Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Rising of 1549

The Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Rising of 1549 was a rural rebellion that took place in Tudor England under the rule of Edward VI's Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. Part of a series of disturbances across the country, it took place at the same time as the better-known Prayer Book Rebellion or Western Rising and for many of the same reasons: discontent at the introduction in June 1549 of the Book of Common Prayer, fuelled by economic distress and resentment at enclosures of common land.Kett's Rebellion, which centred on enclosures, took place in the same month, contributing to a growing sense of national disorder in what was popularly known afterwards as "the commotion time".

Based mainly on the fact that, unlike other rebels, he was later tried in London, it is probable that James Webbe, the vicar of Barford St Michael, was the captain of the Rising. Other ringleaders were a wealthy farmer, Thomas Bouldry or Bowldry of Great Haseley, and Henry Joyes, vicar of Chipping Norton.

Unlike the rising in Devon and Cornwall, it does not seem that any gentry became involved, and most of those whose names were to be associated with the Rising were either farmers, artisans, or parish priests. The Rising's quick suppression meant that the rebels' specific demands have gone unrecorded, though they were probably similar to those of the Cornish rising — reinstatement of the Six Articles and the Latin liturgy — with additional local grievances. Joyes, at Chipping Norton, appears to have joined the Rising because the effects of the chantries act had left him to minister alone to 800 parishioners.

It is probable that local resentment at enclosures also played a part, particularly at Great Haseley, where Thomas Bouldry had been lessee of the farm, and where the recently enclosed deer park of Sir John Williams at Rycote House was attacked by a mob who subsequently broke into his house and drank his wine and beer. There had been some minor enclosure riots or disturbances in Buckinghamshire the previous year, though the authorities' response was lenient.

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