions, the enforcement of English language church services only in Cornish-speaking areas led to an explosion of anger in Cornwall and Devon, initiating an uprising. At the gates of Exeter, the rising leaders announced, "and so we Cornishmen, whereof certain of us understand no English, utterly refuse this new English". In response, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset sent John Russell to suppress the revolt, with the rebels being defeated and its leaders executed two months after the beginning of hostilities.
Chipping Norton is a market town and civil parish in the Cotswold Hills in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England, about 12 miles (19 km) south-west of Banbury and 18 miles (29 km) north-west of Oxford. The 2011 Census recorded the civil parish population as 5,719. It was estimated at 6,254 in 2019.
The Pilgrimage of Grace was a popular revolt beginning in Yorkshire in October 1536, before spreading to other parts of Northern England including Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham and north Lancashire, under the leadership of Robert Aske. The "most serious of all Tudor period rebellions", it was a protest against Henry VIII's break with the Catholic Church, the dissolution of the lesser monasteries, and the policies of the King's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, as well as other specific political, social, and economic grievances.
Bloxham is a village and civil parish in northern Oxfordshire several miles from the Cotswolds, about 3 miles (5 km) southwest of Banbury. It is on the edge of a valley and overlooked by Hobb Hill. The village is on the A361 road. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 3,374.
Humphrey Arundell of Helland in Cornwall, was the leader of Cornish forces in the Prayer Book Rebellion early in the reign of King Edward VI. He was executed at Tyburn, London after the rebellion had been defeated.
Barford St Michael is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Barford St. John and St. Michael, in the Cherwell district, in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is on the south bank of the River Swere, about 5 miles (8 km) south of Banbury.
Henry Bertie, JP, of Chesterton, Oxfordshire was an English soldier and Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1678 and 1715.
William Grey, 13th Baron Grey de Wilton, was an English baron and military commander serving in France in the 1540s and 1550s, and in the Scottish Wars of the 1540s.
The Battle of Sampford Courtenay was one of the chief military engagements in the Western Rebellion of 1549.
Enslow is a hamlet on the banks of both the River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal in Bletchingdon civil parish, Oxfordshire. The medieval main road linking London with Chipping Norton and Worcester crosses the Cherwell at Enslow. There was a bridge here by the time that John Leland toured England in 1538–43. John Ogilby's Britannia Atlas of 1675 records a timber bridge here that he called "Emley Bridg". In 1718 the road was made into a turnpike and at some stage the timber bridge was replaced by one with pointed stone arches. In 1814 the stone bridge was widened on its downstream side. to almost double its former width. In contrast with the older upstream side of the bridge, the 1814 arches are semicircular. The road is now the A4095.
Great Haseley is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England. The village is about 4.5 miles (7 km) southwest of Thame. The parish includes the hamlets of Latchford, Little Haseley and North Weston and the house, chapel and park of Rycote. The parish stretches 6 miles (10 km) along a northeast — southwest axis, bounded by the River Thame in the north, Haseley Brook in the south and partly by a boundary hedge with Little Milton parish in the west. The 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 511.
The Oxfordshire rising took place in November 1596 under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I of England during times of bad harvest and unprecedented poverty. A small group of impoverished men developed a plan to seize weapons and armour and march on London, hoping to attract "200 or 300... from various towns of that shire". They met on Enslow Hill on 21 November, but without any of the assumed support were quickly arrested, and tortured due to suspicions of a wider conspiracy. A year later two of the men were hanged, drawn, and quartered for their treason.
John Williams, 1st Baron Williams of Thame was Master of the Jewels and Lord President of the Council of the Welsh Marches. He was summoned to parliament as Lord Williams of Thame on 17 February 1554.
This is a list of Sheriffs of Berkshire and Oxfordshire. One sheriff was appointed for both counties from 1248 until the end of 1566, after which separate sheriffs were appointed. See High Sheriff of Berkshire and High Sheriff of Oxfordshire for dates before 1248 or after 1566.