Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Kett's Rebellion in Norfolk: Being a History of the Great Civil Commotion That Occurred at the Time of the Reformation, in the Reign of Edward Vi: Founded on the "Commoyson in Norfolk, 1549," by Nicholas Sotherton; And the "De Furoribus Norfolciensium" Of Nevylle: And Corroborated By
Office, the Norwich Records, the almost boundless stores of the British Museum, and to other reliable sources of information. I then resolved to undertake a work, - a labour of love to me, - in which it should be my endeavour to collect and arrange as full and detailed a narrative as could be compiled, of the events of that stirring period in our English history, in which Kett and his followers played a by no means unimportant part.
Though retaining the word Rebellion, my impression soon was that Kett's great misfortune had been to live before his time; that his efforts and those of his truest followers had been directed, not so much against the State, as against the feudal system, with its manifold extortions; that their conviction was, while the lower classes owed a duty to the higher, the latter owed a duty also to them; and though there was Scripture authority for rulers, good or evil, to exact obedience, - an authority of which the powers that were readily availed themselves, - yet the sturdy common sense of these Norfolk people refused to accept any such interpretation of Scripture, as warranted the few in oppressing the many, as sanctioned man's holding his fellow-men in slavery, and gave up man and his sequels (all he was and all he had) to the arbitrary will of any lord or ruler upon earth And feeling this, I was anxious, as far as lay in my power, to set forth this Rising in its true light, and to show, though Kett is commonly considered a rebel, yet the cause he advocated was so just, that one cannot but feel he deserved a better name and better fate.
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