Leader and Rebels: John Wrawe's Role in the Suffolk Rising of 1381

Abstract

Copyright © The Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History and the individual authors. On 12 June 1381 a group of rebels assembled in Liston, an Essex village close to the county’s border with Suffolk. Crossing the border, they travelled to Cavendish and Melford Green, helping themselves to goods, before proceeding to the monastic town of Bury St Edmunds. In the following days these rebels, along with many Bury townsmen, engaged in acts of rebellion in the town and the surrounding area. On 14 June, money was extorted from the townsmen of Thetford and Sir John Cavendish, chief justice of the King’s Bench, was murdered in Lakenheath. On 15 June, two abbey officials were murdered and the heads of rebel victims were paraded in the town. On 16 June, the Bury rebels demanded a new town charter and a new abbot. It was not until 23 June that William de Ufford, earl of Suffolk, arrived to suppress the rebellion. He headed a group of royal justices who heard indictments against rebels into late July. All the recorded cases resulted in a sentence of ‘beheaded’ [decollatus].