On this day in Tudor history, 31st July 1549, in the reign of King Edward VI, Edmund Sheffield, 1st Baron Sheffield, was killed in Norwich.
Twenty-eight-year-old was serving in the royal force led by William Par, Marquess of Northampton, during Kett's Rebellion in East Anglia.
They were trying to take Norwich back from the rebels, but suffered a brutal attack in the streets for the city. Apparently, Sheffield stumbled into a ditch and then was killed by a blow from a butcher named Fulke.
Poet and translator Barnabe Googe, who was only nine at the time, described Sheffield as "good Lord whom deare I loved", and wrote of those who killed him as "crabbed Clowns" and "Dunghyll Dogs".
The baron was buried in St Martin's at the Palace, Norwich.
Trivia: Sheffield had been the ward of George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, brother of Queen Anne Boleyn, until Rochford's fall in 1536.
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Image: The Cathedral Close, Norwich, © Copyright Roger Cornfoot and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence, https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6195747
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