former was that which was most apparent. The suppression of the smaller
monasteries was to be followed by the closing and pulling down of the
smaller parish churches, and the church plate was to be confiscated as
had been that of the abbeys and priories. That was—so people said—the
intention of Thomas Cromwell, the counsellor of low birth against whom
their second demand was aimed. So the men of the North were up in arms
in defence of their religious liberties; and as they marched behind the
processional crosses brought from their parish churches, they wore on
their sleeves a roughly-made badge of the ‘five wounds of Christ.’
* * * * *
[Illustration:
BADGE OF THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE.
The letters ‘I G’ stand for the Latin
words _Itinerarium Gratiae_—the
Pilgrimage of Grace.
]
Robert Aske had been crossing by the ferry from Brough to Barton at the
close of the ‘long vacation’ of 1536 when he was told by the boatmen
that the Commons were ‘up’ in Lincolnshire. Another London barrister,
William Stapleton, the son of Sir Brian Stapleton of Wighill, similarly
heard of the Lincolnshire rising while he was waiting at Hull to cross
the river. He had been staying with his eldest brother, ‘a very weake,
craysid and ympotent man’, in the Grey Friary at Beverley. This was
apparently a much-frequented health resort; for his brother was ‘lying
there for chaunge of ayer as he had doon the somer before from Maye till
after Mydsommer.’
It was three o’clock on the morning of October 5th when Christopher
Stapleton’s servant brought word to William that
all Lyncolnshere was up from Barton to Lincoln ... and that
Grauntham way was stopped as well as Lincoln, so that no man could
passe to london vntaken.
So William Stapleton had perforce to remain waiting in Hull.
Meanwhile Robert Aske was sending out letters to the men of the East
Riding, and on Sunday, October 8th, the town bell at Beverley was set
ringing and the townsmen ‘took oathe to the comons.’ Then
with greate noyse, showtes, and cryes they made proclamation everye
man to appere at Westwood grene the morrowe after with suche horse
and harnes as they had upon payne of death.
Great was the alarm of the ‘weake, craysid’ Christopher at these doings,
and he gave orders to his people that they should keep themselves within
doors. But his wife had determined otherwise, and went out to talk over
the hedge and learn what was happening. ‘Where is your husband and his
folkes that he cometh not as other dooth?’ she was asked, and her reply
made quite clear which way her sympathies lay. ‘They be in the freers,
goo pull them oute by the heddes.’
Christopher Stapleton’s wife had evidently paid more heed to the advice
of a certain Carthusian monk, ‘Sir Thomas Johnson, otherwise called
Bonadventure,’ who was at that time an inmate of the Grey Friary, than
she had to the commands of her husband.
The lady’s suggestion came very near being carried out on the following
morning. But appearances were saved by William Stapleton and his brother
Brian’s coming out on the ‘Westwood grene’ to take their oath, while
‘certayne honnest men’ were sent to record the oath of Christopher.
Whereat Christopher’s wife and the Carthusian monk were ‘very joyous and
merye,’ while outside on the ‘grene’ there were unanimous cries:
‘Maister William Stapulton shelbe our Captayne.’
* * * * *
William Stapleton thus became one of the leaders of the insurgents. By
his orders Hunsley beacon and Tranby beacon were fired; men came in from
_Newbalde_ and _North Cave_, _Brantyngham_, _Cottingham_ and _Hassell_;
and a small army of nine thousand marched to _Wighton Hill_, there to
meet Robert Aske, who had ‘raysed all Howdenshire and Marshelande.’
Following the plan of campaign decided upon at Weighton, Aske with the
main part of the army of insurgents marched to York, which surrendered
on October 16th, and thence to Pontefract, which he captured four days
later. Meanwhile Stapleton laid siege to Hull, encamping his men close
to the Beverley Gate. The city was being held for the King by Sir Ralph
Ellerker and Sir John Constable, neither of whom would hear of
surrender; for they were determined, as Sir John Constable put it,
rather to ‘dye with honneste than lyve with shame.’
An easy way to effect the capture of the town was pointed out by one of
Stapleton’s men, who said that
with one barell of pyche fiered and sent downe with the tyde he
would sett on fyer all the shippes in the haven.
But Stapleton would have none of such methods, and, much to the disgust
of the more unruly of his men, he even forbade the firing of the
windmills near the Beverley Gate.
The leader of this besieging force was a strict disciplinarian. He would
allow no pillaging, and gave orders that every man must pay honestly for
what he took. But ‘spoylinges and prevy pickinges’ did happen,
nevertheless;
wheruppon he badde watche and take some therewith, and prove what he
shuld doo. And theruppon they toke one Barton a fletcher whiche the
said William had put in trust to kepe their vittall, and also one
nawghty fellow a saynetewary[46] man of Beverley and a comen picker
taken with picking muche thinges.
Wheruppon ... he cawsed to take the same twoo, and made them beleve
they shulde dye, and theruppon assigned a freer to them being in his
companye, advysing them to make them clene to God ...; after the
whiche so doon the said William callid for one Spalding a waterman
and in the presence of all men causede them to be called oute, and
the seyntuary man was tyed by the middell with a rope to thende of
the bote and so haled over the water and seuerall tymes put downe
with the oore over the hedde. And thother seeing him thought to be
so handiled, howbeit at the request of honest men he being a
howsekeper, he was suffered to goo unponyshed and so bothe bannyshed
the hoost.
Footnote 46:
Sanctuary.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_
Howden Church from the South.
Showing how the east end of the church has been destroyed.
]
A very satisfactory mode of punishment it turned out to be. For after
this ‘there was never spoile in the company of the said William.’
The conclusion of the _Pilgrimage_ must be briefly told. The defenders
of Hull finally surrendered on honourable terms. Aske, after taking
Pontefract, went south to Doncaster, where negotiations were opened with
the Duke of Norfolk, Commander-in-Chief of the King’s forces. As a
result of these negotiations Aske was granted a safe-conduct to visit
the King in London, and returned home on January 8th, with a promise
that the King would visit York next Whitsuntide and hold there a
Parliament at which all grievances should be considered. Satisfied with
this success Aske disbanded his men.
All might now have gone well. But unfortunately for those who had been
concerned in the rebellion, a certain Sir Francis Bigod and John Hallam,
a servant of Sir Robert Constable, formed plans for seizing the towns of
Scarborough, Beverley, and Hull, and beginning the rebellion again.
Their attempts failed, and were made the occasion of a withdrawal of the
terms previously offered by the King, and the taking of ruthless
measures to stamp out the insurrection.
* * * * *
The results of the Pilgrimage of Grace proved terrible for the
ringleaders. Robert Aske was decoyed to London, arrested, tried at
Westminster, exhibited as a traitor in each of the towns where he had
been welcomed as a deliverer of the people, and finally hanged, drawn,
and quartered at York. Sir Robert Constable was hanged in chains on the
Beverley Gate of Hull, Lord Darcy was beheaded on Tower Hill, Sir John
Bulmer was hanged at Tyburn, and his wife was burnt at the stake. The
abbots of Fountains, Rievaulx, and Jervaulx, together with the Prior of
Bridlington, were also hanged at Tyburn; and an excuse was thus made for
the forfeiture of their Houses to the King.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_
Howden Church—Ruins of the Chapter House.
]
When, in 1536, the decree for the suppression of the smaller monasteries
was issued, Parliament thanked God that ‘in divers and great solemn
monasteries of the realm, religion is right well kept and observed.’ The
Abbots of some of these were induced to surrender voluntarily—‘willingly
to consent and agree’ to the destruction of their Abbeys and the
confiscation of all their property. The Abbots of others were convicted
of high treason, and their Abbeys declared forfeited. One hundred and
fifty surrendered during 1538–9, and by 1540 all had been suppressed.
The sale of the Abbey lands realised a sum of money equal to £8,500,000
in the money of to-day, and the value of the plunder from the
shrines—gold, silver gilt, and silver crosses, chalices, and
candlesticks—was not less than another million pounds. The total cash
value to the King amounted to nearly £15,000,000 in our money. Of this
huge sum about one-half was spent on public purposes—the foundation of
new bishoprics, the building of schools, and the organisation of
harbours and other national defences.[47] The remainder went into the
pockets of the King’s courtiers, many of whom rose from comparative
poverty to a position of wealth.
Footnote 47:
See page 208 for an example of this.
* * * * *
What the _Suppression_ meant to the religious houses of the East Riding
may be judged from the following letter, written in 1538 by a servant of
Thomas Cromwell to his master:—
Pleasythe your good Lordshipp to be advertysed. I have taken downe
all the lead of Jervayse,[48] and made itt in pecys of half-foders,
which lead amounteth to the numbre of eighteen score and five
foders,[49] with thirty and foure foders, and a half, that were
there before. And the said lead cannot be conveit, nor caryed unto
the next sombre, for the ways in that contre are so foule, and deep,
that no carrage can passe in wyntre. And as concerning the raising
and taken downe the house, if itt be your Lordshipps pleasure I am
minded to let itt stand to the Spring of the yere, by reason of the
days are now so short it wolde be double charge to do itt now. And
as concerning the selling of the bells, I cannot sell them above
15s. the hundreth,[50] wherein I would gladly know your Lordshipps
pleasor, whether I should sell them after that price, or send them
up to London. And if they be sent up surely the carriage wolbe
costly frome that place to the water. And as for Byrdlington I have
doyn nothing there as yet, but sparethe itt to March next, bycause
the days now are so short, and from such tyme as I begyn I trust
shortly to dyspatche itt after such fashion that when all is
fynished, I trust your Lordshipp shall think that I have bene no
evyll howsbound in all such things, as your Lordshipp haith
appoynted me to doo. And thus the Holy Ghost ever preserve your
Lordshipp in honor. At York this fourteenth day of November by your
most bounden beadsman.
RICHARD BELLYCYS.
Footnote 48:
Jervaulx Abbey, in the North Riding.
Footnote 49:
A _foder_ equals 2400 lbs.
Footnote 50:
Hundredweight.
That Cromwell’s ‘most bounden beadsman’ faithfully kept his promise we
see to-day in the condition of Bridlington Priory. What we call the
‘Priory Church’ is merely the nave of the church of the Augustinian
Priory. Chancel and transepts have equally disappeared. So have the
cloisters, chapter house, frater, dorter, Abbot’s house, and the
numerous farm buildings which once stood within the Priory walls. Of the
walls themselves nothing remains but the ‘Bayle Gate.’
* * * * *
A worse tale has to be told of the wilful destruction of the other
monasteries, nunneries, and friaries in our Riding.
Of Kirkham Priory, on the bank of the river Derwent, there are remains
only of the once beautiful gateway, the cloister court, and the east end
of the church. What is now the Swine parish church was once the chancel
of the nunnery church. Of the Black Friary at Beverley there are remains
of the boundary wall. The oriel window of the Prior’s house is to be
seen built into the modern ‘Watton Priory,’ and a few stones of the
Priory of Haltemprice are built into a farmhouse which now occupies part
of its site. Of the great Abbey of Meaux—founded in 1150 by William le
Gros, Earl of Holderness, in redemption of a vow that he would make a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and rebuilt four times during the next hundred
years—there now remains not one stone in place above ground. And of the
Friaries once flourishing in Hull nought remains but their mere names.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_
All that remained of Meaux Abbey in 1900.
]
‘Even where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall the
dogs lick thy blood also, O King.’ Such was the text which a certain
Grey Friar used when he had occasion to preach before King Henry. A bold
man he must have been thus to take his fate into his hands. What the
fate of Friar Peto actually was is not recorded, but we know that the
Grey Friars and the Carthusian Monks were treated with particular
brutality.
Of the monks of the London Charterhouse five were hanged at Tyburn, and
their bodies afterwards cut up. Ten were removed to Newgate on May 29th,
1537. Sixteen days later the following report was issued:—
There are departed 5
There are even at the point of death 2
There are sick 2
There is healed 1
Later on all but one are reported as dead, and three years afterwards
that one was hanged at Tyburn. With his name we are already
acquainted—‘Sir Thomas Johnson, otherwise called Bonadventure.’ Surely
never was monk given a less appropriate name than his turned out to be.
XXI.
HOW THE GREAT CIVIL WAR BEGAN AT HULL.
In four different centuries has England suffered the pangs of that
deplorable kind of war which we are accustomed to describe by the
adjective ‘Civil.’ And in each case has the cause of the war been the
same—a disagreement as to who should be the ruler of the country’s
destinies. In the twelfth century it was a struggle between the King and
a would-be Queen, in the thirteenth a struggle between the King and his
barons, in the fifteenth a struggle between two royal families, and in
the seventeenth a struggle between King and Parliament. It is the fourth
of these wars that has gained, from the bitterness of the struggle and
the catastrophe which ended it, the additional description of ‘Great.’
Both King and Parliament are among the oldest of our national
institutions. In the days of the Angles and Saxons the head of the
Government was the King, but his power had not been absolute. There was
a body of King’s Counsellors, the _Witena-gemōt_, who had power to
depose the King if necessary, and in whose hands rested the elections to
the throne.
No idea of hereditary right to the throne then existed, and after the
Norman Conquest the same right of election by the people—expressed
through the _Great Council_—remained. It was not, in fact, till the
accession of Edward I. that the principle of hereditary succession to
the throne of England became firmly recognised. Edward I. was the first
of our sovereigns to become King simply because he was the son of his
father, and without an expression of the will of the nation.
On the death of Queen Elizabeth it happened that the throne of England
fell to the King of Scotland—a King who may be described as one-fourth
English, one-fourth French, and one-half Scots, in blood. It is,
therefore, not altogether strange that James I., ‘the wisest fool in
Christendom,’ should fail to see things from an Englishman’s point of
view, or that he should be unable to understand English customs and
English institutions.
Thus it was that the King began to quarrel with his Parliament, and when
Charles I. became King in his father’s stead things grew rapidly worse.
According to his view, he was King of England by the manifest will of
God, and as the elect of God he was bound to consult none but God; while
all his subjects were bound to obey his will, as they would the will of
God.
But according to the view taken by Parliament, the King was one factor
only in the Government. Commons, Lords Temporal, Lords Spiritual—the
‘Three Estates of the Realm’—had the King for their head. He was, as it
were, the keystone of the arch, of no power by himself, but of very
great power when fitted into his place in the government of the country.
Such was the view of Parliament in the early years of King Charles’
reign. Later on the Members of Parliament thought they had made a new
discovery—that the arch would hold itself up without the help of its
keystone.
* * * * *
When Charles came to the throne, England was engaged in a war upon the
Continent. From his first Parliament the King demanded supplies of money
to carry on this war, but was told that he must first redress the
‘grievances’ under which the nation suffered. This not being the reply
that he had expected, he dissolved Parliament and began to raise money
by a system of compulsory loans obtained from all townsfolk who were
deemed wealthy enough to provide them. From the town of Hull the two
Commissioners, who attended at the Town Hall for the purpose, demanded
and received the sum of £332 13s. 4d.
At the same time seaport towns were ordered to provide armed vessels
towards a fleet of one hundred ships which was being equipped. Hull’s
share was three ships large enough to transport 1350 men.
As his second Parliament proved no more tractable than his first had
been, the King now decided to govern without a Parliament at all; and
this he did from 1629 to 1640. During this time he continued to raise
money by what many people considered to be illegal taxes—such as _ship
money_, or money provided by seaport and inland towns for the fitting
out of imaginary fleets; and _tonnage and poundage_, a levy on every tun
of wine imported and every pound’s worth of merchandise bought and sold.
It was only to be expected that some people would object to pay taxes
which were said to be illegal. In fact many people were to be found who
said, ‘We will pay no taxes which we, through our Members of Parliament,
have not sanctioned.’ The famous John Hampden was one of these; and when
the King’s Judges said to Hampden, ‘You and everybody else must pay,’
there were scores of people up and down the country who proclaimed
openly in the market-places, 'Well, we won’t pay, that’s all.’
Matters were thus getting into a very unpromising condition when, in
1639, the King levied an army of 22,000 men to make war upon the Scots,
who had shown just as strong objections to using the King’s prayer-book
as the English people had shown to paying the King’s taxes. At the head
of this army Charles marched north, and took up his quarters for a time
at York, from which place he paid a visit to Hull.
* * * * *
Let us now see what Hull was like when Charles visited it for the first
time.
The plan of _Kyngeston-vpon-Hvll_ given overleaf is reproduced from the
very carefully drawn plan of a famous Dutch engraver named Hollar, and
shows the appearance of the town in 1640. Surrounding the town to the
north and west are the town wall and the moat, repaired and cleaned out
by royal orders the previous year. North Gate and Hessle Gate span the
moat and thus prevent ingress from both the Humber and the Hull. At each
of the intervening three gates—Low Gate, Beverley Gate, and Myton
Gate—the moat is spanned by a draw-bridge, and at the ends of Postern
Gate Street and Blanket Row there are in the moat stakes for the support
of bridges.
[Illustration:
A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF KYNGESTON-VPON-HVLL
(_From Hollar’s Plan. A.D. 1640_.)
]
Within the town wall are plainly to be seen the chief streets and
buildings. What was called _The Ropery_ is our Humber Street, which then
formed the actual bank of the Humber. Holy Trinity Church is far and
away the largest of the buildings. St. Mary’s Church has now no tower,
this having fallen in 1540—or, as tradition puts it, having been ‘pulled
down to ye bare ground’ by order of the King. The sites of the Black
Friary and White Friary are yet unbuilt upon.[51] The Suffolk Palace,
begun by Michael de la Pole in 1384, confiscated to King Henry VIII.,
and converted by him into a ‘Sitidell and a special kepe of the hole
town,’ rented of the Hildyards of Winestead by King Charles I. in 1639,
and used as a magazine for military stores, forms an imposing pile of
buildings. Its gardens stretch almost as far as the Beverley Gate.
Footnote 51:
The church of the Black Friary and the tower of St. Mary’s Church are
very plainly shown in the older plan given on page 165.
On the opposite side of the river Hull, the ancient village of _Dripole_
has disappeared, and its place is taken by a new line of fortifications
consisting of a ditch and wall, the latter strengthened by the addition
of two ‘Blockhouses’ and a ‘Castle.’
This line of fortifications, together with a strong bridge over the
Hull, was constructed by order of King Henry VIII. when he visited Hull
in 1541; and its cost, £23,000, was provided by the King from the
revenues of the suppressed monasteries. Large quantities of building
materials from the White and the Black Friaries were used in its
construction.[52]
Footnote 52:
In 1681 the North Blockhouse was abandoned, and a new Citadel built
enclosing the Castle and the South Blockhouse. The whole was
demolished about the middle of last century, with the exception of a
small turret, which still remains built into the walls of the Humber
Transport Company, but is shortly to be taken down and rebuilt in the
West Park.
The welcome accorded to King Charles on this his first visit to Hull was
most cordial. Outside the Beverley Gate he was met by the Mayor,
Aldermen, and Recorder, who delivered to him the keys of the town, to be
received back from the King’s hands with gracious words. In the speech
made by the Recorder to his ‘Most Gracious Sovereign’ occurs this
promise:—
‘We make bold, with the utmost zeal and fidelity that can be, to
give your Majesty a full assurance of our most sincere loyalty, and
will adhere to you against all your enemies with the utmost of our
lives and fortunes.’
Then came the turn of the Mayor, who, in presenting the King with a long
ribbon, which Charles at once tied in a knot and placed in his hat,
said:—
‘Vouchsafe, great Sir, to accept the emblematic bond of our
obedience, which is tied as fast to your Majesty, your Crown, and
the Church, as our souls are to our bodies, and we are resolved
never to part from the former until we part from the latter.’
But how hollow and insincere these words were was very shortly to be
made apparent. Probably Charles himself recognised their tone of
insincerity, and was doubtless much better pleased with the ‘purse of
curious workmanship, containing one hundred guineas’ which accompanied
the giving of the ‘Hull favour.’ That night the King lodged at the house
of Sir John Lister[53] in High Street—that known to us as ‘Wilberforce
House’—the next night he lodged at Beverley, and the following day he
again reached York.
Footnote 53:
The King knighted his host during his visit.
* * * * *
These events were happening in the month of April, 1639. On the
twenty-third of the same month three years later, Charles paid his
second visit to Hull. And what a different reception was then to await
him!
During these three years the relations between King and Parliament had
been steadily growing more strained. Each recognised the possibility of
there being in the future an appeal to arms; and each recognised, too,
the importance of possessing ‘the most important fortress in the whole
kingdom, and its vast magazine, which far exceeded the collection of
warlike stores in the Tower of London.’[54]
Footnote 54:
In 1639 the military stores at the King’s Manor in Hull included 50
cannon, 200,000 muskets, carbines, pistols, and swords, 1,800 spades,
shovels, and wheelbarrows, with powder, shot, and match to the value
of upwards of £6000. Other stores of armour, powder, cannon balls, and
musket shot purchased in Holland were added in the same year.
It was the King’s misfortune that Parliament, and not he, secured
possession of Hull. Early in 1642 the Commons appointed Sir John Hotham,
Member of Parliament for Beverley, to be Governor of Hull; and sent him
down to take possession of the town, with orders not to deliver it up
without the King’s authority ‘signified by both Houses.’ On April 23rd
the King himself set out from York on the same errand, taking care to
send forward from Beverley an officer charged with the message that the
King would shortly arrive to dine with the Governor of the town.