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If the Western Rising or Prayer Book Rebellion means little or nothing to you, rest assured that you are not alone. 1549 – particularly the late Spring and Summer of 1549 – brought considerable civil unrest across much of England, so much so that it was dubbed The Commotion Times. In just 18 months, between 1547 and the Summer of 1549, ‘advisors’ to the young King Edward VI had rolled out – or rather, steam-rollered out - their idea of Protestantism. The use of Archbishop Cranmer’s Booke of Common Prayer in English instead of the ‘familiar’ Latin, became obligatory from the Whit Sunday, 9th of June, 1549. The familiar and much-loved Mass, along with most of its traditional liturgical practices, was no more. People began to protest.
Assiduously swept under the Establishment carpet, the passage of time combined with a (possibly partly deliberate) shortage of records may have undermined the perceived extent and significance of this large-scale protest-turned-bloodbath in Devon against radical changes to religious and social life.
Now air-brushed almost out of popular knowledge, it has become one of the nation’s best suppressed ‘secrets’. Long associated with Mid- and East Devon, more recent information suggests that people from North Devon – including Pilton - also joined the ranks of protestors, and paid the price. This article describes what happened in North Devon and reveals the penalty paid by Richard, the curate of Pilton. Read on!