entered the city unopposed, but was forced by the rebels to withdraw with his army to Cambridge. From this point, Kett was less successful. He failed in an attempt to spread the rebellion to Great Yarmouth. The Earl of Warwick reached Norwich and gained entry to the city with a large force. Although outnumbered, Kett's men rejected an offer of pardon and after bloody street fighting they were forced to return to Mousehold Heath. Kett made an attempt to recapture the city, but the arrival of mercenaries in support of Warwick forced him to abandon the camp. In a bloody pitched battle outside the city on 27 August 1549, the rebels were routed and Kett was captured. He was later convicted of treason and hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle. Norfolk during the English Civil War The county supported Parliament during the English Civil War, although there was a strong element of Royalist support. The defences of Norwich and the main ports were strengthened and in December 1642 the Eastern Association was formed to place the region on a war footing, but little blood was shed in Norfolk, which was held by Parliament throughout the war. In September 1643, an anti-Papist mob caused considerable damage to Norwich Cathedral, which was occupied by troops the following year. According to Joseph Hall, "In a kind of sacrilegious and profane procession all the organ pipes, vestments, both copes, together with the wooden cross which had been newly sawn down from over the Green Yard pulpit, and the service books and singing books that could be had, were carried to the fire in the public market place. Near the public cross all these monuments of idolatry must be sacrificed to the fire..." The only serious fighting in Norfolk during the civil war was at King's Lynn, where Royalist sympathies were strongest. In April 1643 Parliament investigated King's Lynn and ordered the detention of the town's prominent Royalists. That August, on the assurance that Royalist forces would soon arrive, the town declared openly for the King. It was besieged by the Earl of Manchester and suffered damage from bombardment, but Parliament's attempts to raise sufficient forces was beset by difficulties and the town surrendered only after Manchester declared that on 16 September he would storm the defences. Any Royalist hopes of assisting the King in Norfolk ended. In 1646 a series of events began