This book tells the story of the 1549 rebellions. It does so for three reasons: it is a story that is worth telling; the story illuminates key themes in late medieval and early modern history; and the story highlights fundamental changes in mid-sixteenth-century society and popular politics. Perhaps most of all, this book aims to dispel the notion that the ‘masses of the Tudor period’ were ‘inarticulate’. In place of the characterisation of the rebels of 1549 as ‘simple men and boys’, it is here argued that popular political culture in Tudor England was rich, sophisticated and vibrant and that it deserves to occupy an important place in the historical interpretation of the period. It is my intention, then, not only to add to the stock of knowledge about 1549, but also to suggest new ways in which a fuller appreciation of the lives of early modern labouring people might change historical interpretations of the period as a whole.

This book straddles two genres of historical writing: that of political history and social history. Its claim to occupy this interpretive high ground is based upon, firstly, the emergence of a post-revisionist history of politics and religion in sixteenth-century England; secondly, the development of new approaches to popular politics in late medieval England; and lastly, the emergence of a new social history of politics.