Note 165 — Chapter XII · JOHN DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK

Robert Ket was a comparatively rich man, and to some extent a landowner, by reason of which he came into connection with the nobleman who afterwards had him killed—Northumberland. Ket bought Wymondham Abbey at the Dissolution, and also possessed a large part of Wymondham Town, and certain rich lands between that place and the royal manorhouse of Stanfield Hall. These lands had been bestowed on the brotherhood of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem—an offshoot of the Order of Hospitallers of St. John, who devoted their time to the relief of the sick poor—by Queen Adelicia, second wife of Henry I. Later on, Ket sold these ex-monastic lands to John Dudley, afterwards Duke of Northumberland—the suppressor of the Ket rebellion! Blomefield (Norfolk, article on “Wyndham or Wymondham”) indeed attributes the cause of that outbreak to a disagreement between the Ket brothers and Northumberland over these lands. “John Dudley,” says he, “bought some of these charity lands of Ket the tanner. As for payment, it was done in his own particular mode.... The two brothers (Ket), finding Dudley meant to pull down the magnificent tower, the preservation of which was most dear to their affections, raised the Norfolk poor, whom extreme misery had driven to discontent, and Wymondham became the nucleus of the great Norfolk rebellion.” It is much more likely that indignation at the general state of things, social and religious, under Somerset’s Protectorship, was at the bottom of this popular rising, and not mere platonic affection for an ancient tower.