It is plain from Ket’s speeches to his men, and from “The Rebels’ Complaint,” which he published at this time, that to Robert Ket the rising was not only to put down enclosures, its aim was rather to strike at the root of the evil and to put an end to the ascendancy of the landlord class, and make England a free commonwealth. Either the people must put down landlords, or very soon the landlords would have the whole land in their possession, and the people would be in hopeless and helpless subjection. Had not an act of parliament been actually passed making “slaves” of the landless men, dispossessed by enclosures? When parliament was establishing slavery it was time for honest men to be up and doing, rousing the people to action. Ket’s speech at Eaton Wood is a fierce attack on the landlords, and a reminder that having ventured so far, the peasants must advance yet further: Now are ye overtopped and trodden down by gentlemen, and put out of possibility ever to recover foot. Rivers of riches ran into the coffers of your landlords, while you are pair’d to the quick, and fed upon pease and oats like beasts. You are fleeced by these landlords for their private benefit, and as well kept under by the public burdens of State wherein while the richer sort favour themselves, ye are gnawn to the very bones. Your tyrannous masters often implead, arrest, and cast you into prison, so that they may the more terrify and torture you in your minds, and wind your necks more surely under their arms. And then they palliate these pilleries with the fair pretence of law and authority! Fine workmen, I warrant you, are this law and authority, who can do their dealings so closely that men can only discover them for your undoing. Harmless counsels are fit for tame fools; for you who have already stirred there is no hope but in adventuring boldly. In “The Rebels’ Complaint,” the same note is struck. Only by taking up arms, and mixing Heaven and earth together, can the intolerable oppression of the landlords be ended. The pride of great men is now intolerable, but our condition miserable. These abound in delights; and compassed with the fullness of all things, and consumed with vain pleasures, thirst only after gain, inflamed with the burning delights of their desires.