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“A lyttull worde ys tresson”: Loyalty, Denunciation, and Popular Politics in Tudor England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Andy Wood
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 837 - 847
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2009

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References

1 Book of depositions and interrogatories, Norwich Quarter Sessions, 1549–54, Norfolk Record Office (NRO), Norwich City Records (NCR) 12A/1(A), fol. 123r. For the varied reactions of the people of Norwich to the rising, see Wood, Andy, “Kett's Rebellion,” in Medieval Norwich, ed. Rawcliffe, Carole and Wilson, Richard (London, 2004), 277–300Google Scholar.

2 Norwich Quarter Sessions, 1549–54, NRO, NCR 12A/1(A), fol. 123r.

3 For another example of responsibility for seditious speech being shuffled onto some unknown individual, see the examination of divers witnesses in Suffolk, May 1553, British Library (BL), Cotton MS, Titus B.II, fols. 182r–84v.

4 Scott, James C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, CT, 1990), 11–12, 15, 20, 64Google Scholar.

5 For more on popular politics and the “common voice,” see Wood, Andy, The 1549 Rebellions and the Making of Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2007), chap. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Everitt, E. B. and Armstrong, R. L., eds., Thomas of Woodstock (Nottingham, 1977), 45Google Scholar.

7 Elton, G. R., Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge, 1972), 345–46, 349Google Scholar.

8 ibid., 371.

9 ibid., 332–33, 345–46, 349, 370–71.

10 In this context, the term “honest men” seems to refer both to loyalty to the state and to social place. This bears some similarities to the recent reassessment of consent and denunciation in Nazi Germany. Robert Gellately's work on the Gestapo suggests that they experienced many of the same problems as those faced by magistrates searching into seditious speech in Tudor England. Gellately demonstrates that “denunciation represented an integral part of the social constitution of Nazi Germany. … Popular participation by provision of information was one of the most important factors in making the terror system work.” See Gellately, Robert, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945 (Oxford, 1990), 129, 132, 135–38, 146CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On surveillance and denunciation in the German Democratic Republic, see Ross, Corey, Constructing Socialism at the Grass-Roots: The Transformation of East Germany, 1945–65 (Basingstoke, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a contrasting study, which emphasizes the capacity of laboring people to transcend repression and to create new solidarities, see Foweraker, Joe, Making Democracy in Spain, Grass-Roots Struggle in the South, 1955–1975 (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Graham, Lisa J., “Crimes of Opinion: Policing the Public in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” in Visions and Revisions of Eighteenth-Century France, ed. Adams, Christine, Censer, Jack R., and Graham, Lisa J. (University Park, PA, 1997), 79–104Google Scholar.

11 For the use of seditious speech prosecutions as a source for the history of social conflict, see Walter, John, “‘A Rising of the People’? The Oxfordshire Rising of 1596,” Past and Present, no. 107 (May 1985): 90–143Google Scholar; Wood, Andy, “‘Poore men woll speke one daye’: Plebeian Languages of Deference and Defiance in England, c. 1520–1640,” in The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500–1850, ed. Harris, Tim (Basingstoke, 2001), 67–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Samaha, Joel, “Gleanings from Local Criminal-Court Records: Sedition amongst the ‘Inarticulate’ in Elizabethan Essex,” Journal of Social History 8, no. 4 (Summer 1975): 61–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sharpe, James A., “Social Strain and Social Dislocation, 1585–1603,” in The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade, ed. Guy, John (Cambridge, 1995), 192–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Ethan Shagan makes the case for the first option in “Rumours and Popular Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII,” in Harris, Politics of the Excluded, 30–66.

13 For this event, see Moreton, C. E., “The Walsingham Conspiracy of 1537,” Historical Research 63 (1990): 29–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 John Heydon to Richard Gresham, 28 May 1537, including evidences against Elizabeth Wood of Aylsham, the National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), SP1/120, fols. 228r, 230r.

15 The phrase “wth Clubbes and Clowted shone” also appeared in the prophecy that led Kett's rebels to decamp from Mousehold Heath to their disastrous encounter with the Earl of Warwick at Dussindale. See Woods, Richard, Norfolke Furies and their Foyle. Under Kett, their Accursed Captaine (1615; 2nd ed., London, 1623), sigs. I1–I2Google Scholar.

16 Evidences against Elizabeth Wood of Aylsham, TNA: PRO, SP1/120, fol. 230r.

17 Brodie, D. M., ed., The Tree of Commonwealth: A Treatise (Cambridge, 1948), 46Google Scholar; Sir John Russell and Sir William Parr to Henry VIII, 9 October 1536, TNA: PRO, SP1/107, fol. 115r.

18 Sir John Russell and Sir William Parr to Henry VIII, 9 October 1536, TNA: PRO, SP1/106, fol. 157r.

19 Richard Layton to Thomas Cromwell, 18 January 1538, TNA: PRO, SP1/128, fols. 117r–18r.

20 Recent historiography has emphasized the significance of “middling sort” participation in the maintenance of state authority. See Hindle, Steve, The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, c. 1550–1640 (Basingstoke, 2000)Google Scholar; Braddick, Michael J., State Formation in Early Modern England, c. 1550–1700 (Cambridge, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Duke of Norfolk to Henry VIII, 9 October 1536, TNA: PRO, SP1/106, fol. 118v.

22 Duke of Norfolk to Thomas Cromwell, 19 September 1536, TNA: PRO, SP1/106, fol. 183r–v.

23 Duke of Suffolk to Thomas Cromwell, 16 May 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/120, fols. 100r–104v.

24 Deposition of Robert Dalyell, 12 June 1538, BL, Cotton MS, Caligula B.I, fols. 130r–31r.

25 Deposition of Nicolas Apsley, 27 February 1538, BL, Cotton MS, Titus B.I, fols. 78r–79v.

26 Examination of divers witnesses in Suffolk, May 1553, BL, Cotton MS, Titus B.II, fols. 182r–84v.

27 Accusation of Nicholas Came, 9 October 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/125, fol. 162v.

28 Admission of John Strebtihill, 28 July 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/123, fol. 120r.

29 Confession of Thomas Rogers and John Crow, 12 February 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/116, fol. 9r.

30 Book of depositions, examinations, interrogatories, and memoranda concerning Aske's rebellion, 1537–40, TNA: PRO, E36/120, fols. 105r–v.

31 Examination of William Davy, 22 October 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/126, fols. 138v–39r.

32 Deposition of Harry Jervys, 27 June 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/121, fols. 173r–v.

33 Examination of Thomas Wryght, 31 May 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/121, fol. 22r.

34 Everitt and Armstrong, Thomas of Woodstock, 41, 45.

35 Examination of Richard Vassinger, 14 June 1586, BL, Cotton MS, Vespasian IX, fol. 147r–v.

36 Examination of Roger Hawker, 28 April 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/119, fol. 36r.

37 Confession of Thomas Howes, 28 April 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/119, fol. 35r.

38 Examination of Richard Vassinger, 14 June 1586, BL, Cotton MS, Vespasian IX, fol. 147r–v.

39 Depositions of John Cowper and Richard Coke, 17 January 1538, TNA: PRO, SP1/128, fol. 110r–v.

40 William Fermour to Thomas Cromwell, 14 August 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/124, fols. 40r–41v.

41 Sir William Drury to Thomas Cromwell, 3 April 1537, BL, Cotton MS, Cleopatra E.V, fol. 395r. For more on neighborhood and social relations, see Wrightson, Keith E., “The Decline of Neighbourliness Revisited,” in Local Identities in Late Medieval and Early Modern England, ed. Jones, Norman L. and Woolf, Daniel R. (Basingstoke, 2007), 19–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wrightson, Keith E., “Mutualities and Obligations: Changing Social Relationships in Early Modern England,” Proceedings of the British Academy 139 (2005): 157–94Google Scholar.

42 Lord Cobham to Thomas Cromwell, 9 May 1538, BL, Cotton MS, Vespasian F.XIII, fol. 204r.

43 John Wellysburn to Thomas Cromwell, 27 October 1538, TNA: PRO, SP1/138, fol. 30r.

44 For examples, see ibid.; John Crathern to Thomas Cromwell, 1535, TNA: PRO, SP1/89, fol. 122.

45 Depositions taken before Sir Roger Tonshend, 3 June 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/121, fol. 31r–v.

46 Confession of Thomas Rogers and John Crow, 12 February 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/116, fol. 9v. For another example, see John Crathern to Thomas Cromwell, 1535, TNA: PRO, SP1/89, fol. 122r.

47 For examples, see George Heron to Thomas Cromwell, 1536, TNA: PRO, SP1/113, fols. 197r–98r; examination of William Davy, 22 October 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/126, fols. 177r–78r.

48 Book of depositions and interrogatories, Norwich Quarter Sessions, 1549–54, NRO, NCR 12A/1(A), fols. 10v–11r.

49 Lord Rich to William Cecil, 18 August 1549, TNA: PRO, SP10/8/61. For a similar example, see examination of William Davy, 22 October 1537, TNA: PRO, SP1/126, fols. 177r–78r.

50 Book of depositions, examinations, interrogatories, and memoranda concerning Aske's rebellion, 1537–40, TNA: PRO, E36/120, fol. 55r.

51 Sir Thomas More, “The Utopia,” and Francis Lord Bacon, “The New Atlantis,” ed. Goitein, H. (London, 1925), 30–31Google Scholar.

52 Epstein, James A., In Practice: Studies in the Language and Culture of Popular Politics in Modern Britain (Stanford, CA, 2003), 10Google Scholar. See also Postles, David A., Social Geographies in England, 1200–1640 (Washington, DC, 2007)Google Scholar.

53 Epstein, In Practice, 113.