The reasons why the rising against the authority of Cromwell, known to posterity by the suggestive name of the Pilgrimage of Grace, was organized, and set afoot in the northern counties, are not far to seek. In the first place devotion to the Old Faith, and to the cause of Queen Katherine, was far stronger in the north than in the south of England. A comparison of the ‘comperta’ of the northern and southern monasteries, or of the details of the different visitations, will easily convince the reader of this discrepancy. In the south occur constant complaints by the monks that their superiors failed to observe the canons of religious asceticism; and on the other hand, whenever an abbot refused to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy, his subordinates were always sure to report him to head quarters, in the hope of gaining favour with the King or Cromwell[438]. The letters of Dr. Legh from the south of England contain frequent reports of ‘towardness’ among the inmates, and willingness to adopt the New Faith[439]. In the north one finds none of this. The reports concerning the monasteries there are of a very different sort: immorality and unnatural crimes are the principal charges against the inmates[440]. There is scarcely a record of apostasy; scarcely a case of mutual accusation among the monks. The abbots and their subordinates almost invariably supported each other, and their loyalty to the Old Faith and their hatred of those who tried to disestablish it, gave the Commissioners a far harder task in the north than in the south. There is also reason to think that Cromwell’s spy system operated less perfectly there, partly owing to this spirit of conservatism and love of the old usages permeating every sort and condition of life, and partly owing to the great spaces of wild, uninhabited land.
This is only the religious side. But there were other almost equally valid reasons for the localization of the revolt in the north. The south was thickly populated, and to a certain extent commercial; the north sparsely populated, and for the most part pastoral and agricultural. Cromwell had done everything that he could to facilitate trade, and his efforts in this direction had been rewarded by comparative popularity in the commercial counties. The discontent in the agricultural north, however, was most pronounced. The Statute of Uses had not been in all cases correctly interpreted. It was said that the King made such laws that when a man died his wife and children had to go a-begging[441]. Lastly, the proximity of the Scottish Borders, which were in a continual state of disorder, offered great encouragement for undertaking a rebellion in the north. Cromwell was constantly occupied with the suppression of minor disturbances there[442], owing to the very lax administration of the Courts and Wardens of the three Marches, while across the Tweed an attitude of more or less active hostility to the English government was always maintained. There was every probability that a revolt in the northern counties of the realm would receive substantial aid from Scotland.
But though the Pilgrimage of Grace was locally restricted to the northern counties, it embraced all classes, animated by the most varied interests[443]. The objects of the insurgents were secular and religious, their mottoes conservative and progressive. On their banners were borne the emblems of the five wounds of Christ, a chalice and a host, a plough, and a horn. The first of these symbols indicated that the insurrection had been undertaken for the defence of the faith; the second was to remind the commons of the spoils of the Church. The plough was to encourage the husbandmen, and ‘the horn was in token of Horncastle’: for the banner ‘was brought among the rebels by the commons of Horncastle[444].’ The watchwords of the rebels were of the very most diverse nature. Some of them cried out for the restoration of the suppressed monasteries; others for the renewal of guarantees against exorbitant taxation, for remedies for the agrarian discontent, or for legal permission to leave land by will to daughters and younger sons. All of them united in demanding the destruction of Cromwell, whom the people regarded as the cause of all their woes[445]. The leaders and participants in the revolt were not of any one rank or station in life; the popular and aristocratic elements were almost equally mixed. It is no wonder that a rising, supported by men of such various classes, which aimed at the extirpation of abuses of so many different sorts, and which yet was united by the feeling that all these abuses were due to one man alone, was regarded as ‘the daungerest insurrection that haith ben seen[446].’
On September 29, 1536, when the Commissioners for the suppression of the monasteries came to Hexham in Northumberland, they were rudely surprised by finding the house there fortified, and prepared to defend itself to the last. The Commissioners left the town and reported the affair to the King, who ordered them to assemble all the forces they could muster, and if the monastery did not yield, to treat the monks like arrant traitors[447]. But scarcely was this danger past when news came that the Commissioners for levying the lay subsidy, the collection of which was superintended by Cromwell, had met with a similar experience at Caistor in Lincolnshire. It seems they had feared some disturbance at their arrival, and had invited several country gentlemen to join them in case of any danger. A large force had meantime assembled to resist the payment of the subsidy. The country gentlemen were pursued, taken, and forced to write to Lord Hussey at Sleaford, to summon him to join the rebel commons, unless he wished to be treated as an enemy, and also to send to the King to seek a general pardon[448]. Hussey promptly reported the state of affairs to Cromwell, and though he put a bold face on the matter in presence of the rebels, it is evident that he was seriously alarmed[449]. The King meantime himself received the letter the captured gentlemen had been forced to send him, caused the bearers of it to reveal the names of the ringleaders, and wrote to the Commissioners for levying the subsidy, expressing his distress at the ‘vnnatural vnkyndness’ of his subjects, and marvelling ‘that he that is worth xx li sholde rebell for the payment of x s[450].’ But this sort of letter of mild surprise, with which Henry had sometimes successfully warded off pressing danger, did not prove to be sufficient in this case. He was relieved from any apprehension on his own account; the rebels had expressly denied any desire to be disloyal to the King: they only wished that the Church of England should have its old privileges, ‘without any exaction,’ that the suppressed houses of religion be restored, and that they should not be taxed, except for defence of the realm in time of war. Again and again did they repeat their demands for the surrender or banishment of Cromwell, Audley, Cranmer, Riche, and others of the Privy Council. That the King did not throw over his ministers in their hour of need, surely shows that Henry was committed to them and to their policy, and believed in it.
The situation was certainly alarming. It was very fortunate that at the time of the outbreak the position of the King was otherwise so strong, and England’s foreign affairs in such good condition, that every effort could be centred on the suppression of the revolt. The insurgents evidently meant business. Sir Christopher Ascugh, gentleman usher to the King, wrote to Cromwell, October 6, ‘The rebels ar in nombre of men of armys well harnesyd x or xii m spars and bows; & xxx m other sum harnesyd and sum not harnesyd . . . and all the contrey Rysys holly as they goo before them. . . . Mellessent your seruaunt they have hanged & Baytyd Bellowe to deth wyth Dogges wyth a bull skyn vpon his bake wyth many Regorous wordes agaynst your lordeshepp[451].’ Letters were sent to the principal men in the county, asking them to use all their efforts to check the revolt, and the King later declared his intention to take the field himself[452]. Cromwell’s nephew Richard[453] got all the arrows and implements of war out of the Tower, and dispatched a number of men to Lincolnshire, among them sixty or eighty masons and carpenters, who were at work on his uncle’s house. Cromwell himself was in great fear. The Imperial ambassador informs us[454] that the whole blame for the insurrection was laid on him. Norfolk was recalled to the Court, whence he had been banished at Cromwell’s suggestion, and the Duke arrived at London, happy as he had never been before in the thought that the first step towards the ruin of his rival had been taken. But in this he was doomed to disappointment, for Cromwell retained his ascendancy; the King, according to Chapuys, had been very reluctant to send for the Duke, and when the latter was dispatched again to raise men and prevent the spreading of the revolt, he was overtaken by a most ‘discomfortable’ message from the Court, ordering him to send his son in his place while he himself remained at home[455]. Cromwell had not only succeeded in getting him away from the Court, but had also prevented his having a hand in the suppression of the rebellion. The Lord Privy Seal himself was content with maintaining his position at the King’s side. It would have been sheer madness for him to have marched against the rebels in person. If the Lincolnshire men could have murdered him, they probably would have been induced to return quietly to their homes. Nor did Cromwell even dare to give orders at arm’s length, or in any way to undertake the management of the royal forces. He kept himself consistently in the background; almost all our information concerning the rebellion is contained in the correspondence of the King with Norfolk and Suffolk. The few letters which Cromwell did write in connexion with the Pilgrimage of Grace are quite unimportant[456]. They consist for the most part of messages of profuse and almost hysterical thanks to the leaders of the King’s party for their loyal service. It was not until the revolt had been thoroughly suppressed that Cromwell ventured again to assume the general direction of public affairs.
Meantime the Duke of Suffolk and the Earl of Shrewsbury had been sent against the rebels, who were waiting in Lincolnshire for the King’s answer to their first letter. Richard Cromwell had found great difficulty in conveying to the scene the arms and artillery he had got out of the Tower, because the people were at first unwilling to furnish the requisite number of horses, owing to sympathy with the insurgents, if one may believe the report of Chapuys’ nephew[457]. Finally, however, he succeeded in overtaking the Duke of Suffolk, who was marching with an army against the rebels from the south, at Stamford on October 10. The Earl of Shrewsbury, according to the King’s orders, was advancing at the same time from Nottingham. Caught between two armies supplied with the ordnance which the insurgents so much dreaded, the Lincolnshire men, further frightened by a proclamation from the Earl of Shrewsbury transmitted to them by one Thomas Miller, Lancaster Herald, began to lose heart and finally consented to surrender, on condition that they should receive assurance of merciful treatment. The King was pleased, ordered the rebels to deliver up their arms, and commanded Shrewsbury and Suffolk to examine the country gentlemen who had aided them, and report to him[458]. He further wrote an answer to the insurgents, calling them the ‘rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beestelie of the hole realme[459],’ expatiating on the trouble he had given himself in their defence, and assuring them that they had no grounds to complain of any of the new measures, either secular or religious. He was just thinking that the worst part of the danger was over, when suddenly news came from Lord Darcy, who was the chief person in the north, that all Yorkshire had risen in a similar way[460].
The news of this outbreak was even more disquieting than that of the first. Besides being much further from London, where the King’s armies could only reach them with great difficulty, the Yorkshire rebels were nearer the lawless and hostile Scottish borders. They had from the very first been in sympathy with their neighbours in the south, and had communicated with them by means of beacons burned on the banks of the Humber[461]. The same motives had prompted them to rise in arms. They elected as captain a young barrister named Aske, who issued a proclamation for all men to assemble on Skipworth Moor, and take oath to be faithful to the King’s issue and noble blood, to preserve the Church from spoil, and be true to the commonwealth—a clever euphemism for demanding the death of Cromwell and his adherents. The Yorkshiremen had gone about their revolt with far more method and system than the Lincolnshire rebels. The latter had been easily conquered, mainly because they lacked a head; but the Yorkshiremen promised to give far more trouble. They made musters by scrolls and bills nailed to the door of every church in the county, and proclaimed that any one who refused to take their oaths and rise with them should be put to death, whether he was lord or peasant. It was even rumoured that they intended to send an embassy to Flanders, to ask for aid in money and armed men, and to petition the Pope for absolution for all offences committed in the course of their holy pilgrimage[462].
The King replied at once to Darcy’s letter, commanding him to arrest all seditious persons, and promising so to treat the originators of the revolt in Lincolnshire that all York should soon learn that they had got their deserts[463]. Darcy wrote to the Lord Mayor of York, warning him to be prepared to resist the insurgents, while he himself proceeded to Pomfret Castle to hold it against the rebels, and there awaited further instructions from the King[464]. He succeeded in maintaining his position at Pomfret for only ten days however, for on October 20 he surrendered the town to the rebel army under the leadership of Aske, and together with the Archbishop of York, who had sought refuge there, swore to take part with the insurgents[465]. At his trial in the following year he pleaded that he was unable to hold out any longer because the provisions had run short, and further stated that he had been compelled to side with the rebels under pain of death. He also alleged as an excuse for his conduct that he thought that if he got in touch with the insurgents, he could the more easily induce them to lay down their arms. How loyal he really was to the King must remain a matter of conjecture, but there is strong reason to think that he had much sympathy with the revolt[466].
For a time the rebels seemed to carry all before them. Shrewsbury had been ordered to go to Yorkshire and engage the insurgents there, now that Lincolnshire was regarded as safe. Meantime Thomas Miller, Lancaster Herald, who had been so successful in obtaining the submission of the Lincolnshire men, was sent by the King from Scrooby, on October 21, to read a royal proclamation to the rebels at Pomfret, upbraiding them for their conduct, but promising them pardon on condition that they should immediately disperse. When he arrived at his destination the town had been surrendered. Aske, although he treated the royal envoy with all due respect, entirely refused to let him read his proclamation in public, and sent him away with two crowns and his errand unaccomplished[467].
Meantime the Duke of Norfolk, who two weeks before had returned sadly to Kenninghall with all his hopes of regaining the royal favour blighted, had been hurried to and fro in the south of England by a continued stream of conflicting orders from Cromwell and the King, until he finally heard of the disturbances in Yorkshire from Shrewsbury[468]. He immediately turned his steps with a small company of men towards Doncaster, in the hope of regaining the King’s favour by a prompt suppression of the new outbreak. So anxious was he to recommend himself to Henry, that he spent £1,500 of his own in paying the wages of the King’s soldiers; and when this was not sufficient, and Henry refused to advance any money, he asked for a loan to meet the expenses, and took the responsibility for its payment upon himself[469]. Norfolk’s whole proceeding in this crisis was eminently characteristic. He never hesitated to spend money or to tell lies, if he thought that by so doing there was any possibility of gaining the royal favour. He assured the King that, in treating with rebels, he would pay no respect to what others might call his ‘honour distayned,’ for he considered it perfectly permissible to break promises in order to serve the Crown[470]. Henry, it would seem, did not take Norfolk’s treacherous proposals to sacrifice his own honour in the royal service in as good part as the Duke had hoped, and wrote back hinting that if Norfolk made promises to the rebels that he could not keep, he must make them on his own responsibility, and take great care that the King’s name remained unsullied.