Robert Ket and his brother were well-known men. Both were craftsmen, Robert, a tanner, and William, a butcher. They were landowners besides, and men of substance and of old family, for it was said the Kets had been in the land since the Norman Conquest. Robert Ket held three manors from the Earl of Warwick; his yearly income was put down at £50, and his property valued at 1,000 marks. Like other landowners, the Kets had made enclosures, but on the arrival of the people from Hetherset they at once declared themselves willing to stand by the movement for freeing the land. Robert Ket felt the misery of his neighbours. He saw that if the revolt was to be anything more than a local riot it must have necessary guidance, and his sympathies were entirely on the democratic side. And so from that time forward he gave up the quiet of a country gentleman’s life at Wymondham for the strenuous movement of an insurgent camp. To the appeal of the people for help, Ket answered passionately, “I am ready, and will be ready at all times, to do whatever, not only to repress, but to subdue the power of great men. Whatsoever lands I have enclosed shall again be made common unto ye and all men, and my own hands shall first perform it.” Then Robert Ket went on to commit himself body and soul to the movement, resolved that the peasants should not be left unaided in the struggle they had begun, and willing to take upon himself the burden and responsibility of leadership. “You shall have me, if you will, not only as a companion, but as a captain; and in the doing of the so great a work before us, not only as a fellow, but for a leader, author and principal.” If the ambition which clutches at sovereignty and rule is despicable, even more despicable is the weakness which refuses to take command at times of peril. To Robert Ket and his brother there was no promise of the world’s honour and glory should the rising be successful. At the best would be the satisfaction of a battle fought and won for the deliverance of long-suffering peasants. At the worst the laying down of life in a good cause, as Geoffrey Litster and many a Norfolk man had done in bygone days. Robert Ket’s leadership was acclaimed with enthusiasm, nor was it ever disputed throughout the rising. In this, the last of the great popular risings in England, the Norfolk men were as loyal to their leader as the men of Kent were to Wat Tyler and Jack Cade. And in each case that loyalty had ample justification. There were but a thousand men involved when the rising began, but under Ket’s command the movement passed rapidly from the fluid “running hither and thither” condition of the first fortnight, and became the march of an organized army. On July 10th, two days after Ket took command, this army was on the road to Norwich, and after crossing the river at Cringleford, lay encamped at Eaton Wood.