The insurgents did not delay proclaiming their grievances. They declared that if the monasteries were restored, men of mean birth dismissed from the Council,[422] and heretic bishops deprived, they would acknowledge the king as head of the Church.[423] The movement was got up by the monks more than by the pope. Great disorders were committed.
The court was plunged into consternation by this revolt. The king, who had no standing army, felt his weakness, and his anger knew no bounds. 'What!' he said to the traitors (for such was the name he gave them), 'what! do you, the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm, presume to find fault with your king? Return to your homes, surrender to our lieutenants a hundred of your leaders, and prepare to submit to such condign punishment as we shall think you worthy of; otherwise you will expose yourselves, your wives and children, your lands and goods, not only to the indignation of God, but to utter destruction by force and violence of the sword.'
Such threats as these only served to increase the commotion. 'Christianity is going to be abolished,' said the priests; 'you will soon find yourselves under the sword of Turks! But whoever sheds his blood with us shall inherit eternal glory.' The people crowded to them from all quarters. Lord Shrewsbury, sent by the king against the rebellion, being unable to collect more than 3,000 men, and having to contend against ten times as many, had halted at Nottingham. London already imagined the rebels were at its gates, and mighty exertions were made. Sir John Russell and the duke of Suffolk were sent forward with forces hurriedly equipped.
The insurgents were 60,000 strong, but with no efficient leader or store of provisions. Two opinions arose among them: the gentlemen and farmers cried, 'Home, home!' the priests and the people shouted, 'To arms!' The party of the friends of order continued increasing, and at last prevailed. The duke of Suffolk entered Lincolnshire on October 13, and the rebels dispersed.[424]
=PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE.=
A still greater danger threatened the established order of things. The men of the North were more ultramontane than those of Lincoln. On October 8 there was a riot at Beverley, in Yorkshire. A Westminster lawyer, Robert Aske, who had passed his vacation in field-sports, was returning to London, when he was stopped by the rebels and proclaimed their leader. On October 15 he marched to York and replaced the monks in possession of their monasteries. Lord Darcy, an old soldier of Ferdinand of Spain and Louis XII., a warm papal partisan, quitted his castle of Pomfret to join the insurrection. The priests stirred up the people,[425] and ere long, the army, which amounted to 40,000 men, formed a long procession, 'the Pilgrimage of Grace,' which marched through the county of York. Each parish paraded under a captain, priests carrying the church cross in front by way of flag. A large banner, which floated in the midst of this multitude, represented on one side Christ with the five wounds on a cross, and on the other a plow, a chalice, a pix, and a hunting-horn. Every pilgrim wore embroidered on his sleeve the five wounds of Christ with the name of Jesus in the midst. The insurgents had a thousand bows and as many bills, besides other arms,[426] but hardly one poor copy of the Testament of Christ. 'Ah!' said Latimer, preaching in Lincolnshire, 'I will tell you what is the true Christian man's pilgrimage. There are, the Saviour tells us, eight days' journeys.' Then he described the eight beatitudes in the most evangelical manner: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and the rest.[427]
Aske's pilgrimage was of another sort. Addressing the people of those parts, he said to them: 'Lords, knights, masters, and friends, evil-disposed persons have filled the king's mind with new inventions: the holy body of the Church has been despoiled. We have therefore undertaken this pilgrimage for the reformation of what is amiss and the punishment of heretics.[428] If you will not come with us we will fight and die against you.' Great bonfires were lighted on all the hills to call the people to arms. Wherever these new crusaders appeared the monks were replaced in their monasteries and the peasants constrained to join the pilgrimage, under pain of seeing their houses pulled down, their goods seized, and their bodies handed over to the mercy of the captains.
There was this notable difference between the revolt in Germany and that in the North of England. In Germany, a few nobles only joined the people and were compelled to do so. In England, almost all the nobility of the North rallied to it of their own accord. The earls of Westmoreland, Rutland, and Huntingdon, Lords Latimer, Lumley, Scrope, Conyers, and the representatives of several other great families, followed the example of old Lord Darcy. One single nobleman, Percy, earl of Northumberland, remained faithful to the king. He had been ill since the unjust sentence which had struck the loyal wife of Henry VIII.—a sentence in which he had refused to join—and was now at his castle lying on a bed of pain which was soon to be the bed of death. The rebels surrounded his dwelling and summoned him to join the insurrection. He might now have avenged the crime committed by Henry VIII. against Anne Boleyn, but he refused. Savage voices shouted out, 'Cut off his head, and make Sir Thomas Percy earl in his stead.' But the noble and courageous man said calmly to those around him, 'I can die but once; let them kill me, and so put an end to my sorrows.'[429]
The king, more alarmed at this revolt than at the former one, asked with terror whether his people desired to force him to replace his neck under the detested yoke of the pope. In this crisis he displayed great activity. Being at Windsor, he wrote letter after letter to Cromwell.[430] 'I will sell all my plate,' he said. 'Go to the Tower, take as much plate as you may want, and coin it into money.'[431] Henry displayed no less intelligence than decision. He named as commander of his little army a devoted servant, who was also the chief of the ultramontane party at the court—the duke of Norfolk. Once already, for the condemnation of the protestant Anne Boleyn, Henry had selected this chief of the Romish party. This clever policy succeeded equally well for the king in both affairs.