CHAPTER III

AFFINITY AND CONFEDERACY

Between the nobles of the Court and the husbandmen in the fields stood

that great and influential class “the gentlemen.” On it the Tudor

government in the main depended. The gentlemen had no more sympathy with

the out-of-date dynastic dreams of the White Rose party than with the

economic grievances of the commons, but they had their own grudges

against the government. They were hard-worked, and gained little thanks,

as Henry went on the truly royal principle that it was honour enough to

be allowed to serve him. They were worried by clumsy legislation, such

as the Statute of Uses; they were angry at the interference with the

House of Commons; and their better nature was outraged by the

suppression of the monasteries founded by their ancestors, of which they

were themselves the pupils and patrons. But the guiding principle of the

country gentlemen was their devotion to landed property. They hated

rebellion, because, sooner or later, it was followed by confiscation of

property. They feared a rising of the lower classes because it

endangered their property, even when it was not originally directed

against themselves. The German peasants in 1524–5 had risen against the

monasteries and the Church; but out of that movement had developed a

bloody civil war between the rich and the poor. If fear of loss deterred

the English gentlemen from opposing the government, no less did hope of

gain. When they realised that the dissolution of the monasteries meant a

general scramble for more property, most of them forgot their religious

scruples; but this realisation did not come all at once.

So much can safely be said, but there is very little evidence as to the

discontent among the gentlemen. It is possible to discover the attitude

of the discontented nobles from the letters of Chapuys, which often give

us a delightful feeling of eavesdropping across four centuries. Nor is

there any doubt as to the feelings of the commons—scores of informers

bear witness to their disaffection. But there is no key to the

confidence of the gentlemen. They were more cautious than the labourers,

less easily watched than the nobles. Their private opinions were known

only to their friends, who would not, of course, inform against them. In

the few cases (all after the rising) when gentleman did inform against

gentleman, there was generally a feud of some standing between them. We

are reduced to arguing backward, as Henry did. The gentlemen, especially

in Yorkshire, were the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace. We cannot

really accept their own subsequent explanation that they acted against

their will in fear of their own tenants. There is abundant evidence that

risings of the commons alone were very easily put down.

In this chapter we attempt to sketch the histories of half-a-dozen

northern families of gentle or noble blood, in order to give some idea

of the state of the north at the time and to outline the lives and

antecedents of the leaders of the rebellion.

Local government in Henry VIII’s reign depended to a great extent on the

peers. Each nobleman was responsible for the behaviour of his own

district or “country” as it was called; under his supervision the

gentlemen kept order, each on his own lands. The lord’s private

friendships, feuds and marriages had a widespread influence on the lives

of all whom he ruled. North of Trent the gentlemen naturally grouped

themselves into three clans round the three great houses of Clifford,

Percy, and Neville, the heads of which were respectively the earls of

Cumberland, Northumberland, and Westmorland. It is necessary to know

something of genealogy in order to understand the history of a period

when marriages were arranged to suit family politics rather than the

inclination of the parties, and consequently a man was born to an

hereditary friendship with one family, a feud with another, and perhaps

depended on a third for all hope of advancement.

All the noblemen of the northern counties took part in the strenuous

task of governing the Borders. The border counties, Northumberland,

Cumberland, Westmorland and the Bishopric of Durham, formed a district

totally different from the rest of England. Scotland was a troublesome

neighbour, and the men of these counties were a hardy race, famed for

their soldier-like qualities and especially for their skill as scouts

and skirmishers. Then again these counties were exempted from taxation

on account of the Scots’ ravages and their own special burdens of

defence. Finally a state of lawlessness frequently prevailed, which in

peaceful times never even threatened the south. The Wardens of the

Marches were usually noblemen such as Lord Darcy, Lord Dacre, and the

Earl of Northumberland. The power entrusted to them was regarded with

much suspicion by the King, while it was quite insufficient to maintain

order. As early as 1522 a secret council, under the presidency of a

royal lieutenant, was organised on the Borders. In 1525 it was

re-organised and placed under the presidency of Henry’s natural son the

Duke of Richmond[108]. The powers of the Council naturally roused much

opposition in the north. Among Lord Darcy’s papers there is a draft of a

petition complaining of its authority. The petitioners protested their

loyalty, and declared their willingness to prove it against any

insinuations. Seeing that they were so loyal, and that the country was

quiet, with no rufflings as in the days of King Henry and King Edward,

“but both the titles and all lovings to God (joined) in your Grace,” the

petitioners begged they might be left under the ordinary jurisdiction of

the Westminster Courts, which extended all over the kingdom except in

the county palatine of Durham, instead of being at the mercy of the

members of the Council, who might call any man before them on the

slightest pretext. They complained that so long as things went well the

Council alone was praised, and if affairs went badly, wheresoever the

fault might be, the whole blame was laid on the gentlemen. Moreover, the

petition continued, the Council was composed of spiritual men, who were

not fit to judge murders and felonies, suppress sedition, or see to the

defence of the realm, “and as great clerks report, there is no manner of

state within this your realm that hath more need of reformation, nor to

be put under good government, than the spiritual men.” If this were

true, it was not meet that they should rule under the commission they

now possessed “for surely they and other spiritual men be sore moved

against all temporal men.” The petition ends with protestations of

loyalty, after which Darcy wrote in a note that the like commission had

been tried by “my Lady the King’s grandam,” and proved greatly to the

King’s disadvantage in stopping the lawful processes at Westminster

Hall. From this petition it appears that Darcy, and probably other

northern gentlemen, was ready to make use of the King’s anti-clerical

policy for his own ends, arguing, perhaps, that though he was as loyal a

son of the Church as any man, yet priests ought not to meddle in secular

matters[109]. This draft was drawn up in the year 1529, before any of

the acts aimed at the clergy had been passed, and before Darcy himself

had chosen his side in the struggle between King and Pope. It was

probably never presented.

Some such body as the Council of the North was absolutely necessary if

any approach to law and order was to be maintained on the Borders. In

proof of this it is only necessary to describe one case out of a dozen.

Humphry Lisle, whose father Sir William Lisle of Felton, had led a brief

but crowded career as a freebooter in 1527–8, was run down and condemned

to death with his father and most of their band in 1528, when he was

only thirteen. He subsequently confessed that he had assisted in an

attack on Newcastle gaol, by which nine persons were liberated; that he

had taken part in four cattle raids, the burning and spoiling of five

farms and villages, and four highway robberies; that he had helped to

capture a number of prisoners to be held to ransom, and had been present

at the murder of a priest[110]. His life was spared by the Earl of

Northumberland, who had captured and hanged his father, but Humphry was

sent to the Tower. In 1532 he was back on the Borders and a knight, but

almost immediately afterwards he was outlawed and fled to Scotland[111].

Careers of this sort being rather the rule than the exception on the

Borders, the office of Warden of the Marches called for a strong man.

But one could seldom be found, and the quarrels of the northern nobles

among themselves embroiled matters still further. The divisions of the

house of Percy, for instance, caused infinite trouble. The fifth Earl of

Northumberland, surnamed the Magnificent, died in 1527, leaving numerous

large debts. He had three sons by his wife Katherine, daughter and

heiress of Sir Robert Spencer[112]. The heir, Henry, born about 1503,

was feeble in body and, like all such men in that hurrying age, was

constantly the creature of those in power. From his earliest years he

was either led or bullied, first by his father and Cardinal Wolsey, in

whose household he was educated, later by Cromwell and Cromwell’s

dependent, Sir Reynold Carnaby. When Henry Percy was a page in the

Cardinal’s service the incident occurred by which he is best known, his

poor little love affair with Anne Boleyn. He seems to have offered to

marry her; but the King had already shown the maid of honour favour. The

Earl of Northumberland forbade his son to foster so dangerous a passion

and hastened on his marriage with the Lady Mary Talbot, daughter to the

Earl of Shrewsbury[113].

In 1527 Henry Percy became Earl of Northumberland, and on the fall of

Cardinal Wolsey he was freed from the man who had exercised most

influence over him. It is characteristic of Cromwell’s methods that he

worked the Earl as he wished by means of the young nobleman’s own

favourite, Sir Reynold Carnaby[114]. While this man retained his

position the King could rely on Northumberland, who was reputed to be

one of the most loyal of the peers. He was at one time in secret

communication with Chapuys, but this was probably a mere freak. Darcy

described him as “very light and hasty” and not to be trusted[115]. His

loyalty seems to have sprung from abject fear of Henry, and he probably

would have been glad enough of the King’s overthrow, though he would

rather die than venture to assist in it.

The Percy estates were rich, though burdened with debt, and the castles

were very strong. With them in his hands the King could keep the north

in subjection and even hope to abate the confusion on the Borders. But

if they were used against him by some capable commander, such as the

Earl’s brother, Sir Thomas Percy, the results were sure to be serious;

if foreign help were sent to the rebels, perhaps fatal. Cromwell, with

Sir Reynold Carnaby to forward his plans, saw the chance of enriching

the crown by the whole of the Percy lands. The Earl’s life was

uncertain; his marriage turned out unhappily and there was no prospect

of an heir; he was on bad terms with his brother Sir Thomas, and Carnaby

took care that he should not forget the quarrel[116]. It was not

surprising that the brothers should disagree, for Sir Thomas had all the

conspicuous vices and virtues of his race, which were completely absent

in the invalid Earl. An instance of their constant disputes occurred in

1532, when the Earl appointed Lord Ogle Deputy Warden of the Marches.

Ogle was allied to Carnaby, and Sir Thomas together with his younger

brother, Sir Ingram Percy, refused to recognise his authority and

forbade their tenants to do so. Sir Thomas issued proclamations

declaring that he was the true Warden, and Lord Ogle postponed his first

Warden’s court for fear that the brothers would break it up[117].

Sir Thomas on his side complained that the Earl had not given him the

lands left to him in his father’s will until he was on the eve of

marriage[118]. His wife was Eleanor, daughter and co-heiress to

Harbottle of Beamish; by her he had two sons, Thomas and Henry, and a

daughter. Their home was generally at Prudhoe Castle on the Tyne[119].

It does not appear that the breach between the brothers was irreparable

until about 1535, in which year the King gave the childless Earl licence

to appoint any one of the Percy name and blood heir to all his

lands[120]. But when Sir Thomas, his natural successor, was proposed,

the King raised objections[121]. The result was that in February 1535

the Earl made the King his sole heir, and an Act of Parliament was

passed “concerning the assurance of the possessions of the Earl of

Northumberland to the King’s Highness and his heirs[122].” Nothing could

have made the Earl more unpopular, and it was probably this alienation

of the family property rather than his personal extravagance and

inherited debts that earned him his surname “the Unthrifty.”[123] Sir

Thomas was provided for in the Act, but he could hardly be grateful for

a pension when he felt himself heir by right to an earldom and the

broadest lands in the north[124]. No appeal was possible when the King

gained by his loss. A petition which he sent to Cromwell in July 1535

shows his helplessness. In this he related how the lands at Corbridge so

tardily allowed him, which he “with great labour” had defended from the

Scots, had now been granted by his brother to Sir Reynold Carnaby. Sir

Thomas naturally refused to give them up, and went to remonstrate with

his brother in person. But he was not allowed even to see the Earl and

was rudely turned from his house. He concluded by begging that Carnaby

might be removed from the Earl’s service, as he was the cause of his

master’s quarrels with his wife, brothers and nearest relatives[125].

Cromwell was not likely to remove Carnaby from the place where he had

been of so much use; and it was Cromwell and Carnaby whom Sir Thomas

secretly denounced as the authors of his wrongs when he, with Sir

Ingram, swore to be revenged on the Earl’s favourite as “the destruction

of all our blood.”

Perhaps the most curious part of the whole matter is the Earl’s hatred

of his brother. The reason may lie in some long-forgotten offence, but

as far as can be known there were wrongs on both sides in their early

quarrels. Sir Thomas was the more deeply injured when his brother set

aside his claim and that of his young sons to inherit his lands; yet he

seems to have felt a kind of personal loyalty to the Earl as head of his

house, while the Earl constantly refused even to speak with his brother.

Easily swayed in most matters, he had all a weak man’s unreasoning

obstinacy when driven to desperation. To modern eyes he seems a

pathetically frail figure; but it was an age of strong men, and he

inspired more curses than pity then. Sir Thomas Percy was the darling of

the people, always sympathetic to the disinherited; he was the favourite

of his mother, the dowager countess, to whom he was much attached[126];

it was to him rather than to the Earl that the helpless appealed in

times of trouble[127]. Like his father, the Magnificent Earl, he

delighted in gorgeous array and warlike adventures[128]; he was fearless

and honest as Hotspur himself. But he was as lawless as the Border

thieves who were often his followers and allies. Feuds were still

pursued with great earnestness in the north, but his methods were rather

out of date. On the first opportunity he followed the rude old plan of

spoiling his enemy’s goods, laying waste his lands, and chasing him into

his fastnesses with blood-curdling threats.

Whatever may be thought of the Percys’ habits, they were no worse than

those of the Cliffords, the staunch supporters of the government. Henry

Clifford, first Earl of Cumberland, was the son of Henry Lord Clifford,

the “Shepherd Lord,” by his wife Anne, daughter of Sir John St John of

Bletsoe. The future Earl was born in 1493, and brought up with the sons

of Henry VII. He married first Margaret, daughter of the Earl of

Shrewsbury, and second another Margaret, daughter of the fifth Earl of

Northumberland, the Magnificent Earl; his second wife was the mother of

his children. In disposition the Earl of Cumberland resembled his

grandfather “the Butcher”—the Black Clifford of “Henry VI”—rather than

his father, “the Shepherd.” In his youth he was extravagant, and

supplied his need of money by robbery and violence[129]. After he

succeeded his father, he followed the same course of action. Several

cases were brought against his unruly servants in the Court of Star

Chamber[130]. The Earl himself was too great a man to be touched, and

the local courts were powerless to supply any remedy for his

aggressions. He was a hard landlord and well hated in his own county,

but he enjoyed the King’s favour without interruption, and his son

Henry, Lord Clifford, was permitted to marry Eleanor the daughter of the

Duke of Suffolk and Mary Tudor, the King’s sister, a somewhat dangerous

honour[131].

In 1534 the Earl of Cumberland accused Lord Dacre of high treason,

having seized his goods long before the trial. This was merely the last

move in a feud of some standing. Dacre was tried, but acquitted[132]. He

was the only nobleman acquitted on a charge of high treason during Henry

VIII’s reign; but he was heavily fined, which was presumably all that

the government wanted. It was, however, rather shortsighted policy, for

something between shame and suspicion prevented the King from employing

Dacre again. The Earl of Cumberland succeeded him in his office of

Warden of the Western Marches, but he was hampered in the execution of

his office both by his personal unpopularity and by the embittered feud

with the Dacres and their allies among the Cumberland gentlemen. The

Cliffords were the most powerful family on the western borders after the

disgrace of the Dacres. The Earl’s brother, Sir Thomas Clifford, was

deputy captain of Berwick-upon-Tweed[133]; the Earl’s illegitimate son

Thomas Clifford held the same office in Carlisle[134]. If the younger

Percys were in league with the mosstroopers of North Tynedale, so were

the Cliffords with the broken men of Esk and Line[135]. The thieves of

the Borders were used for or against the King simply as the noblemen who

bought their services pleased. It is necessary to bear this in mind in

order to understand the position not only of the King but also of his

opponents.

Southward from the Borders lay the county of Durham, always spoken of as

“the Bishopric.” For centuries it had enjoyed the privileges of a county

palatine within which the Bishop reigned supreme. But in 1535 all such

extraordinary jurisdictions were abolished, and Durham was reduced in

many respects to the rank of an ordinary shire[136]. Bishop Tunstall was

not a man who could in any circumstances have opposed such a King as

Henry VIII. He was timid, gentle and studious, and wins our affection by

the quiet persistence with which he refused to burn heretics. To their

shame be it said, his moderation irritated alike the Protestants and the

Romanists. He seems to have taken the change in his estate with perfect

equanimity, but the abolition of the ancient palatinate was resented by

the people of Durham, who had been used to pride themselves on their

position as “haliwerfolk,” the people of the holy man, St Cuthbert[137].

The Hiltons and the Lumleys were the principal families in Durham, and

their influence extended to the town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which,

lying on the north bank of the Tyne, was a county in itself. In the

south of Durham the chief gentlemen were Conyers of Hornby and Bowes of

Streatlam near Barnard Castle on the Tees.

The Bowes family had acquired their estates by marriage with an heiress

of the house of Balliol early in the fourteenth century. After the fall

of Warwick the Kingmaker they became the chief family in the

neighbourhood. Old Sir Ralph Bowes, living in 1508, was sheriff of

Durham for twenty years. He married Margaret daughter of Sir Richard

Conyers; we are concerned with two of their large family, Richard the

fourth son who married Elizabeth daughter and co-heiress of Roger Aske

of Aske; and Robert, the third son, who married Alice daughter of Sir

James Metcalfe[138]. In 1511 Robert Bowes was mentioned as a suitable

bridegroom for Elizabeth Aske, aged seven, if his brother Richard should

die[139]. Failing the income to be derived from marriage with an

heiress, Robert became a lawyer[140], and no doubt made the acquaintance

of Robert Aske, William Stapleton, Thomas Moigne, and the other young

lawyers who played an important part in the rebellion. They were

carrying on the tradition of those lawyers of an earlier age, concerning

whom it is written:

“We see at Westminster a cluster of men which deserves more attention

than it receives from our unsympathetic, because legally uneducated

historians. No, the clergy were not the only learned men in England,

the only cultivated men, the only men of ideas. Vigorous intellectual

effort was to be found outside the monasteries and universities. These

lawyers are worldly men, not men of the sterile caste,—they marry and

found families, some of which become as noble as any in the land; but

they are in their way learned, cultivated men, linguists, logicians,

tenacious disputants, true lovers of the nice case and the moot point.

They are gregarious, clubable men, grouping themselves in hospices,

which become schools of law, multiplying manuscripts, arguing,

learning and teaching, the great mediators between life and logic, a

reasoning, reasonable element in the English nation.”[141]

The attitude of these men—intelligent, well-educated, unlikely subjects

for wild hopes and popular enthusiasms—is one of the most striking

features of the rebellion. Robert Bowes, though probably one of the

youngest, was not the least brilliant, while, unlike the others, he came

through safely and even with credit. Norfolk said of him, “Bowes has no

equal in the north both for law and war.”[142] His appointment on the

Council of the North after the rising was the beginning of a long career

in the government service, during which he justified the Duke’s

estimate.

In the North Riding of Yorkshire the influence of the three northern

Earls was about equal.

Wilton, near the mouth of the Tees, was the seat of the Bulmers, who

were allied to all the neighbouring great families, the Hiltons, the

Evers, the Tempests. Sir William Bulmer of Wilton married Margery

daughter of Sir John Conyers, by whom he had three sons, John, Ralph and

William[143]. He was present at the battle of Flodden, where he

distinguished himself by attacking and routing with a much inferior

force the Scots troops under Lord Hume[144]. In November 1519 he was

summoned before the Court of Star Chamber on a charge of rioting,

together with Sir William Conyers and others[145]. The King presided in

person at the trial, and was very much enraged because it appeared from

the evidence that Sir William Bulmer “being the King’s servant sworn,

refused the King’s service and became servant to the Duke of

Buckingham.” Henry exclaimed “that he would none of his servants should

hang on another man’s sleeve, and that he was as well able to maintain

him as the Duke of Buckingham; and what might be thought by his

departing, and what might be supposed by the Duke’s retaining him, he

would not then declare.... The knight kneeled still on his knees crying

the King’s mercy, and never a nobleman there durst intreat for him, the

King was so highly displeased with him.”[146] Buckingham was as angry as

the King. He saw that he himself was in danger of imprisonment, and he

was afterwards accused of having sworn to stab the King to the heart if

the order was given to commit him to the Tower[147]. Sir William,

however, was pardoned[148], and in the following year his son, Sir John

Bulmer, served under the Earl of Surrey, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, in

Ireland[149].

On October 6, 1531, Sir William Bulmer made his will, a long, elaborate

document, full of tragic irony considering the later history of the

family. The gold chain weighing 100 pounds which was to be an heirloom

for the children of his eldest son must have disappeared into the King’s

coffers when that son was attainted; the chantry of St Ellen where four

poor bedesmen and one woman were to pray for ever for the founder’s soul

can only have stood a few years. The supervisors of the will were “my

especial good lord, my lord of Westmorland, my lord Conyers, and my son

Sir Thomas Tempest.”[150] Westmorland had married the Duke of

Buckingham’s daughter[151], and the Bulmers may have transferred their

allegiance to the Earl on the Duke’s execution. Sir William made his

three sons, who were all knighted by this time, his executors, but at

the end of the will he added another clause: “Also, as I have named my

son, Sir John Bulmer, to have been one of my executors, I will that he

be none of them, but he to suffer his two brothers lovingly to occupy

and minister all and every my goods favourably without any interruption

of him and he to have for his so doing and suffering £300 and my chain

and household stuff at Wilton, which before I have bequeathed him; and

in like manner he to suffer his brothers to have melling at my chantry

at Wilton, and to see the priests and bede men there to have that they

should have, and all other my servants, according as I have bequeathed

them.”[152]

Sir John Bulmer, the heir, married Anne daughter of Sir Ralph Bigod, and

their eldest son Ralph married before 1530 Anne daughter of Sir Thomas

Tempest[153]. On 11 June 1532 it was stated that Sir John was forty

years old and upwards[154]. Some examples have already been given of the

marriage customs which prevailed at that time. In the case of heirs and

heiresses, the contract was often drawn up while the parties concerned

were still in their cradles, and the marriage was consummated as early

as possible, before the young people acquired sufficient independence to

upset the arrangements of their guardians. Much of the domestic

unhappiness of the time may be traced to these child marriages,

concluded without any regard for the character and feelings of the

parties. It may be inferred that Sir John Bulmer’s was such a one, as

five of his six children were married before 1530[155], when he was not

much above forty years old. His conduct requires the excuse of this bad

custom. His father’s position in the service of the Duke of Buckingham

must have brought Sir John into contact with a girl named Margaret, who

is frequently described as the illegitimate daughter of Buckingham

himself[156]. But her son in 1584 stated that she was the illegitimate

daughter of Henry Stafford[157]; if he could have glozed over the stain

on her birth by the rank of her father he would probably have done so,

and it is safer to conclude that Henry Stafford was some relative of the

Duke. Margaret herself was “a very fair creature and a beautiful,” as

even her enemies were forced to confess[158]. She was married to William

Cheyne of London, but Sir John Bulmer bought her from her husband and

made her his mistress[159]. Two daughters were the offspring of this

connection, but about 1536 Lady Bulmer and William Cheyne[160] seem both

to have been dead and Sir John married Margaret. In January 1536–7 was

born their son John[161], afterwards John Bulmer of Pinchinthorpe, who

declared in 1584 that he was born in lawful matrimony[162]. The marriage

was recognised by Sir John’s relatives[163], which may indicate the low

state of morality in the north, or the power of Margaret’s charms, or

the existence of extenuating circumstances.

Sir Ralph Bulmer, one of Sir John’s brothers, married Anne, daughter and

co-heir of Roger Aske of Aske[164], and was thus brother-in-law to

Richard Bowes.

The other brother, Sir William Bulmer, was, like Sir John, unfortunate

in his matrimonial experience. His wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress

of William Elmedon of Elmedon, Durham, was married to him in 1505, when

she was eleven years old and he probably not much older[165]. The

marriage turned out unhappily; Sir William squandered his own estates

and involved his wife’s by his extravagance, and the couple usually

lived apart[166]. It will be shown hereafter how the lady revenged

herself on her husband.

The Bigods of Settrington, though their seat near Malton was between

thirty and forty miles south of Wilton, were none the less neighbours of

the Bulmers, for they had both lands and influence on the north coast of

Yorkshire, especially about Whitby. This family might well seem to be

under a curse. Two Bigods, father and son, fell at Towton Field in

1461[167]; the son, Sir John Bigod, had married Elizabeth daughter of

Henry Lord Scrope of Bolton, and left a son, Ralph Bigod, who was thrice

married. His family seem to have been the children of his second wife,

Margaret, daughter of Sir Robert Constable of Flamborough[168] and aunt

of Lord Darcy’s friend Sir Robert Constable. One of these children,

Elizabeth, married Sir John Aske, of Aughton and was the grandmother of

Robert Aske[169]—another, Anne, married Sir John Bulmer[170].

Sir Ralph Bigod’s eldest son, Sir John Bigod, married Joan, daughter of

Sir James Strangeways[171]. He was probably killed at the battle of

Flodden in 1513[172], and his eldest son died with him in the war

against Scotland[173]. He left three children; Elizabeth, who was

afterwards the wife of Sir Stephen Hamerton[174], Francis, and Ralph.

Two years after Flodden old Sir Ralph Bigod died; his will was proved 7

April 1515. He made several charitable and religious bequests, and left

a yearly rent of £5 to his younger grandson Ralph[175], who died

unmarried in 1551[176]; but there is no mention of Francis who, at the

age of seven, was heir to his manor of Seton and all his lands in

various parts of Yorkshire[177]. The executors of the will were Agnes,

Sir Ralph’s third wife, Sir Ralph Evers, and Thomas and William

Constable of Settrington. The supervisor was Lord Darcy.

In 1529 Francis Bigod came of age and had livery of his lands; shortly

afterwards he was knighted[178]. Before his coming of age he had been in

the service of Cardinal Wolsey, and when, on coming into his estates, he

found himself in financial difficulties, he applied to his

fellow-servant, Thomas Cromwell, for assistance[179].

Sir Francis Bigod married Katherine, daughter of William, first Lord

Conyers, and in 1530 they had one daughter, Dorothy[180]. Their home was

at Mulgrave Castle in Blackmore, on the coast about three miles north of

Whitby. Sir Francis was made the Steward of Whitby Strand by the Earl of

Northumberland[181], and in the execution of this office he must soon

have come into conflict with the Abbot of Whitby, John Hexham or

Topcliffe, who began his career as a Canon of Hexham and became Abbot of

Whitby in 1527[182]. Some account of the Abbot’s doings may not be out

of place; they are not only interesting in themselves but also give a

most spirited picture of the more turbulent phases of life in a little

seaport town, and of the feuds and intrigues which agitated a great

monastery.

The first story is gathered from a fragment of a Star Chamber case; it

is undated, and the Abbot of Whitby may have been one of John Hexham’s

predecessors. This Abbot lodged a complaint against certain poor

mariners and artificers of the town of Whitby for making a riot. Only

the townsfolk’s side of the case remains. It had been the custom “tyme

out of mans remembrance” in Whitby and all the other haven towns

thereabouts, for the fishermen and mariners to keep the feasts of

Midsummer Even, St Peter’s Even, and St Thomas’ Even with the following

rites. “All maryners and masters of ships accompanied with other yong

peple have used to have carried before them on a staff half a tarbarell

brennyng and the maryners to follow two and two having such weapons in

their hands as they pleased to bring, and to sing through the streets to

resort to every bonefire and there to drink and make merry with songs

and other honest pastimes.”

But one St Peter’s Even (31 July) as they went singing through the

streets “entending no harm nor displeasure to the said Abbot” and “being

in good peace of our sovereign lord the King,” about twenty of the

Abbot’s servants set upon the merrymakers and “did shamefully and

cruelly beat and hurt” divers of them. They thought this must be by the

Abbot’s command, though, as they declared, he had no cause to use them

so. When they complained to him, he assured them he knew nothing of the

matter, which was not of his will, and asked them all to come up to the

Abbey on St Thomas’ Even (20 December) “and there he would give to them

half a barrel of beer to drink and make good cheer.” But when on the

appointed evening they came singing through the town and began to go up

the “great hill having a very narrow way towards the said Abbey,” the

Abbot’s servants from the top of the hill “riotously cast down a great

number of great stones as much as they could lift” upon the mariners.

They “entreated in good and gentle manner the said servants of the Abbot

to keep the King’s peace and cease their strokes,” and seeing they were

not welcome, they turned back to a friend’s house, to help him with his

bonfire and brood upon the lost half-barrel of beer. Here their enemies

attacked them again. The cautious mariners admitted that some of the

Abbot’s servants might have been hurt in the second fray. Some of the

mariners themselves certainly were injured. The defence ends with the

usual protestation that the defendants had done nothing wrong, and in

any case had a pardon for it[183].

In 1528 it was the Abbot of Whitby, John Hexham, who had to defend

himself in the Star Chamber. He was accused of being in league with

William and John Loder, two French pirates, who on 10 July 1528 seized a

Dantzig vessel, the “Jesus,” Hans Ganth master, while she lay in the

Humber, took her to Whitby, and there sold her to the Abbot, John

Conyers, Gregory Conyers, John Ledam and John Pecock, who bought her

“perfectly knowing the same ship and goods to be the proper goods of

your suppliant,” and who refused to give her up when claimed by her

rightful owners[184]. The Abbot’s defence is lost, and he may have been

able to clear himself, but the circumstances look awkward. Gregory

Conyers, of whom more will be heard, was the servant and close ally of

the Abbot. It is uncertain how he was related to the great family of

Conyers to which Sir Francis Bigod’s wife belonged, but there is no

doubt about the deadly feud which he waged with Sir Francis until he

hunted his enemy to death. In 1536 the Abbot of Whitby accused Sir

Francis of a great riot committed against the convent of Whitby, and in

revenge Bigod and his servants quarrelled with Gregory Conyers and other

servants of the Abbot at Whitby Fair on 25 August, St Hilda’s Day, and

would have killed him had not some of the other gentlemen

interfered[185]. The Abbot begged that Conyers and Bigod might be

reconciled, but naturally no formal reconciliation had any effect. As in

the matter of the piracy we do not know the Abbot’s defence, so in this

case we do not know Bigod’s, but it is certain that Sir Francis was in

debt to the Abbot, which would probably aggravate the young knight still

further, whatever the original rights and wrongs may have been.

In 1535 Sir Francis Bigod by persuasion or threats induced Abbot Hexham

to resign his office to his young kinsman, William Newton, a monk of

Whitby. This did not at all suit Gregory Conyers or the other monks, and

they insisted that he must withdraw his resignation. Both sides appealed

to Cromwell, to whom Bigod wrote on 7 January 1535–6 that “the monks

watch him (the Abbot) like crows about a carrion, and will not suffer

the monk (Newton) or me to speak with him alone.”[186] Cromwell, as

usual, was ready to settle the matter in favour of the highest bidder,

who in this case seems to have been the Abbot[187]. Sir Francis was

examined in Hilary term and warned to trouble the monks no more.

Nevertheless on 19 June 1536 the Abbot wrote to Cromwell to ask that

Bigod might not occupy the office of under-steward, or, if he must

surrender it to him, that the condition might be made “that he make no

use of it to revenge himself on us, as we hear he intends.... If Sir

Francis occupy that office, and James Conyers the bailiwick, the two

being so maliciously bent against us, we shall be brought into continual

trouble. The bailly is a very uncharitable and angry man, and so aged

that he is almost past reason.”[188]

Bigod was better educated than most men of his age. He had spent some

time at Oxford, and although he did not take a degree he was something

of a scholar. He had leanings towards the reformers; his first book was

an attack on the monasteries, and he corresponded with Bale, Latimer,

and other advanced thinkers[189]. In June 1535 he was employed in taking

down to the northern bishops the King’s letters of admonition for the

declaration of his title as Supreme Head of the Church of England[190],

and he reported the pains that he took to see that the statute was

“preached sincerely” and understood by the people. At the same time he

informed Cromwell of the suspicion he entertained concerning the loyalty

of the monks of Mountgrace Priory, and he procured the arrest of a

“traitorous monk” at Jervaux, who saw visions of St Anne[191]. This man

was executed at the next York Assizes, for which it is hard to forgive

Sir Francis, as the evidence against the monk was very slight[192].

In 1536 Bigod wrote to Cromwell about two priests and a man named

Anthony Heron, whom he had caused to be imprisoned at York for their

Popish opinions. The letter incidentally reveals the horrible state of

York prison; Sir Francis observes that as Anthony Heron was walking in

the yard in the open air, he was able to speak longer with him than with

the priests who were within. He showed some humanity, however, by giving

alms to his prisoners, and he tried to obtain their release as soon as

he was convinced that they repented of their errors[193]. Later in the

year he wrote a very curious letter to Cromwell, which throws much light

on his character. He begged that he might be given a licence to preach,

or, if that was impossible, that he might become a priest, in order to

utter the truth to the ignorant people of the north[194]. Yet he was now

a married man with children!

Sir Francis Bigod appeared to have been in every way a convinced

supporter of Cromwell’s policy; by birth, by interest, by conviction he

was not merely inclined to acquiesce passively, but to promote actively

“the innovations.” How did such a man come to die a traitor’s death?

Froude curtly dismisses him as a fool and a pedant, but such a summary

judgment does not dispose of a peculiar character. It may be more just

to look upon Sir Francis as a portent of a rising power,—in short, as

the first of the Puritans. He hated the Church of Rome, but he hated

equally the Erastianism of Henry and Cromwell; what he sought was the

Presbytery, and had he been gifted with genius, he might have been the

forerunner of Calvin and Knox. Religious liberty was as intolerable to

his exact, legal mind, as it was to most of his contemporaries; he must

have church, priesthood, dogma, all down in black and white, and all

distinct from the state. When it came to choosing between church and

state, any church, even a thoroughly bad one, seemed to him better than

a purely state religion. Born out of his time, with no power to mould

the time to his needs, his baffling figure shows half-seen among the

more strenuous leaders of revolt, perplexing others because he was

himself perplexed.

Passing southward down the coast from Whitby, we find that the next

great family was that of Evers. Young Sir Ralph Evers was the keeper of

the King’s castle of Scarborough. Later the family was raised to the

baronage, but at this time they were not so influential as their

neighbours, the Constables of Flamborough.

Sir Marmaduke Constable, surnamed the Little, was the head of this house

from 1488 to 1518. He served under two kings in France, and won fame on

the Scots Marches. His wife was Joyse, daughter of Sir Humphry Stafford

of Grafton; by her he had four sons, Robert, Marmaduke, William, and

John, and two daughters, Agnes and Eleanor[195]. Agnes’ second husband

was Sir William Percy, the Earl of Northumberland’s uncle.

Robert, Little Sir Marmaduke’s son and heir, was born about 1478. He

seems to have spent a wild youth before he succeeded to his estates. The

minster of Beverley was held in great veneration, having been founded by

the local saint, St John of Beverley. It enjoyed many privileges, and

the neighbouring gentlemen were quite in the habit of having feuds about

their places in the procession on St John’s Day (25 October)[196]. One

of these privileges was “granted ... unto the church of Beverley by Our

Holy Father the Pope of old time and since many times confirmed, that

whosoever doth infringe or break or interrupt any liberties of the

church of Beverley he is on so doing accurst without any further

sentence of any judge.” This was no mere nominal power, but had been

executed on “divers transgressors.” An unknown accuser addressed Sir

Robert Constable thus: “You yourself in times past, violating and

breaking the said liberties by your hunting there, and knowing yourself

to have fallen into the sentence of excommunication for so doing, did

resort to the Archbishop of York then being, to be absolved thereof, and

so as you have reported were also absolved.”[197] But more serious

charges can also be brought against him. Froude says, “he was a bad,

violent man. In earlier years he had carried off a ward in Chancery,

Anne Grysanis, while still a child, and attempted to marry her by force

to one of his retainers.”[198]

Whatever his early shortcomings, Robert Constable was ready to fight for

the King on the first opportunity. In 1497, when the Cornishmen rose and

marched on London, he was with the royal army, and so distinguished

himself at Blackheath that he was knighted on the field of battle. He

married Jane, daughter of Sir William Ingleby[199]. In 1511 he sailed

with Lord Darcy’s expedition to Spain[200].

At Flodden Field Sir Marmaduke Constable appeared surrounded by his

“seemly sons.”[201] Accounts of the battle give no details of their part

of the fighting, but two of Sir Robert’s brothers, Marmaduke and

William, and William Percy, who fought beside them with the tenants of

the Earl of Northumberland, were all knighted by the Earl of Surrey

after the day was won[202].

Sir Robert Constable was Knight of the Body to Henry VIII[203], and he

was in attendance on the King at a gorgeous banquet at Greenwich in

1517[204]. But the following year Sir Marmaduke the Little died, and his

son Robert succeeded to his lands and position. Sir Marmaduke’s

tombstone is still to be seen in Flamborough church, the inscription is

an irregular ballad on the vanity of earthly honours, telling of his

battles and prowess, with the refrain:

“But now, as ye see, he lieth under this stone.”[205]

A more terrible fate awaited his son.

When Lord Darcy resigned his offices as steward of the lordship and

constable of the castle of Sheriffhutton, in 1520, they were bestowed on

his friend Sir Robert Constable. Darcy bade his servant in charge

deliver the castle and all within it to his “brother,” the new

constable, and to “do this favourable and lovingly.”[206] About the same

time the hand of Elizabeth, the only child of Darcy’s second marriage,

was given to Sir Robert’s eldest son Marmaduke. Darcy told his steward

to hasten the payment of her dowry to Sir Robert, on account of his

“dangerous” disposition[207]. He must have meant that his friend was

hasty tempered, and there is abundant evidence that Sir Robert was

fierce and quarrelsome.

The Earl of Surrey (afterwards Duke of Norfolk), who was sent to the

north in 1523 to inspect the administration of justice, described to

Wolsey how, while sitting with the justices of York, he “found the

greatest dissensions here among the gentlemen, who would have fought

together if they had met.” By the advice of the judges he sent for all

the parties, and insisted on a promise that they would compose their

disputes and keep the peace. Among the rest, Sir Robert Constable and

his adherents were almost at war with young Sir Ralph Ellerker and Sir

John Constable of Holderness[208]. The latter may have been Sir Robert’s

younger brother, but was more probably a cousin.

In 1533 Sir Robert Constable’s differences with his brother-in-law, Sir

William Percy, developed into a Star Chamber case. The feud was a

long-standing affair, in spite of the intermarriage, which may have been

a fruitless effort to put an end to the ill-will. It was well known in

the county of York that the families had been in great displeasure with

one another, even before the death of the late Earl of Northumberland.

Sir William Percy presented before the Court a list of accusations

against Sir Robert, beginning with a string of petty wrongs about

pasture and impounding cattle, through which he worked up to the chief

quarrel. This began in a quaint manner. A traveller picked up a buckler

on the King’s highway, and sold it to one of Percy’s servants, Simon

Banister, called Simon Burdythe. Simon wore the buckler at Driffield

Assizes, where Christopher Constable, one of Sir Robert’s nephews,

claimed it as his own. Banister refused to give it up, though Sir

Robert, who had given it to his nephew, offered to identify it. After

this the servants of the two houses never met without quarrelling. If

Italians were as touchy as Englishmen, the feud of the Montagues and the

Capulets is certainly no exaggeration, as this story proves. The affair

came to a definite issue in March 1534, when the Justices of Assize were

sitting at York and the rival families were both in the city in full

strength. After preliminary abuse and violence in a tavern, Banister,

who had offered considerable provocation, and a party of his

fellowservants were attacked by the Constables in the street. Banister

was slain in the fray, and several were wounded on both sides, including

Sir Robert Constable’s son Thomas. After some scattered street fighting,

the Constables escaped through a friend’s house into the White Friars

and there took sanctuary. They were presently removed to the town gaol,

where all their kinsmen and allies flocked to visit them. Public

sympathy was on their side, but it had been obtained, said Sir William

Percy, by bribes to the mayor and citizens. The coroner was so corrupted

that a murder could not be found against them, and the high sheriff was

no more incorruptible, for when he appointed a jury to inquire into the

case, most of the men on it were kinsmen of the Constables and the rest

had seen the colour of their money. Unless the King could find a remedy,

the murder and mayhems were like to go unpunished: so Sir William Percy

concluded his case. The details of Sir Robert’s defence, which has for

once been preserved, are too long for repetition here. His accuser

himself admitted that Sir Robert took no part in the fray, and it was

not proved that he had inspired it[209]. But the principals were equally

to blame for encouraging the quarrels of their kinsmen and servants,

instead of putting an end to the dispute at the very beginning.

In 1535 Sir Robert Constable was more respectably engaged in befriending

the widowed Lady Rokeby against their common opponent Gervase

Cawood[210]. This dispute probably brought him into displeasure with

Robert Aske, as Cawood was Aske’s friend and acted as his secretary

during the rebellion[211].

Among the ghosts of the records—the names without men—Sir Robert

Constable stands out as a substantial figure; he was a worthy head of a

warlike house, fierce and reckless, versed in the ways of war and of

courts, full of the wild, independent spirit of the north, but none the

less a true son of the Church (in spite of all lapses), a strong and

just ruler, above all a good enemy, and a better friend, true to his

motto, “Soyes Ferme.”

Young Sir Ralph Ellerker of Risby, with whom Sir Robert Constable was at

feud, was one of the captains of Hull, his father, old Sir Ralph

Ellerker, being the other. It was no wonder that the Constables and the

Ellerkers quarrelled, for they were the most influential families in the

sea-board districts of the East Riding. Old Sir Ralph Ellerker also

contended with the Archbishop of York for supremacy in Beverley. In May

and June 1535 there was trouble over the appointment of the Twelve Men

of Beverley, who were the aldermen of the town. The burgesses themselves

had very little to do with the matter, and on this occasion the

Archbishop appointed one body of twelve and old Sir Ralph Ellerker

another. It is not easy to discover which side had the popular sympathy

in the contest which followed, but as the people of Beverley always

opposed the Archbishop on principle, they probably supported Sir Ralph’s

selection. On 30 November 1535 an order was made in the Court of Star

Chamber for the government of Beverley. It was a triumph for the

Archbishop. Old Sir Ralph Ellerker and certain of his adherents were

prohibited from ever again seeking election to places among the Twelve

Men, and an injunction was sent to him never to meddle again in the

matter on pain of a fine of five hundred marks[212].

The Askes of Aughton on the Derwent were friends and allies of the

Ellerkers. They had long been settled in the county, but were rather

esteemed for piety and quiet respectability than noted for any brilliant

qualities. The founder of the family was Richard, a cadet of the Askes

of Aske[213]. He married the heiress of Aughton, and in 1363 built and

endowed the chantry at Howden which bore his name. A love of building

and beautifying seems to have run in the family. Nothing remains now of

the manor house at Aughton but the site surrounded by traces of a

moat[214]; in 1584 the house had stained-glass windows, in which were

blazoned twenty-six shields of the arms of the Askes and their

relations[215]. From Richard Aske sprang a flourishing branch of the

family tree, which begins to concern us in 1497, when Sir Robert Aske,

the eldest son of Sir John Aske and Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Ralph

Bigod, succeeded to Aughton on the death of his father[216]. Sir

Robert’s two elder sons, John and Christopher, were born before that

date, for their grandfather bequeathed a gold spoon to John and a horse

to his brother,—though neither was much more than three years old[217].

Sir Robert’s wife was Elizabeth, daughter of John Lord Clifford[218].

Probably they were married after 1485, when her brother, the “shepherd

lord,” was restored to his lands and titles. Her children were thus the

first cousins of the Earl of Cumberland. Nine of these children survived

their parents—three sons and six daughters.

Early in 1507 Sir Robert Aske’s sister Dame Katherine, widow of Sir John

Hastings of Fenwick, died at her brother’s house at Aughton and was

buried among the Askes in Aughton Church. She was childless and

bequeathed most of her worldly possessions to her own kin. To her

sisters and nieces she left beads of coral and white jasper, “hooks of

silver and gilt,” and other bits of finery; her best gowns of velvet,

black damask and tawny chamlet were to become altar cloths in certain

churches; but for each of her kinsmen she had made a shirt, and among

these fortunate legatees Robert Aske is mentioned for the first

time[219]. Dame Katherine’s brother-in-law, Sir George Hastings, the

father of Sir Brian Hastings, who was to be sheriff of Yorkshire in

1536, refused to give up her money to Sir Robert Aske, her

executor[220].

The children of Sir Robert Aske may be treated in some detail, less

because his third son Robert was the captain of the Pilgrimage, than

because they are good examples of ordinary men and women of their class.

Though their share in the rising was nothing compared to their

brother’s, their history shows how a great event affected private lives

in the days when a change of ministry could only be forced on the

government by an effective appeal to arms. Julian, the eldest daughter,

married Thomas Portington of Sawcliff, Lincolnshire[221]; when those of

her Yorkshire nephews who were studying the law set out for London after

their vacations, they spent the first night of their journey under her

roof[222]. Anne, the second daughter, seems to have married slightly

below her station, for her husband, Thomas Monkton, was the constant

companion of her brother Robert, and seems to have acted as a kind of

superior servant[223]. At a time when compromising letters might fall

into an enemy’s hands, men naturally entrusted the most important parts

of their communications verbally to a messenger; consequently it was

necessary to have reliable servants, bound by the strongest ties to keep

faith with their master; poor relations were often put to this use, with

varying degrees of success. This reason for the constant use of credence

applied more to noblemen such as Darcy and Cumberland than to private

gentlemen, but another motive for it was the fact that many of the

Yorkshire gentry could write and read very little[224]. Private affairs,

which seemed to them very difficult to express in writing, could easily

be explained by an intelligent servant, and as a servant had to carry

every message, he might as well communicate it by word of mouth. The

result of this was the habit, so irritating to the historian, of sending

the very kernel of the message by credence, with the consequence that it

is now lost for ever.

Agnes Aske formed an important alliance by her marriage with William

Ellerker, one of old Sir Ralph’s younger sons. The Ellerkers always

contrived to maintain an appearance of loyalty, and they rose when the

fortunes of the Askes declined. Margaret Aske married Sir Robert

Bellingham, a Cumberland knight about whom little is known.

John Aske, Sir Robert Aske’s eldest son, succeeded his father in

1531[225]. His wife was Eleanor, daughter of Sir Ralph Ryther, and in

1530 he had a family of five sons and three daughters[226]. His eldest

son Robert was a law student in 1536, but he was destined never to be

lord of Aughton, and died before his father in 1542[227]. John Aske

suffered from ill-health, which was probably the reason why he was never

knighted. Like most country gentlemen he had only two ideas—his lands

and his family. He was indifferent to the Reformation, as it did not

injure either of these objects, but he strongly disapproved of the

rebellion which endangered both. His brother’s sympathy for the

monasteries did not affect him; on the contrary he took advantage of

their fall to consolidate his Yorkshire estates, and in 1541 exchanged

certain manors which he owned in Sussex for the priories of Ellerton and

Thicket and other church lands in Yorkshire[228].

Christopher Aske, Sir Robert’s second son, was only a year or two

younger than John[229]. He was in the household of his cousin, the Earl

of Cumberland, with whom he was in high favour. His will, dated 1538,

gives a pleasant picture of the easy bachelor life of a cultured

gentleman. His room in Skipton Castle was well furnished with books on

genealogy, the Scriptures, and the noble art of hunting, as well as

French romances; while in his room at the “new lodge,” the building of

which he was superintending for the Earl, was his “cloth of the great

mappa mundi” and a tapestry embroidered with the history of St Eustace.

The chase, like the right to bear arms, was the special privilege and

study of the gentry; his horses, his falcons, his “best beagle called

Oliver” were worthy of his most honoured friends, his noble cousins the

Earl and Countess. He bequeathed keepsakes to all his family, and

mentions his black velvet gown, richly furred, and his gold chain and

crucifix. Most of the Askes were short-lived, and Christopher died in

1539, willing a priest to pray for his soul for seven years, and also

for the souls of all his “benefactors and predecessors,” especially

certain of his dead friends[230]; among these was one of the Hamertons.

Sir Stephen Hamerton, his friend and fellow in the Earl’s service, had

died a traitor’s death little more than a year before[231]. Christopher

Aske’s sister Dorothy had married Richard Green of Newbury, and

Christopher bequeathed “to my brother Greene my falcon in his keeping,

and to my sister his wife a silver spoon of the Apostles.”[232] Green

was also in Cumberland’s service, and it must be frankly admitted of his

followers that if

“On Sundays they were good,

On week-days they were minions.”

The Earl of Cumberland was at feud with John Norton of Norton. The

quarrel seems to have begun with some dispute about the manor of

Rylston, which Norton held in right of his wife. At some time in 1528 a

band of the Earl’s servants broke into the warren at Rylston and hunted

Norton’s deer. They beat and shot arrows at two keepers who dared to

oppose them, and carried off one of them to Skipton Castle, where he was

imprisoned for two months. The other keeper was afraid to stay in that

part of the country and fled because his life was threatened in the

Earl’s name. As to the deer park, no one dared to go near it but

Cumberland’s servants, who hunted there at will; the chief among them

was called by John Norton “Richard Grame,” but possibly this is a

misspelling of “Richard Green.” Norton took his complaint to the Court

of Star Chamber because “the said Erle is a noble man and of great

possessions gretly alied with the most parte of the noble men of ȝt

Cuntry and your seid subiect (John Norton) a pore man and of small power

and not abell to meynteyn his sute nor the tryall of the trouth in the

premisses by the common law in the same cuntie for the records of his

damage.”[233] Two years later he was obliged to resort to the Star

Chamber again. John Norton had farmed in the most legal manner the

lordship of Kirkby Malzeard in Netherdale, where it was agreed that he

should hold the manor court. But on the day of the first court (17 April

1531) Christopher Aske and Richard Green, at the head of about sixty

armed servants of the Earl’s, appeared at the place where the court was

held and declared that the Earl would have all rule within the lordship

and that any man who attended a court which the Earl had not appointed

would do so at his peril. After breaking up the court, they carried away

the court rolls[234]. Unfortunately it is impossible to discover how

this case ended, but the Earl and his servants certainly did not mend

their ways.

In 1535 John Proctor, whose offence against the Earl is not known, was

carried off and imprisoned in Skipton Castle, while “his goods were

spoyled destroyed and lost by brute beasts, and also not so contentyd

but they drove away his cattle and beasts.”[235] In this case the Earl

seems to have sent inferior servants; only a really serious piece of

lawlessness, such as stealing the court rolls, called for the presence

of gentlemen. Thomas Blackborne, who was the chief defendant against

Proctor, must have been some relation to William Blackborne, the vicar

of Skipton, to whom Christopher Aske left in his will a horse rejoicing

in the name of Grey Hodgeson[236].

Christopher Aske’s friendship with Sir Stephen Hamerton involved him in

a very curious affair. Sir Stephen’s mother, Dame Elizabeth Hamerton,

after the death of John Hamerton her first husband, married again; her

second husband, Edward Stanley brother to Lord Monteagle, had carried

his father’s banner at Flodden. He was lame, perhaps from wounds

received there, and seems to have expected to provide for a comfortable

old age by his marriage, for Dame Elizabeth, as he said, was enfeoffed

of Hellifield Peel. Unfortunately his wife did not agree with him.

Hellifield had always belonged to the Hamerton family, and it is

difficult to see how Dame Elizabeth could have had more than a life

interest in it. In September 1536, when Stanley rode home after a visit

to his brother, he found the door of the Peel barred against him. His

wife, who was watching his approach, ordered stones to be thrown down

from the upper windows, and one struck his servant’s horse. Having made

it plain that he was not welcome, “she dared him to enter her son Sir

Stephen’s house and bade him go to the Earl of Cumberland.” Not knowing

what to do he obeyed her, though as he believed her son and Christopher

Aske to have counselled his wife to defy him, he had little hope of help

there. The Earl refused to interfere. By this time the rebellion had

broken out, and Stanley, seeing that resistance was useless, entered

into a bond with Hamerton and Aske by which he undertook to leave his

wife in undisturbed possession of Hellifield during her life, while she

allowed him a share in the rents. After Sir Stephen Hamerton’s execution

Stanley petitioned Cromwell that he might have the Peel granted to him,

but his petition had no effect[237]. In 1538 Christopher Aske bequeathed

his goods at Hellifield Peel, after the death of Dame Elizabeth, to

Roger Hamerton, one of Sir Stephen’s nephews[238]; Sir Stephen’s only

son had died of grief after his father’s execution[239].

In spite of his lawless exploits, Christopher Aske was a gentleman,—the

English gentleman of Henry VIII’s reign. It is he, rather than the timid

and colourless John, rather than Robert, who was too ardent and too

honest for success, who seems to embody the very spirit of his age. He

wrote a dashing account of his fortunes during the rebellion[240], and

in it he is revealed, brave, clever, well-educated, faithful to his

cousin, a lover of gallant and daring adventures, and, as became a man

when Cromwell ruled England, worldly, unscrupulous, a believer in

blowing his own trumpet. He evidently inherited the family love of

bricks and mortar. Not only did he supervise the Earl of Cumberland’s

new buildings at Skipton, but he added to Aughton Church a tower in

Perpendicular style, adorned with shields bearing the Aske quarterings

and his own rebus[241]. One inscription on this tower rouses a curiosity

that can never be satisfied. It is in black letter and runs as follows:

“Christofer le second fitz de Robart Ask ch’r oblier ne doy Ao Di

1536.”[242] No one can tell what may be implied by the words. Perhaps

they quaintly express the gratitude of the steeple itself to the man who

built it, or “oblier ne doy” may be the motto of the Askes, fitly placed

above the church where they lie; or are the words a memorial of that

Aske who does not lie among his kinsfolk? Whatever they meant so long

ago, to those who know the story of the Pilgrimage of Grace they will

always speak of Robert Aske and the year in which he triumphed and

failed.

Robert Aske, the youngest of the three sons[243], was born about the

beginning of the century. From his father’s will it appears that an

estate at Empshot in Hampshire had been settled on him for the term

of his life[244]. This property must have been valuable, as he paid

a yearly rent of £8 to his brother John, and was in good

circumstances[245]. Part of his early life was spent in the service

of the Earl of Northumberland[246], which he probably entered

through the influence of the Countess of Cumberland, the Earl’s

sister. He was with Northumberland in 1527, the year in which he was

admitted at Gray’s Inn[247]. He must have left the Earl some years

before the rebellion, as there is no reference during it to the fact

that he had been one of the Earl’s followers, while it is quite

clear that he was a practising barrister. His enemies called him “a

common pedlar in the law,”[248] and though he had studied to other

purposes besides making money, he speaks of his “great businesses”

in London. He had the lawyer’s gift of words—the “filed tongue” that

wins the heart of lord and commoner alike; even in his answers and

manifestos, written in times of stress, on horseback or in prison,

and couched in a language now so changed, there are many passages

that stir the heart. While the conservative lords were in

correspondence with the Emperor’s ambassador, the commons binding

themselves by secret oaths, and the most steadfast of the religious

dying on the gallows, things must have passed among the young

lawyers of the Inns of Court that had much to do with the Pilgrimage

of Grace; but Aske, Moigne, Stapleton, even Bowes, kept their

counsel, and nothing more of their secrets will ever be known.

The home of Robert Aske was always his brother’s house at Aughton, where

he was born and brought up, but he spent much of his vacation visiting

his sisters and other friends in Yorkshire. In 1536 he was about five

and thirty years of age and unmarried, although even younger sons

generally found wives long before that time of life. Marriage in those

days had very little to do with favour, otherwise Aske’s confirmed

bachelorhood might be attributed to the plainness of his personal

appearance. The Court chronicler, Hall, declared in an outburst of loyal

indignation that “there lived not a verier wretch as well in person as

in conditions and deeds,”[249] and this hostile testimony is to some

degree confirmed by the fact that Aske had only one eye. Sir Francis

Brian during the insurrection protested his loyalty to the King in these

words, “I know him (Aske) not, nor he me, but I am true and he a false

wretch, yet we two have but two yene; a mischief put out his

t’other!”[250] Whatever his personal disadvantages, he was certainly a

man of great physical strength, able to spend day after day in the

saddle with little time for food or sleep. It is not necessary to

describe his character in detail. In the following pages his own words

and actions shall speak for themselves.

The attitude of the northern gentlemen to the Church is one of the

greatest interest. It was love of the monasteries which caused them so

far to forget their fear of the lower classes that they made common

cause with their tenants on behalf of the monks. One result of the

immense influence of the Church was that priests were continually

involved in the quarrels of laymen. In the complicated case of Sir

Richard Tempest and the vicar of Halifax, Tempest, a supporter of the

old religion, accused his enemy the vicar of treasonable practices, and,

when the rebellion broke out, forced him to fly to the King. This is a

chapter of digressions, and at the cost of another we will relate the

story, which at least gives a picture of the manners of the times.

Sir Richard Tempest was the King’s steward of Wakefield. His feud with a

neighbour, Sir Henry Saville, led to an almost endless string of Star

Chamber cases, as one or other of them was constantly oppressing the

unfortunate inhabitants of that town[251]. Robert Holdesworth, the

wealthy and influential vicar of Halifax, was Sir Henry Saville’s

staunch ally. He was in trouble with the government in 1535, but he

obtained a free pardon, and boasted that he had “cast such a flower into

the Queen’s lap,” that he would be heard as soon as Sir Richard

Tempest[252]. He had scarcely returned to Yorkshire, when the judges of

assize were informed that he had found £300 in the wall of an old house

which he was rebuilding at Blackley, co. Worcester, another of his

benefices[253]. Meanwhile Sir Richard Tempest was still busy against

him. Sir Richard had assisted in arresting the vicar when he was sent to

London, and on his triumphant return Holdesworth delivered to Tempest

and his supporters injunctions to keep the peace and not to burn his

house under penalty of 500 marks. In revenge for these injunctions,

which they regarded as an insult, certain of his parishioners who

belonged to Tempest’s party drew up a petition accusing the vicar of

being a fomenter of quarrels in the parish, and also charging him with

neglect of his duties, with false returns about his tenths and

firstfruits, and with an attempt to sell his lands, implying that he did

this with a view to flight. This petition was presented to Sir Richard

Tempest, who caused about a hundred persons to sign it, and sent it to

Cromwell with a letter warning him that Holdesworth and others of the

spiritualty had “full hollow hearts” towards him[254]. Tempest enclosed

a further accusation, from which it appeared that the vicar had said he

had lost 80 marks in mortuaries taken by the King from that one

benefice, and that if the King reigned much longer he would take all

from the Church. Holdesworth had also repeated a sort of proverb, “A pon

Herre all Yngland mey werre” (upon Harry all England may war?)[255].

Sir Richard Tempest’s letter was written on 28 September 1535. At the

York Assizes in March 1536[256] Holdesworth was accused of shameful and

treasonable words, “for which, if true, he deserves imprisonment for

life.”[257] While the vicar was away defending himself against this

charge, John Lacy, Sir Richard Tempest’s son-in-law, raided the vicarage

and carried off all the cattle and spoil he could find[258]. The vicar

must have been acquitted, for in April he returned to his plundered

vicarage, bringing with him over £800 of money. Part of this may have

been treasure trove, but some at least was his own savings[259]. To keep

this treasure, all in gold, safe from his enemies, he determined to bury

it. He put the money into “a brass pot with little short feet,” in which

he also placed a little box containing a strip of parchment with the

amount written on it. In the hall of the vicarage, under the stairs, was

a patch of naked earth, and here the vicar dug a hole just deep enough

to hide the brim of the pot when the earth was put back and stamped

down. Then he heaped firewood over the place, and shortly afterwards

left for London. He had some cause for anxiety as several people were in

the secret, his sister and her son, who had helped him to bury the

treasure, his parish priest, Alexander Emett, and his friend Sir Henry

Saville[260]. The fortunes of the brass pot during the rebellion will be

afterwards related. The point to be noticed here is that to some of the

gentlemen private feuds were of more importance than any question of

religion. The vicar of Halifax and Sir Richard Tempest were both opposed

to Cromwell’s policy, but no political sympathy could bring them to take

the same side.

When the influence of the religious was exercised against the government

it produced great results, as in the following case. The Stapletons of

Wighill, near Tadcaster, were a family of position, followers of the

Earl of Northumberland. Christopher Stapleton, the head of the family,

was a chronic invalid, who passed the summer of 1535 at Beverley, for

the sake of his health. He stayed in the house of the Grey Friars, and

there he met Thomas Johnson, otherwise called Brother Bonaventure, one

of the Observant Friars, who had been sent from York to Beverley when

the houses of the Order were made conventual. The friar easily acquired

influence over the sick man and his childless wife, and when they went

home to Wighill he visited them there[261]. Next summer, 1536,

Christopher came to Beverley again, bringing with him Sir Brian

Stapleton, his eldest son by his first wife[262], and his brother

William Stapleton. William, Christopher’s brother, was a lawyer of

Gray’s Inn, and a friend of Robert Aske; he spent his vacation with his

brother, and at the beginning of October, when he was about to return to

London for the Michaelmas term, Beverley became the headquarters of the

rebellion, and William Stapleton, at Brother Bonaventure’s suggestion,

was chosen captain of the commons[263]. It is beyond doubt that the

influence of chaplains and confessors was used to encourage the

gentlemen to join the Pilgrimage, though it is not so certain that the

whole agitation can be attributed to them.

While the conservative priests were using persuasion the reformers often

unwittingly helped them by provoking violence. Religious differences may

lie at the bottom of a mysterious affair which took place at Marston.

Leonard Constable, the parson of Heyton Wansdale, otherwise called

Marston[264], brought a complaint before the Court of Star Chamber in

either 1525, 1531, or 1536. Unfortunately it is impossible to discover

which of these dates is correct, as the case is undated. Constable

stated that on 25 April Sir Oswald Wolsthrope and Sir Robert Waid,

clerk, procured that he should be attacked as he was performing the

service in the parish church by Sir Thomas Applegarth, clerk, and eight

other armed and riotous persons. They “violently came and took the

chalice from the Altar, where your said subject (Constable) was

standing, and said, ‘Thou horson polshorne priest, thou shalt not say

mass here, and therefore get thee out of the church, or we shall make

thee repent it’.” Afterwards the rioters broke into the parsonage and

“put in a certain person into the same to the intent to keep your said

subject out of the same, and said he should dwell there whether he would

or no.” On Sunday 30 April, Sir Oswald came to the parish church himself

with sixteen armed men. “And then and there the said Wolsthrope, your

said subject being at mass, and had almost celebrated the same, said

with a high voice these words following, that is to say, ‘You horson

priest, if I had come betime I would have nailed thy coat to thy back

with my dagger.’ And after that your said subject had finished his mass,

and kneeled down at the Altar, saying his orations and prayers, the said

Sir Oswald Wolsthrope ... came riotously to your said subject and

plucked him down by the hair backward, and gave him many opprobrious and

unfitting words, and put him in fear and jeopardy of his life.” The

cause of this behaviour on the part of Sir Oswald is not explained. It

cannot have been a dispute over the patronage of the rectory, for

Constable had been instituted in 1518, seven years before the earliest

date to which the dispute can be assigned[265]. If Constable had

provoked Sir Oswald by innovations and heretical practices, it is

surprising that he did not mention Sir Oswald’s disloyalty, unless

perhaps his own opinions were not those imposed by the government. But

although this riot cannot with certainty be attributed to religious

differences, it possibly gives the other side of the picture drawn by an

admiring martyrologist of a contemporary Yorkshire gentleman, Sir

William Mallory, who “was so zealous and constant a Catholic, than when

heresy first came into England, and Catholic service commanded to be put

down on such a day, he came to the church, and stood there at the door

with his sword drawn, to defend that none should come to abolish

religion, saying that he would defend it with his life, and continued

for some days keeping out the officers so long as he possibly

could.”[266]

A powerful bond between gentlemen, priests and commons was their intense

hatred of Cromwell. He was above all else detested as a heretic, but the

gentlemen also shared the contemptuous feelings of the nobles for an

upstart of low birth, and the northern gentlemen had a special grievance

against him, for which, doubtless, parallel cases could be found in

other parts of the kingdom. One of the most onerous duties of the

landowners was the administration of justice. Cromwell was anxious to

strengthen the hands of the judges against local anarchy, in pursuit of

his policy that England should have only one tyrant, but he was by no

means scrupulous as to the quality of the justice administered in the

royal courts. In March 1536 a case occurred at York Assizes which roused

helpless anger throughout the county. A certain William Wicliff was

charged by Mrs Carr of Newcastle-upon-Tyne with the murder of her

husband, Ralph Carr. The sheriff assured Christopher Jenney, one of the

judges, that the jury had been chosen by Carr’s friends, all except one

man “who was thought indifferent,” yet even this jury acquitted Wicliff.

The names of the jurors were sent up to Cromwell, and they were bound

under a recognizance of £100 each to appear before the Court of Star

Chamber on 20 May. Wicliff remained in prison, as Mrs Carr sued an

appeal for murder against him[267]. The jury were fined. This excited

general indignation in the north; Aske said that “the Lord Cromwell ...

for the extreme punishment of the great jury of Yorkshire, and for the

extreme assessment of their fines, was and yet is, in such horror and

hatred with the people of those parts, that in manner they would eat

him, and esteems their griefs only to arise by him and his

counsel.”[268] Another gentleman declared that “the said traitor

(Cromwell) constrains men to be perjured by extreme fines as Sir George

Conyers, Sir Oswald Wolsthrope and their fellows were if they would have

consented and esteemed their goods above the truth and worship.”[269]

Although Wicliff is not mentioned in the latter instance, it is probably

a reference to the same case.

The affair of Wicliff is typical of the crimes which were familiar to

the King, but almost incomprehensible in the north. A northern gentleman

did not hesitate to attack and kill his enemy in the street, but he

would not perjure himself and condemn an innocent man to death “for four

of the best dukes’ lands in France.” Abundant evidence has been given of

the lawlessness which prevailed in the north, but some virtues

flourished there also, which were absolutely necessary in the absence of

law. A gentleman spoke the truth and held his word sacred. It was

unthinkable that the King, the greatest gentleman of all, did not

observe the same code.

In the uncivilised north the Church still performed her old functions,

and religion was accepted with a childlike faith which, although tending

to superstition, was a decided influence for good. The simple moral and

religious principles of the northern gentlemen are not altogether

unworthy of respect, but they formed a poor preparation for a conflict

with Henry VIII.

NOTES TO CHAPTER III

Note A. The authors of “The History of the House of Howard” say of

Lady Bulmer “her character (was) foully, and, as has since been shown,

lyingly, attacked by the King’s lawyers,” but we have failed to

discover the defence of her character. Her own son did not deny that

his sisters were born before his parents’ marriage[270].

Note B. The document which accused Sir Robert Constable of breaking

the liberties of Beverley is undated. Among the Letters and Papers it

is placed with the evidence given at his trial. The reference to “Our

Holy Father the Pope” shows that it must have been drawn up at least

some years earlier.

We have been unable to discover the case of Anne Grysanis, and it is

possible that this Sir Robert Constable may not have been the villain.

There were so many Constables.

Note C. Possible translations of the inscription on Aughton church

tower:—

(1) “I (the tower) ought not to forget Christofer, second son of

Robert Aske, knt, A.D. 1536.”

(2) “Christofer, the second son of Robert Aske, knt. I ought not to

forget, A.D. 1536.”

Note D. Robert Aske is called Sir Robert’s third son in Tonge’s

Visitation of 1530, but in 1507 he had a brother Richard, who seems to

have come between Christopher and Robert, but died in childhood[271].

Note E. Star Chamber Proceedings.

Bundle XVIII, 252. Sir H. Saville v. Sir R. Tempest.

„ „ 153. „ v. „ [272].

„ XVII, 256. Sir R. Tempest v. Sir H. Saville[273].

„ XXII, 58 and „ v. „

147.

„ XXI, 174. Robert Holdesworth v. John Lacy, Thomas Saville,

Richard Holdesworth, Nic. Brodly.

„ XXII, 201. Sir H. Saville v. Sir R. Tempest.

„ „ Sir Thomas Tempest v. Sir H. Saville.

„ XXIII, 86. Isabel Jepson v. Sir R. Tempest and Sir T.

Tempest and others for murder of her husband.

„ XXIV, 238. Sir R. Tempest v. Sir H. Saville.

„ „ 380. Rex v. Sir R. Tempest.

„ XXV, 37. Sir H. Saville v. Sir Thomas Tempest.

„ „ 45, 55. Inhabitants of various places v. Sir H. Saville.

Note F. Christopher Jenney’s letter[274], dated 27 March but without

the year, is placed in 1535 by the editor of the Letters and Papers,

but from the reference in it to Thwaites the vicar of Londesborough,

who was examined in November 1535, it seems that the letter more

probably belongs to 1536.

Note G. J. C. Cox in his transcript of William Stapleton’s

Confession[275] identifies Thomas Johnson, Brother Bonaventure, with

Thomas Johnson one of the monks of the London Charterhouse, but this

identification is very improbable for the following reasons:—

(_a_) It rests only on the name, which is too common to be a proof

of identity.

(_b_) William Stapleton evidently knew Brother Bonaventure well and

would not be likely to mistake his Order.

(_c_) It was contrary to the rules of the Charterhouse for any monk

to wander about the country alone, but this was the usual practice

of the friars.

(_d_) Dom Thomas Johnson was not one of the four monks who were sent

from London to the Hull Charterhouse in May 1536, but was still in

London on 18 May 1537. In June that year he died in Newgate[276]. As

the monks of the London Charterhouse had been under close

supervision since May 1536, it is incredible that one of them should

have escaped to the north in October, remained there for some time,

and then returned again to prison.