getting in and slaying his men. For three days the fighting was desperate; he meanwhile killing his prisoners, and sending herald after herald to offer pardon to all who would lay down their arms. This the Peasantry obstinately refused to do, not trusting the herald's word. At last they risked all on a pitched battle, and were defeated, 2,000, according to King Edward, being slain. The remainder entrenched themselves and determined to die fighting. Warwick sent heralds again and again, but they would not believe them; at last he offered to come himself and pledge his word. Then, and then only, these sturdy rebels threw down their arms.
Warwick, we suppose, hung none of this final batch of prisoners, but of the others he choose nine of the leaders to be hanged on the Oak of Reformation. Forty-five others were drawn, hanged, and quartered in the market-place at Norwich, and their quarters exposed to inspire terror. Robert Ket, the leader, was hanged in chains on the top of Norwich Castle, and his brother on the top of Wymondham steeple; these high places being no doubt chosen for the same reason. Altogether three hundred persons are said to have been executed. Some would have persuaded Warwick to put to death a great number more, but he replied, "What shall we then do? hold the plough ourselves, play the carters, and labour the ground with our own hands?"
The annals of the Poor are nearly always lost or distorted. They have no friendly scribes to chronicle their doings, but what comes down to posterity, even when honest, is full of misconception through want of sympathy. Thus the chroniclers of the Norfolk insurrection leave unexplained its suddenness, its unity of purpose, its order, its persistent courage, above all its religiousness. Holingshed gives us a hint when he tells us that they were misled by "certain vain prophets which they had among them." And again, that of the nine hung on the Oak of Reformation two were prophets. This word prophets leads us back to the preachers of the Gospel of the Poor, who with hardly an exception were believers in the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It was the time when Anabaptist doctrine was held by thousands of the poor in Holland and Germany. Their preachers were ardent propagandists, travelling over Europe to disseminate their doctrine. We have several records of Dutchmen arrested in England, some of whom were
