Victory for Edwardian forces 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.

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.

Kett's rebellion ended on 27 August when the rebels were defeated by an army under the leadership of the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Dussindale.

Some landowners were forcing tenants off their farms so that they could engross their holdings and convert arable land into pasture for sheep, which had become more profitable as demand for wool increased.

[2] As the historian Julian Cornwall put it, they "could scarcely doubt that the state had been taken over by a breed of men whose policy was to rob the poor for the benefit of the rich".

[3] Kett's rebellion, or "the commotion time" as it was also called in Norfolk, began in July 1549 in the small market town of Wymondham, nearly ten miles south-west of Norwich.

The previous month there had been a minor disturbance at the nearby town of Attleborough where fences, built by the lord of the manor to enclose common lands, were torn down.

One of their first targets was Sir John Flowerdew, a lawyer and landowner at Hethersett who was unpopular for his role as overseer of the demolition of Wymondham Abbey (part of which was the parish church) during the dissolution of the monasteries and for enclosing land.

[8] Having listened to the rioters' grievances, Kett decided to join their cause and helped them tear down his own fences before taking them back to Hethersett where they destroyed Flowerdew's enclosures.

[13] According to one source the Oak of Reformation was cut down by Norwich City Council in the 1960s to make way for a car park,[14] although Reg Groves wrote in the 1940s that it had already been destroyed.

[16] On Friday 12 July, the rebels reached Mousehold, where they had a vantage point overlooking Norwich, and set up the camp that was their base for the next six and a half weeks.

[20] Once the camp was established at Mousehold the rebels drew up a list of 29 grievances,[21] signed by Kett, Codd, Aldrich, and the representatives of the Hundreds, and sent it to Protector Somerset.

[22] The grievances have been described by one historian as a shopping-list of demands but which nevertheless have a strong logic underlying them, articulating "a desire to limit the power of the gentry, exclude them from the world of the village, constrain rapid economic change, prevent the overexploitation of communal resources, and remodel the values of the clergy".

The rebels may have been articulating a grievance against the 1547 Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds, which made it legal to enslave a discharged servant who did not find a new master within three days, though they may also have been calling for the manumission of the thousands of Englishmen and women who were serfs.

It appeared hundreds of rebels were using the cover of darkness and their knowledge of the maze of small streets and alleys around Tombland to launch hit-and-run attacks on Royal troops.

[31] By 8 am the following morning, 1 August, the ramparts were strengthened between the Cow Tower and Bishopsgate, so Lord Sheffield retired to The Maid's Head inn for breakfast.

Warwick had previously fought in France, was a former member of the House of Commons and subsequently the Privy Council, making him a strong leader.

[39] The location of Dussindale has not been established with certainty, but battlefield debris (musket balls and other lead shot—iron artefacts such as arrowheads having not readily survived[40]) have suggested Long Valley, Norwich, now a partly built-up area to the north-east of the city centre.

[41] An alternative location, further to the east, is suggested by Anne Carter of Norfolk Archaeology, who found in parish records references to "Dussings Dale" adjoining the common of the village of Great Plumstead (52°38′N 1°22′E / 52.63°N 1.37°E / 52.63; 1.37).

[42][43] A map regression analysis published by the Council for British Archaeology supports Carter's proposition, but its conclusion placed the exact spot some 200 metres to the west.

[47] Kett was captured at the village of Swannington the night after the battle and taken, together with his brother William, to the Tower of London to await trial for treason.

"In 1549 AD Robert Kett yeoman farmer of Wymondham was executed by hanging in this Castle after the defeat of the Norfolk Rebellion of which he was leader.

In 1949 AD – four hundred years later – this Memorial was placed here by the citizens of Norwich in reparation and honour to a notable and courageous leader in the long struggle of the common people of England to escape from a servile life into the freedom of just conditions" In 1550, the Norwich authorities decreed that in future 27 August should be a holiday to commemorate "the deliverance of the city" from Kett's Rebellion, and paid for lectures in the cathedral and parish churches on the sins of rebellion.

Neville was secretary to Matthew Parker, who had preached to Kett's followers under the Oak of Reformation on Mousehold, unsuccessfully appealing to them to disperse.

Francis Blomefield's detailed account in his History of Norwich (published in parts during 1741 and 1742) was based on Neville but supplemented with material from other sources such as the works of Raphael Holinshed, Peter Heylin and Thomas Fuller, together with various local records.

[51] It was only in the 19th century that more sympathetic portrayals of the rebellion appeared in print and started the process that saw Kett transformed from traitor to folk hero.

[52] In 1948, Alderman Fred Henderson, a former mayor of Norwich who had been imprisoned in the castle for his part in the food riots of 1885, proposed a memorial to Kett.

Originally hoping for a statue, he settled for a plaque on the walls of Norwich Castle engraved with his words and unveiled in 1949, 400 years after the rebellion.