No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
On 4 March 1554 some hundreds of London schoolboys fought a mock battle on Finsbury Field outside the northern wall of the city. Boys have always gratified their innate romanticism by playing at war, yet this incident, organized between several schools, was overtly political and implicitly religious in character. It almost resulted in tragedy, and, though scarcely noticed by historians, it does not fail to throw Ught upon London society and opinion during a major crisis of Tudor history. The present essay aims to discuss the factual evidence and its sources; thereafter to clarify the broader context and significance of the affair by briefer reference to a few comparable events which marked the Reformation struggle elsewhere. The London battle relates closely to two events in the reign of Mary Tudor: her marriage with Philip of Spain and the dangerous Kentish rebellion led by the younger Sir Thomas Wyatt. The latter’s objectives were to seize the government, prevent the marriage, and, in all probability, to place the Princess Elizabeth on the throne as the figurehead of a Protestant regime in Church and State. While Wyatt himself showed few signs of evangelical piety, the notion of a merely political revolt can no longer be maintained. Professor Malcolm R. Thorp has recendy examined in detail the lives of all the numerous known leaders, and has proved that in almost every case they display clear records of Protestant conviction. It is, moreover, common knowledge that Kent, with its exceptionally large Protestant population, provided at this moment the best possible recruiting-area in England for an attack upon the Catholic government. Though the London militia treasonably went over to Wyatt, the magnates with their retinues and associates rallied around the legal sovereign. Denied boats and bridges near the capital, Wyatt finally crossed the Thames at Kingston, but then failed to enter London from the west. By 8 February 1554 his movement had collapsed, though his execution did not occur until 11 April.
1 It was in fact mentioned by Froude, J. A., History of England (London, 1870), 6, pp. 375–6Google Scholar. as well as by Tytler, P. F., England under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary (London, 1839), p. 330Google Scholar.
2 Thorp, M. R., ‘Religion and the Wyatt Rebellion of 1554’, Church History, 47 (1978), pp. 363–80Google Scholar.
3 Clark, P., English Provincial Society… Religion, Politics and Society in Kent, 1500–1640 (Hassocks, 1977), esp. pp. 34–107Google Scholar.
4 (Princeton, 1940; repr., Freeport, NY, 1970.) On François de Noailles, see pp. 306–8, 334–5.
5 Translated from Ambassades de Messieurs de Noailles en Angleterre, ed. Vertotand, A. Villaret, C., 5 vols (Leiden, 1763), 3, pp. 128–30Google Scholar.
6 CalSP, Spanish, 12, p. 146. Cf. Tytler, Reigns of Edward VI and Mary, p. 331.
7 Chronicle of Queen Jane, ed. Nichols, J. G, PCS, os, 48 (1850), p. 67Google Scholar.
8 Ibid., p. 34.
9 Corporation of London Record Office, Court qf Aldermen, Rep. 13, fol. 131.
10 Ibid., fol. 132b.
11 Baddeley, J. J., The Ademen of Cripplegate Ward (London, 1900), p. 45Google Scholar; Beaven, A.B., Adermen of the City of London, 2 (London, 1913), p. 32.Google Scholar Concerning this passage I am grateful for the expert advice of Dr Caroline Barron.
12 Swales, T. H., ‘The redistribution of the monastic lands in Norfolk at the Dissolution’, Norfolk Archaeology, 34 (1966), p. 40Google Scholar.
13 Baddeley, , Aldermen. The Diary of Henry Machyn, ed. Nichols, J. G., PCS, os, 42 (1848), p. 67Google Scholar, describes his lavish funeral, noting his proximity to the office of Mayor.
14 Strype, Memorials, 3, pt ii, pp. 482–510.
15 Reproduced by Marks, S. P., The Map of Mid-Sixteenth Century London, London Topographical Society Publication, 100 (1964Google Scholar), plate I.
16 On the windmills see A Survey of London by John Stow, ed. Kingsford, C. L., 2 vols (Oxford, 1908), 2, p. 370Google Scholar.
17 Stephen, William fitz, Description of the City of London (1170—83)Google Scholar: the passage is translated, e.g., Douglas, D. C. and Greenaway, G. W., eds, EHD, 2, 2nd edn (1981), pp. 1027–9Google Scholar.
18 Ibid., 1, pp. 71–5, together with the references to individual schools given in Index II.
19 Comford, Margaret E., ‘A Legend Concerning Edward VI’, EHR, 23 (1908), pp. 286–90; APC, 1552–4, pp. 363. 383–4Google Scholar.
20 On this theme see Pollard, A F., Political History of England, 6 (London, 1929), pp. 105–7, 115–17, 161; DNB, 4, pp. 1260–7Google Scholar. On Wyatt’s personal relations with Courtenay, see DNB, 21, pp. 1102–4.
21 Edward Hall’s Chronicle (1809), p. 590. In the second edn of isso (The Union of the Two Noble Families, etc.) see the section on Henry VIII, fol. lxii. On such executions, see Keith Thomas, ‘Age and Authority in Early Modern England’, PBA, 62 (1976), pp. 219–20.
22 Brigden, Susan, ‘Youth and the English Reformation’, PaP, 95 (1982), pp. 37–67Google Scholar.
23 Ibid., p. 56.
24 Ramsay, G. D., ‘The Recruitment and Fortunes of Some London Freemen in the Mid- Sixteenth Century’, EcHR, ser. 2, 31 (1978), pp. 526–40Google Scholar. On the geographical origins of London apprentices, see Wareing, J. in Journal of Historical Geography, 6 (1980), pp. 241–8.Google Scholar For biographies of Protestant apprentices, see Fines, J., A Biographical Register of Early English Protestants (1981)Google Scholar, Beale, s.v., Boggens, Cornet, Davis, Gough, Hinshaw, Hodgesby, Hover, Hunter, Leaf, Lincoln, Smith, Tudson, Vivian, Wilmost. Of similar age were the 54 Protestant exiles classed as ‘students’ and listed in Christina Garrett, H., The Marian Exiles (Cambridge, 1938)Google Scholar.
25 Moran, Jo Ann H., The Growth of English Schooling 1340–1548 (Princeton, 1985), pp. 64–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Orme, N., English Schools in the Middle Ages (London, 1973), p. 134Google Scholar.
26 Stow, ed. Kingsford, 1, p. 75. Bale uses ‘pigeons’ to mean the courtesans who could be encountered inside St Pauls!
27 Youings, Joyce, ‘The South-Western Rebellion of 1549’, Southern History, 1 (1979). pp. 92–122Google Scholar; Rowse, A. L., Tudor Cornwall (London, 1941)Google Scholar, chs 11, 12, 15; Whiting, R., The Reformation in the South-West of England (thesis, Exeter Ph.D., 1977), esp. pp. 293–8Google Scholar.
28 For surviving documents from the town archives, see Wallis, J., The Bodmin Register (Bodmin, 1827-38), pp. 293–312Google Scholar.
29 Carew, Richard, The Survey of Cornwall (London, 1602), fols 124–5Google Scholar. The chantry certificates of 1548 give Nicholas Tapsell (57) as schoolmaster, also chantry priest in the parish church. They call the people of Bodmin (2,000 communicants) Very ignorant’. They do not praise Tapsell’s ability to teach Latin (though so doing in regard to the master at Launceston) and give no detail on the academic status or size of the school. Snell, Cf. L. S., Documents towards a History of the Reformation in Cornwall, no. 1, The Chantry Certificates (Exeter, 1053), pp. 10—12Google Scholar.
30 Ibid., fols 125–6.
31 Rerum ab Henrici Borbonii Franctae Protoprincipis Majoribus Gestarum Epitome… (Paris, 1598), pp. 107–10. The British Library has a copy: 521 a 36(1).
32 On mid-Tudor Protestant schoolmasters in London and elsewhere, see Brigden, ‘Youth’, pp. 59–60; Fines, Biographical Register, 2, s.v. Bland, Gobbe, Cole, Cox, Forde, Henshaw, Hopkins, Lome, Marsh, Nowell, Palmer, Patenson, Radcliffe, Senes, Talbot, Traheron, Tyndale, Twyne, Udall.
33 For a summary of youth-participation in France see Davis, N. Z., ‘The rites of violence: religious riot in sixteenth century France’, PaP, 59 (1973), pp. 87–8Google Scholar. For several anti-Spanish ‘games’ by ‘children’ in the Netherlands, c. 1565–81, see Parker, G., The Dutch Revolt (London, edn 1988), pp. 80, 130, 189, 303, 11. 18Google Scholar.
34 Estebe, J., Tocsin pour un massacre. Le saison des Saint-Barthélémy (Paris, 1968)Google Scholar; Davis, N. Z., Society and Culture in Early Modem France (Stanford, Calif., 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The latter reprints some, but not all, of her articles in PaP from 1971 to 1981. Another article is in ARC, 56 (1965), pp. 48–64.
35 Scribner, R. W., Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), esp. ch. 4Google Scholar.
36 Smith, H. Maynard, Pre-Reformation England (London, 1938), pp. 137–41Google Scholar.