One of the most notorious murders in Norfolk history took place at Stanfield Hall, near Wymondham. The Recorder of Norwich, Isaac Jermy, and his son were shot outside their home.
Their tenant, a debt-ridden farmer called James Blomfield Rush, was subsequently found guilty of the killing. A complicated story of land disputes, tangled relationships and personal animosity emerged. It gripped the attention not only of people in Norfolk, but nationally. The booming newspaper press had a field day with every titillating detail. Even the novelist Charles Dickens took an interest, visiting the scene of the double killing.
Rush was convicted after a trial the following April in Norwich. His hanging, outside the city’s castle, drew a crowd estimated at 20,000 strong. Many were brought in by train, the city’s new railway station having opened only a few years earlier. Police boarded trains from London at Attleborough, turning off known pickpockets intent on working the crowds.
James Rush stayed cool and composed to the end, even giving the hangman some advice on how to tie the knot. When he finally dropped, a reporter wrote: “The greatest silence prevailed, the solemn stillness only broken by the solitary shriek of a woman who had fainted in the crowd.” Rush’s actual motives and true character remain something of an enigma, one of the reasons his case gained such public attention.
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey died. Born in 1471 in Ipswich, he rose from humble origins to be King Henry VIII’s right hand man, only to die in disgrace, abandoned by his monarch and accused of treason.
Wolsey was a boy prodigy, an Oxford bachelor of arts at the age of 15. Like many talented churchmen of his day, he was a leading civil servant. As Chancellor to the young King Henry he was the leading figure in the country, becoming a Cardinal as well as Archbishop of York and Lincoln.
This rapid rise made him many enemies. When, in the late 1520s he was unable to get a divorce for Henry from his wife Katharine of Aragon, they turned on him. Wolsey lost the king’s favour and it all turned sour.
An ailing Wolsey was arrested while in the north, and charged with treason. He died at Leicester, while en route to London.
A wrestling match took place at Barford between “the noted Game Chicken” and the “East Tuddenham champion”. There was a vast concourse of spectators, and the odds were seven to one on the Game Chicken, who won with the greatest ease and was offered to be backed for 100 guineas against any 11 stone man in England”.
The eccentric George Walpole, Earl of Orford, died. Grandson of Robert Walpole, Britain’s first Prime Minister, he was the owner of the magnificent Houghton Hall in Norfolk.
Orford, born in 1730, was a profligate rake who squandered much of his family’s fortune on good living. On the other hand, he was a generous and much-loved local patron, and dedicated himself to country pursuits.
He founded Swaffham Coursing Club for greyhounds in 1776 as well as a Falconers’ Society. As Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, he was the monarch’s representative in the county.
To help pay off his stupendous debts, he sold off his grandfather’s renowned art collection to Empress Catherine the Great of Russia in the late 1770s. Norfolk’s loss was Russia’s gain, as many of these works are on show at The Hermitage in St Petersburg.
Sadly, Orford was diagnosed insane. He died, without legitimate heirs, aged 61.
Robert and William Kett were executed for treason. Robert, a Wymondham landowner, had led a huge peasant rebellion in Norfolk that summer which had shaken the Tudor regime to its foundations.
The Ketts took up the cause of the people, whose common land was being enclosed to create large and profitable farms. Eventually he led a force of up to 10,000 rebels to Norwich, where they massed on the heights of Mousehold Heath above the city.
When they failed to obtain guarantees that enclosure would be stopped, they crossed the river and defeated government forces. The rebels briefly seized the city.
Eventually, the Duke of Northumberland, who governed the country on behalf of the boy King Edward VI, raised fresh forces, partially consisting of mercenaries hired from continental Europe. The poorly armed peasant levies were not match for these professionals. They were defeated with great loss of life, most likely in an area outside Norwich called Dussindale.
The Kett brothers were taken prisoner. They were tried for treason in London, and returned to Norfolk for execution. Robert was hanged in chains from Norwich Castle – a cruel device intended to prolong the agony – while William suffered the same fate at Wymondham Abbey.