ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the nature and significance of rebellions: their triggers, objectives, course and consequences. It examines popular rebellions, usually triggered by economic grievances, and focuses on provincial rebellions, a third, overlapping, category. Many rebellions, perhaps most, were triggered by demands for higher taxes. The nobility and many office holders were exempt from most taxes, so the fiscal burden fell primarily on the peasantry and towns. Kett's rebellion in 1549 in Norfolk was largely driven by economic grievances, especially rent increases, enclosures, and lords who overstocked the commons and undermined the common rights of ordinary villagers. In Western Europe, popular rebellion was primarily a phenomenon of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. Urban protest often reflected a deep sense of injustice as well as economic hardship, though the anger was generally directed at tax officials rather than the monarch.
