THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE.
[Sidenote: Condition of society.]
The Nun of Kent's conspiracy, the recent humour of convocation, the
menaces of Reginald Pole, alike revealed a dangerous feeling in the
country. A religious revolution in the midst of an armed population
intensely interested in the event, could not be accomplished without an
appeal being made at some period of its course to arms; and religion was
at this time but one out of many elements of confusion. Society, within
and without, from the heart of its creed to its outward organization,
was passing through a transition, and the records of the Pilgrimage of
Grace cast their light far down into the structure and inmost
constitution of English life.
[Sidenote: Waning influence of the House of Lords.]
[Sidenote: Their jealousy of Cromwell.]
[Sidenote: Conservative confederacy to check the Reformation.]
[Sidenote: Displeasure of the country families at the suppression of the
abbeys.]
[Sidenote: Who missed the various conveniences which the abbeys had
furnished.]
The organic changes introduced by the parliament of 1529 had been the
work of the king and the second house in the legislature; and the peers
had not only seen measures pass into law which they would gladly have
rejected had they dared, but their supremacy was slipping away from
them; the Commons, who in times past had confined themselves to voting
supplies and passing without inquiry such measures as were sent down to
them, had started suddenly into new proportions, and had taken upon
themselves to discuss questions sacred hitherto to convocation. The
upper house had been treated in disputes which had arisen with
significant disrespect; ancient and honoured customs had been
discontinued among them against their desire;[80] and, constitutionally
averse to change, they were hurried powerless along by a force which was
bearing them they knew not where. Hating heretics with true English
conservatism, they found men who but a few years before would have been
in the dungeons of Lollards' Tower, now high in court favour, high in
office, and with seats in their own body. They had learnt to endure the
presence of self-raised men when as ecclesiastics such men represented
the respectable dignity of the Church; but the proud English nobles had
now for the first time to tolerate the society and submit to the
dictation of a lay peer who had been a tradesman's orphan and a homeless
vagabond. The Reformation in their minds was associated with the
exaltation of base blood, the levelling of ranks, the breaking down the
old rule and order of the land. Eager to check so dangerous a movement,
they had listened, some of them, to the revelations of the Nun. Fifteen
great men and lords, Lord Darcy stated, had confederated secretly to
force the government to change their policy;[81] and Darcy himself had
been in communication for the same purpose with the Spanish ambassador,
and was of course made aware of the intended invasion in the preceding
winter.[82] The discontent extended to the county families, who shared
or imitated the prejudices of their feudal leaders; and these families
had again their peculiar grievances. On the suppression of the abbeys
the peers obtained grants, or expected to obtain them, from the
forfeited estates. The country gentlemen saw only the desecration of the
familiar scenes of their daily life, the violation of the tombs of their
ancestors, and the buildings themselves, the beauty of which was the
admiration of foreigners who visited England, reduced to ruins.[83] The
abbots had been their personal friends, "the trustees for their children
and the executors of their wills;"[84] the monks had been the teachers
of their children; the free tables and free lodgings in these houses had
made them attractive and convenient places of resort in distant
journeys; and in remote districts the trade of the neighbourhood, from
the wholesale purchases of the corndealer to the huckstering of the
wandering pedlar, had been mainly carried on within their walls.[85]
[Sidenote: The Statute of Uses another grievance.]
[Sidenote: Difficulty of providing for younger children under the old
common law.]
[Sidenote: The objects and the evils of the system of Uses.]
"The Statute of Uses," again, an important but insufficient measure of
reform, passed in the last session of parliament but one,[86] had
created not unreasonable irritation. Previous to the modification of the
feudal law in the year 1540, land was not subject to testamentary
disposition and it had been usual to evade the prohibition of direct
bequest, in making provision for younger children, by leaving estates in
"use," charged with payments so considerable as to amount virtually to a
transfer of the property. The injustice of the common law was in this
way remedied, but remedied so awkwardly as to embarrass and complicate
the titles of estates beyond extrication. A "use" might be erected on a
"use"; it might be extended to the descendants of those in whose behalf
it first was made; it might be mortgaged, or transferred as a security
to raise money. The apparent owner of a property might effect a sale,
and the buyer find his purchase so encumbered as to be useless to him.
The intricacies of tenure thus often passed the skill of judges to
unravel;[87] while, again, the lords of the fiefs were unable to claim
their fines or fees or liveries, and the crown, in cases of treason,
could not enforce its forfeitures. The Statute of Uses terminated the
immediate difficulty by creating, like the recent Irish Encumbered
Estates Act, parliamentary titles. All persons entitled to the use of
lands were declared to be to all intents and purposes the lawful
possessors, as much as if such lands had been made over to them by
formal grant or conveyance. They became actual owners, with all the
rights and all the liabilities of their special tenures. The embarrassed
titles were in this way simplified; but now, the common law remaining as
yet unchanged, the original evil returned in full force. Since a trust
was equivalent to a conveyance, and land could not be bequeathed by
will, the system of trusts was virtually terminated. Charges could not
be created upon estates, and the landowners complained that they could
no longer raise money if they wanted it; their estates must go wholly to
the eldest sons; and, unless they were allowed to divide their
properties by will, their younger children would be left
portionless.[88]
Small grievances are readily magnified in seasons of general disruption.
A wicked spirit in the person of Cromwell was said to rule the king, and
everything which he did was evil, and every evil of the commonwealth was
due to his malignant influence.
[Sidenote: Grievances of the commons.]
[Sidenote: Local limitation of English country life.]
[Sidenote: Each district self-supporting.]
The discontent of the noblemen and gentlemen would in itself have been
formidable. Their armed retinues were considerable. The constitutional
power of the counties was in their hands. But the commons, again, had
their own grounds of complaint, for the most part just, though arising
from causes over which the government had no control, from social
changes deeper than the Reformation itself. In early times each petty
district in England had been self-supporting, raising its own corn,
feeding its own cattle, producing by women's hands in the cottages and
farmhouses its own manufactures. There were few or no large roads, no
canals, small means of transport of any kind, and from this condition of
things had arisen the laws which we call short-sighted, against
engrossers of grain. Wealthy speculators, watching their opportunity,
might buy up the produce not immediately needed, of an abundant harvest,
and when the stock which was left was exhausted, they could make their
own market, unchecked by a danger of competition. In time no doubt the
mischief would have righted itself, but only with the assistance of a
coercive police which had no existence, who would have held down the
people while they learnt their lesson by starvation. The habits of a
great nation could only change slowly. Each estate or each township for
the most part grew its own food, and (the average of seasons
compensating each other) food adequate for the mouths dependent upon it.
[Sidenote: Suffering occasioned by the introduction of large grazing
farms.]
The development of trade at the close of the fifteenth century gave the
first shock to the system. The demand for English wool in Flanders had
increased largely, and holders of property found they could make their
own advantage by turning their corn-land into pasture, breaking up the
farms, enclosing the commons, and becoming graziers on a gigantic
scale.
I have described in the first chapter of this work the manner in which
the Tudor sovereigns had attempted to check this tendency, but interest
had so far proved too strong for legislation. The statutes prohibiting
enclosures had remained, especially in the northern counties,
unenforced; and the small farmers and petty copyholders, hitherto
thriving and independent, found themselves at once turned out of their
farms and deprived of the resource of the commons. They had suffered
frightfully, and they saw no reason for their sufferings. From the Trent
northward a deep and angry spirit of discontent had arisen which could
be stirred easily into mutiny.[89]
[Sidenote: The rough character of the Yorkshire gentleman.]
[Sidenote: Encroachment upon local jurisdiction increases the expense of
justice.]
Nor were these the only grievances of the northern populace. The
Yorkshire knights, squires, sheriffs, and justices of the peace, intent,
as we see, on their own interests, had been overbearing and tyrannical
in their offices. The Abbot of York, interceding with Cromwell in behalf
of some poor man who had been needlessly arrested and troubled, declared
that "there was such a company of wilful gentlemen within Yorkshire as
he thought there were not in all England besides,"[90] and Cromwell in
consequence had "roughly handled the grand jury." Courts of arbitration
had sate from immemorial time in the northern baronies where disputes
between landlords and tenants had been equitably and cheaply adjusted.
The growing inequality of fortunes had broken through this useful
custom. Small farmers and petty leaseholders now found themselves sued
or compelled to sue in the courts at Westminster, and the expenses of a
journey to London, or of the employment of London advocates, placed them
virtually at the mercy of their landlords. Thus the law itself had been
made an instrument of oppression, and the better order of gentlemen,
who would have seen justice enforced had they been able, found
themselves assailed daily with "piteous complaints" which they had no
power to satisfy.[91] The occupation of the council with the larger
questions of the Church had left them too little leisure to attend to
these disorders. Cromwell's occasional and abrupt interference had
created irritation, but no improvement; and mischiefs of all kinds had
grown unheeded till the summer of 1536, when a fresh list of grievances,
some real, some imaginary, brought the crisis to a head.
[Sidenote: Papal leanings of the northern clergy.]
The convocation of York, composed of rougher materials than the
representatives of the southern counties, had acquiesced but tardily in
the measures of the late years. Abuses of all kinds instinctively
sympathize, and the clergy of the north, who were the most ignorant in
England, and the laity whose social irregularities were the greatest,
united resolutely in their attachment to the Pope, were most alarmed at
the progress of heresy, and most anxious for a reaction. The deciding
act against Rome and the king's articles of religion struck down the
hopes which had been excited there and elsewhere by the disgrace of
Queen Anne. Men saw the Papacy finally abandoned, they saw heresy
encouraged, and they were proportionately disappointed and enraged.
[Sidenote: Three commissions issued by the crown.]
At this moment three commissions were issued by the crown, each of which
would have tried the patience of the people, if conducted with greatest
prudence, and at the happiest opportunity.
[Sidenote: A subsidy commission.]
The second portion of the subsidy (an income-tax of two and a half per
cent. on all incomes above twenty pounds a year), which had been voted
in the autumn of 1534, had fallen due. The money had been required for
the Irish war, and the disaffected party in England had wished well to
the insurgents, so that the collectors found the greatest difficulty
either in enforcing the tax, or obtaining correct accounts of the
properties on which it was to be paid.
[Sidenote: A commission to carry out the Act of Suppression,]
[Sidenote: And a commission for the examination of the character and
qualifications of the clergy.]
Simultaneously Legh and Layton, the two most active and most unpopular
of the monastic visitors, were sent to Yorkshire to carry out the Act of
Suppression. Others went into Lincolnshire, others to Cheshire and
Lancashire, while a third set carried round the injunctions of Cromwell
to the clergy, with directions further to summon before them every
individual parish priest, to examine into his character, his habits and
qualifications, and eject summarily all inefficient persons from their
offices and emoluments.
[Sidenote: Complaints against the monastic commissioners.]
[Sidenote: The complaints were perhaps exaggerated,]
[Sidenote: But were not wholly without justice.]
The dissolution of the religious houses commenced in the midst of an
ominous and sullen silence. The act extended only to houses whose
incomes were under two hundred pounds a year, and among these the
commissioners were to use their discretion. They were to visit every
abbey and priory, to examine the books, examine the monks; when the
income fell short, or when the character of the house was vicious, to
eject the occupants, and place the lands and farm-buildings in the hands
of lay tenants for the crown. The discharge of an unpopular office,
however conducted, would have exposed those who undertook it to great
odium. It is likely that those who did undertake it were men who felt
bitterly on the monastic vices, and did their work with little scruple
or sympathy. Legh and Layton were accused subsequently of having borne
themselves with overbearing insolence; they were said also to have taken
bribes, and where bribes were not offered, to have extorted them from
the houses which they spared. That they went through their business
roughly is exceedingly probable; whether needlessly so, must not be
concluded from the report of persons to whom their entire occupation was
sacrilege. That they received money is evident from their own reports to
the government; but it is evident also that they did not attempt to
conceal that they received it. When the revenues of the crown were
irregular and small, the salaries even of ministers of state were
derived in great measure from fees and presents; the visitors of the
monasteries, travelling with large retinues, were expected to make their
duties self-supporting, to inflict themselves as guests on the houses to
which they went, and to pay their own and their servants "wages" from
the funds of the establishments. Sums of money would be frequently
offered them in lieu of a painful hospitality; and whether they took
unfair advantage of their opportunities for extortion, or whether they
exercised a proper moderation, cannot be concluded from the mere fact
that there was a clamour against them. But beyond doubt their other
proceedings were both rash and blameable. Their servants, with the hot
puritan blood already in their veins, trained in the exposure of the
impostures and profligacies of which they had seen so many, scorning and
hating the whole monastic race, had paraded their contempt before the
world; they had ridden along the highways, decked in the spoils of the
desecrated chapels, with copes for doublets, tunics for
saddle-cloths,[92] and the silver relic-cases hammered into sheaths for
their daggers.[93] They had been directed to enforce an abrogation of
the superfluous holy-days; they had shown such excessive zeal that in
some places common markets had been held under their direction on
Sundays.[94]
Scenes like these working upon tempers already inflamed, gave point to
discontent. Heresy, that word of dread and horror to English ears, rang
from lip to lip. Their hated enemy was at the people's doors, and their
other sufferings were the just vengeance of an angry God.[95]
Imagination, as usual, hastened to assist and expand the nucleus of
truth. Cromwell had formed the excellent design, which two years later
he carried into effect, of instituting parish registers. A report of his
intention had gone abroad, and mingling with the irritating inquiries of
the subsidy commissioners into the value of men's properties, gave rise
to a rumour that a fine was to be paid to the crown on every wedding,
funeral, or christening; that a tax would be levied on every head of
cattle, or the cattle should be forfeited; "that no man should eat in
his house white meat, pig, goose, nor capon, but that he should pay
certain dues to the King's Grace."
[Sidenote: Expectation that the parish churches were to be destroyed
with the abbeys.]
In the desecration of the abbey chapels and altar-plate a design was
imagined against all religion. The clergy were to be despoiled; the
parish churches pulled down, one only to be left for every seven or
eight miles; the church plate to be confiscated, and "chalices of tin"
supplied for the priest to sing with.[96]
[Sidenote: Divided interests of the rich and poor.]
Every element necessary for a great revolt was thus in motion,--wounded
superstition, real suffering, caused by real injustice, with their
attendant train of phantoms. The clergy in the north were disaffected to
a man;[97] the people were in the angry humour which looks eagerly for
an enemy, and flies at the first which seems to offer. If to a spirit of
revolt there had been added a unity of purpose, the results would have
been far other than they were. Happily, the discontents of the nobility,
the gentlemen, the clergy, the commons, were different, and in many
respects opposite; and although, in the first heat of the commotion, a
combination threatened to be possible, jealousy and suspicion rapidly
accomplished the work of disintegration. The noble lords were in the
interest of Pole, of European Catholicism, the Empire, and the Papacy;
the country gentlemen desired only the quiet enjoyment of a right to do
as they would with their own, and the quiet maintenance of a Church
which was too corrupt to interfere with them. The working people had a
just cause, though disguised by folly; but all true sufferers soon
learnt that in rising against the government, they had mistaken their
best friends for foes.
[Sidenote: September. Uneasy movement among the clergy.]
[Sidenote: The commissioner is coming to Louth.]
It was Michaelmas then, in the year 1536. Towards the fall of the
summer, clergy from the southern counties had been flitting northward,
and on their return had talked mysteriously to their parishioners of
impending insurrections, in which honest men would bear their part.[98]
In Yorkshire and Lincolnshire the stories of the intended destruction of
parish churches had been vociferously circulated; and Lord Hussey, at
his castle at Sleford, had been heard to say to one of the gentlemen of
the county, that "the world would never mend until they fought for
it."[99] September passed away; at the end of the month, the nunnery of
Legbourne, near Louth, was suppressed by the visitors, and two servants
of Cromwell were left in the house, to complete the dissolution. On
Monday, the 2d of October, Heneage, one of the examiners under the
clerical commission, was coming, with the chancellor of the Bishop of
Lincoln, into Louth itself, and the clergy of the neighbourhood were to
appear and submit themselves to inspection.
[Sidenote: Sunday, October 1.]
[Sidenote: Procession of the people of Louth on Sunday evening.]
The evening before being Sunday, a knot of people gathered on the green
in the town. They had the great silver cross belonging to the parish
with them; and as a crowd collected about them, a voice cried, "Masters,
let us follow the cross; God knows whether ever we shall follow it
hereafter or nay." They formed in procession, and went round the
streets; and after vespers, a party, headed "by one Nicholas Melton,
who, being a shoemaker, was called Captain Cobler," appeared at the
doors of the church, and required the churchwardens to give them the
key of the jewel chamber. The chancellor, they said, was coming the next
morning, and intended to seize the plate. The churchwardens hesitating,
the keys were taken by force. The chests were opened, the crosses,
chalices, and candlesticks "were shewed openly in the sight of every
man," and then, lest they should be stolen in the night, an armed watch
kept guard till daybreak in the church aisles.
[Sidenote: October 2. Burst of the insurrection.]
[Sidenote: The commissioner is received with the alarm-bell.]
[Sidenote: He is sworn to the commons.]
At nine o'clock on Monday morning Heneage entered the town, with a
single servant. The chancellor was ill, and could not attend. As he rode
in, the alarm-bell pealed out from Louth Tower. The inhabitants swarmed
into the streets with with bills and staves; "the stir and the noise
arising hideous." The commissioner, in panic at the disturbance, hurried
into the church for sanctuary; but the protection was not allowed to
avail him. He was brought out into the market-place, a sword was held to
his breast, and he was sworn at an extemporized tribunal to be true to
the commons, upon pain of death. "Let us swear! let us all swear!" was
then the cry. A general oath was drawn. The townsmen swore--all
strangers resident swore--they would be faithful to the king, the
commonwealth, and to Holy Church.
In the heat of the enthusiasm appeared the registrar of the diocese, who
had followed Heneage with his books, in which was enrolled Cromwell's
commission. Instantly clutched, he was dragged to the market-cross. A
priest was mounted on the stone steps, and commanded to read the
commission aloud. He began; but the "hideous clamour" drowned his voice.
The crowd, climbing on his shoulders, to overlook the pages, bore him
down. He flung the book among the mob, and it was torn leaf from leaf,
and burnt upon the spot. The registrar barely escaped with his life: he
was rescued by friends, and hurried beyond the gates.
Meanwhile, a party of the rioters had gone out to Legbourne, and
returned, bringing Cromwell's servants, who were first set in the
stocks, and thrust afterwards into the town gaol.
[Sidenote: The township of Louth in motion to Castre.]
[Sidenote: Furious demeanour of the clergy]
[Sidenote: The gentlemen take the oath.]
So passed Monday. The next morning, early, the common bell was again
ringing. Other commissioners were reported to be at Castre, a few miles
distant; and Melton the shoemaker, and "one great James," a tailor, with
a volunteer army of horse and foot, harnessed and unharnessed, set out
to seize them. The alarm had spread; the people from the neighbouring
villages joined them as they passed, or had already risen and were in
marching order. At Castre they found the commissioners fled; but a
thousand horse were waiting for them, and the number every moment
increasing. Whole parishes marched in, headed by their clergy. A
rendezvous was fixed at Rotherwell; and at Rotherwell, on that day, or
the next, besides the commons, "there were priests and monks" (the
latter fresh ejected from their monasteries--pensioned, but furious) "to
the number of seven or eight hundred."[100] Some were "bidding their
bedes," and praying for the Pope and cardinals; some were in full
harness, or armed with such weapons as they could find: all were urging
on the people. They had, as yet, no plans. What would the gentlemen do?
was the question. "Kill the gentlemen," the priests cried; "if they
will not join us, they shall all be hanged."[101] This difficulty was
soon settled. They were swept up from their halls, or wherever they
could be found. The oath was offered them, with the alternative of
instant death; and they swore against their will, as all afterwards
pretended, and as some perhaps sincerely felt; but when the oath was
once taken, they joined with a hearty unanimity, and brought in with
them their own armed retainers, and the stores from their houses.[102]
Sir Edward Madyson came in, Sir Thomas Tyrwhit and Sir William Ascue.
Lord Borough, who was in Ascue's company when the insurgents caught him,
rode for his life, and escaped. One of his servants was overtaken in the
pursuit, was wounded mortally, and shriven on the field.
[Sidenote: October 3. Meeting at Horncastle.]
So matters went at Louth and Castre. On Tuesday, October 3d, the country
rose at Horncastle, in the same manner, only on an even larger scale. On
a heath in that neighbourhood there was "a great muster"; the gentlemen
of the county came in, in large numbers, with "Mr. Dymmock," the
sheriff, at their head. Dr. Mackarel, the Abbot of Barlings, was
present, with his canons, in full armour; from the abbey came a
waggon-load of victuals; oxen and sheep were driven in from the
neighbourhood and a retainer of the house carried a banner, on which was
worked a plough, a chalice and a host, a horn, and the five wounds of
Christ.[103] The sheriff, with his brother, rode up and down the heath,
giving money among the crowd; and the insurrection now gaining point,
another gentleman "wrote on the field, upon his saddlebow," a series of
articles, which were to form the ground of the rising.
[Sidenote: Articles of the rebels' petition.]
Six demands should be made upon the crown: 1. The religious houses
should be restored. 2. The subsidy should be remitted. 3. The clergy
should pay no more tenths and first-fruits to the crown. 4. The Statute
of Uses should be repealed. 5. The villein blood should be removed from
the privy council. 6. The heretic bishops, Cranmer and Latimer, Hilsey
Bishop of Rochester, Brown Archbishop of Dublin, and their own Bishop
Longlands the persecuting Erastian, should be deprived and punished.
[Sidenote: Messengers are despatched to the king.]
The deviser and the sheriff sate on their horses side by side, and read
these articles, one by one, aloud, to the people. "Do they please you or
not?" they said, when they had done. "Yea, yea, yea!" the people
shouted, waving their staves above their heads; and messengers were
chosen instantly and despatched upon the spot, to carry to Windsor to
the king the demands of the people of Lincolnshire. Nothing was
required more but that the rebellion should be cemented by a common
crime; and this, too, was speedily accomplished.
[Sidenote: The Chancellor of the Bishop of Lincoln is murdered.]
The rebellion in Ireland had been inaugurated with the murder of
Archbishop Allen; the insurgents of Lincolnshire found a lower victim,
but they sacrificed him with the same savageness. The chancellor of
Lincoln had been the instrument through whom Cromwell had communicated
with the diocese, and was a special object of hatred. It does not appear
how he fell into the people's hands. We find only that "he was very
sick," and in this condition he was brought up on horseback into the
field at Horncastle. As he appeared he was received by "the parsons and
vicars" with a loud long yell--"Kill him! kill him!" "Whereupon two of
the rebels, by procurement of the said parsons and vicars, pulled him
violently off his horse, and, as he knelt upon his knees, with their
staves they slew him," the parsons crying continually, "Kill him! kill
him!'"
As the body lay on the ground it was stripped bare, and the garments
were parted among the murderers. The sheriff distributed the money that
was in the chancellor's purse. "And every parson and every vicar in the
field counselled their parishioners, with many comfortable words, to
proceed in their journey, saying unto them that they should lack neither
gold nor silver."[104] These, we presume, were Pole's seven thousand
children of light who had not bowed the knee to Baal--the noble army of
saints who were to flock to Charles's banners.[105]
The same Tuesday there was a rising at Lincoln. Bishop Longlands' palace
was attacked and plundered, and the town occupied by armed bodies of
insurgents. By the middle of the week the whole country was in
movement--beacons blazing, alarm-bells ringing; and, pending the reply
of the king, Lincoln became the focus to which the separate bodies from
Castre, Horncastle, Louth, and all other towns and villages, flocked in
for head quarters.
[Sidenote: The duty and the conduct of Lord Hussey of Sleford.]
The duty of repressing riots and disturbances in England lay with the
nobility in their several districts. In default of organized military or
police, the nobility _ex officio_ were the responsible guardians of the
peace. They held their estates subject to these obligations, and
neglect, unless it could be shown to be involuntary, was treason. The
nobleman who had to answer for the peace of Lincolnshire was Lord Hussey
of Sleford. Lord Hussey had spoken, as I have stated, in unambiguous
language, of the probability and desirableness of a struggle. When the
moment came, it seems as if he had desired the fruits of a Catholic
victory without the danger of fighting for it, or else had been
frightened and doubtful how to act. When the first news of the commotion
reached him, he wrote to the mayor of Lincoln, commanding him, in the
king's name, to take good care of the city; to buy up or secure the
arms; to levy men; and, if he found himself unable to hold his ground,
to let him know without delay.[106] His letter fell into the hands of
the insurgents; but Lord Hussey, though he must have known the fate of
it, or, at least, could not have been ignorant of the state of the
country, sate still at Sleford, waiting to see how events would turn.
Yeomen and gentlemen who had not joined in the rising hurried to him for
directions, promising to act in whatever way he would command; but he
would give no orders--he would remain passive--he would not be false to
his prince--he would not be against the defenders of the faith. The
volunteers who had offered their services for the crown he called "busy
knaves"--"he bade them go their own way as they would;" and still
uncertain, he sent messengers to the rebels to inquire their intentions.
But he would not join them; he would not resist them; at length, when
they threatened to end the difficulty by bringing him forcibly into
their camp, he escaped secretly out of the country; while Lady Hussey,
"who was supposed to know her husband's mind," sent provisions to a
detachment of the Lincoln army.[107] For such conduct the commander of a
division would be tried by a court-martial, with no uncertain sentence;
but the extent of Hussey's offence is best seen in contrast with the
behaviour of Lord Shrewsbury, whose courage and fidelity on this
occasion perhaps saved Henry's crown.
[Sidenote: Wednesday, Oct. 4. Lord Shrewsbury raises a force,]
[Sidenote: Friday, October 6. And entreats Lord Hussey to join him.]
[Sidenote: But without effect.]
[Sidenote: He takes a position at Nottingham.]
The messengers sent from Horncastle were Sir Marmaduke Constable and Sir
Edward Madyson. Heneage the commissioner was permitted to accompany
them, perhaps to save him from being murdered by the priests. They did
not spare the spur, and, riding through the night, they found the king
at Windsor the day following. Henry on the instant despatched a courier
to Lord Hussey, and another to Lord Shrewsbury, directing them to raise
all the men whom they could muster; sending at the same time private
letters to the gentlemen who were said to be with the insurgents, to
recall them, if possible, to their allegiance. Lord Shrewsbury had not
waited for instructions. Although his own county had not so far been
disturbed, he had called out his tenantry, and had gone forward to
Sherwood with every man that he could collect, on the instant that he
heard of the rising. Expecting the form that it might assume, he had
sent despatches on the very first day through Derbyshire, Stafford,
Shropshire, Worcester, Leicester, and Northampton, to have the powers of
the counties raised without a moment's delay.[108] Henry's letter found
him at Sherwood on the 6th of October. The king he knew had written also
to Lord Hussey; but, understanding the character of this nobleman better
than his master understood it, and with a foreboding of his possible
disloyalty, he sent on the messenger to Sleford with a further note from
himself, entreating him at such a moment not to be found wanting to his
duty. "My lord," he wrote, "for the old acquaintance between your
lordship and me, as unto him that I heartily love, I will write the
plainness of my mind. Ye have always been an honourable and true
gentleman, and, I doubt not, will now so prove yourself. I have no
commandment from the king but only to suppress the rebellion; and I
assure you, my lord, on my truth, that all the king's subjects of six
shires will be with me to-morrow at night, to the number of forty
thousand able persons; and I trust to have your lordship to keep us
company."[109] His exhortations were in vain; Lord Hussey made no
effort; he had not the manliness to join the rising--he had not the
loyalty to assist in repressing it. He stole away and left the country
to its fate. His conduct, unfortunately, was imitated largely in the
counties on which Lord Shrewsbury relied for reinforcements. Instead of
the thirty or forty thousand men whom he expected, the royalist leader
could scarcely collect three or four thousand. Ten times his number were
by this time at Lincoln, and increasing every day; and ominous news at
the same time reaching him of the state of Yorkshire, he found it
prudent to wait at Nottingham, overawing that immediate neighbourhood
till he could hear again from the king.
[Sidenote: Musters are raised in London.]
[Sidenote: Monday, October 9. Sir John Russell reaches Stamford.]
Meanwhile Madyson and Constable had been detained in London. The
immediate danger was lest the rebels should march on London before a
sufficient force could be brought into the field to check them. Sir
William Fitzwilliam, Sir John Russell, Cromwell's gallant nephew
Richard, Sir William Parr, Sir Francis Brian, every loyal friend of the
government who could be spared, scattered south and west of the
metropolis calling the people on their allegiance to the king's service.
The command-in-chief was given to the Duke of Suffolk. The stores in the
Tower, a battery of field artillery, bows, arrows, ammunition of all
kinds, were sent on in hot haste to Ampthill; and so little time had
been lost, that on Monday, the 9th of October, a week only from the
first outbreak at Louth, Sir John Russell with the advanced guard was at
Stamford, and a respectable force was following in his rear.
Alarming reports came in of the temper of the north-midland and eastern
counties. The disposition of the people between Lincoln and London was
said to be as bad as possible.[110] If there had been delay or trifling,
or if Shrewsbury had been less promptly loyal, in all likelihood the
whole of England north of the Ouse would have been in a flame.
[Sidenote: The Duke of Suffolk follows two days after.]
[Sidenote: Wednesday, October 11. The rebels begin to disperse from want
of provisions.]
From the south and the west, on the other hand, accounts were more
reassuring; Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Berkshire,
Buckinghamshire, all counties where the bishops had found heaviest work
in persecuting Protestants, had answered loyally to the royal summons.
Volunteers flocked in, man and horse, in larger numbers than were
required; on Tuesday, the 10th, Suffolk was able to close his muster
rolls, and needed only adequate equipment to be at the head of a body of
men as large as he could conveniently move. But he had no leisure to
wait for stores. Rumours were already flying that Russell had been
attacked, that he had fought and lost a battle and twenty thousand
men.[111] The security against a spread of the conflagration was to
trample it out upon the spot. Imperfectly furnished as he was, he
reached Stamford only two days after the first division of his troops.
He was obliged to pause for twenty-four hours to provide means for
crossing the rivers, and halt and refresh his men. The rebels on the
Monday had been reported to be from fifty to sixty thousand strong. A
lost battle would be the loss of the kingdom. It was necessary to take
all precautions. But Suffolk within a few hours of his arrival at
Stamford learnt that time was doing his work swiftly and surely. The
insurrection, so wide and so rapid, had been an explosion of loose
powder, not a judicious economy of it. The burst had been so
spontaneous, there was an absence of preparation so complete, that it
was embarrassed by its own magnitude. There was no forethought, no
efficient leader; sixty thousand men had drifted to Lincoln and had
halted there in noisy uncertainty till their way to London was
interrupted. They had no commissariat: each man had brought a few days'
provisions with him; and when these were gone, the multitude dissolved
with the same rapidity with which it had assembled. On the Wednesday at
noon, Richard Cromwell reported that the township of Boston, amounting
to twelve thousand men, were gone home. In the evening of the same day
five or six thousand others were said to have gone, and not more than
twenty thousand at the outside were thought to remain in the camp. The
young cavaliers in the royal army began to fear that there would be no
battle after all.[112]
[Sidenote: The king's answer to the rebels' petition.]
Suffolk could now act safely, and preparatory to his advance he sent
forward the king's answer to the articles of Horncastle.
"Concerning choosing of councillors," the king wrote, "I have never
read, heard, nor known that princes' councillors and prelates should be
appointed by rude and ignorant common people. How presumptuous, then,
are ye, the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute
and beastly of the whole realm, and of least experience, to take upon
you, contrary to God's law and man's law, to rule your prince whom ye
are bound to obey and serve, and for no worldly cause to withstand.
[Sidenote: The suppression of the abbeys was by act of parliament, and
in consequence of their notorious vice.]
"As to the suppression of religious houses and monasteries, we will that
ye and all our subjects should well know that this is granted us by all
the nobles, spiritual and temporal, of this our realm, and by all the
commons of the same by act of parliament, and not set forth by any
councillor or councillors upon their mere will and fantasy as ye falsely
would persuade our realm to believe: and where ye allege that the
service of God is much thereby diminished, the truth thereof is
contrary, for there be none houses suppressed where God was well served,
but where most vice, mischief, and abomination of living was used; and
that doth well appear by their own confessions subscribed with their own
hands, in the time of our visitation. And yet were suffered a great many
of them, more than we by the act needed, to stand; wherein if they
amend not their living we fear we have more to answer for than for the
suppression of all the rest."
Dismissing the Act of Uses as beyond their understanding, and coming to
the subsidy,--
[Sidenote: The subsidy is granted by parliament, and shall be paid.]
"Think ye," the king said, "that we be so faint-hearted that perforce ye
would compel us with your insurrection and such rebellious demeanour to
remit the same? Make ye sure by occasion of this your ingratitude,
unnaturalness, and unkindness to us now administered, ye give us cause
which hath always been as much dedicate to your wealth as ever was king,
not so much to set our study for the setting forward of the same, seeing
how unkindly and untruly ye deal now with us:
[Sidenote: Let the rebels surrender their leaders and disperse to their
homes.]
"Wherefore, sirs, remember your follies and traitorous demeanour, and
shame not your native country of England. We charge you eftsoons that ye
withdraw yourselves to your own houses every man, cause the provokers of
you to this mischief to be delivered to our lieutenant's hands or ours,
and you yourselves submit yourselves to such condign punishment as we
and our nobles shall think you worthy to suffer. For doubt ye not else
that we will not suffer this injury at your hands unrevenged; and we
pray unto Almighty God to give you grace to do your duties; and rather
obediently to consent amongst you to deliver into the hands of our
lieutenant a hundred persons, to be ordered according to their demerits,
than by your obstinacy and wilfulness to put yourselves, lives, wives,
children, lands, goods, and chattels, besides the indignation of God, in
the utter adventure of total destruction."[113]
[Sidenote: Thursday, October 12. Disputes between the gentlemen and the
commons.]
When the letter was brought in, the insurgent council were sitting in
the chapter-house of the cathedral. The cooler-headed among the
gentlemen, even those among them who on the whole sympathized in the
rising, had seen by this time that success was doubtful, and that if
obtained it would be attended with many inconveniences to themselves.
The enclosures would go down, the cattle farms would be confiscated. The
yeomen's tenures would be everywhere revised. The probability, however,
was that, without concert, without discipline, without a leader, they
would be destroyed in detail; their best plan would be to secure their
own safety. Their prudence nearly cost them their lives.
"We, the gentlemen," says one of them, when the letters came, thought
"to read them secretly among ourselves; but as we were reading them the
commons present cried that they would hear them read or else pull them
from us. And therefore I read the letters openly; and because there was
a little clause there which we feared would stir the commons, I did
leave that clause unread, which was perceived by a canon there, and he
said openly the letter was falsely read, by reason whereof I was like to
be slain."[114]
[Sidenote: The gentlemen are nearly murdered.]
The assembly broke into confusion. The alarm spread that the gentlemen
would betray the cause, as in fact they intended to do. The clergy and
the leaders of the commons clamoured to go forward and attack Suffolk,
and two hundred of the most violent went out into the cloister to
consult by themselves. After a brief conference they resolved that the
clergy had been right from the first: that the gentlemen were no true
friends of the cause, and they had better kill them. They went back
into the chapter-house, and, guarding the doors, prepared to execute
their intention, when some one cried that it was wiser to leave them
till the next day. They should go with them into action, and if they
flinched they would kill them then. There was a debate. The two hundred
went out again--again changed their minds and returned; but by this time
the intended victims had escaped by a private entrance into the house of
the murdered chancellor, and barricaded the door. It was now evening.
The cloisters were growing dark, and the mob finally retired to the
camp, swearing that they would return at daybreak.
[Sidenote: The yeomen and villagers join the gentlemen.]
The gentlemen then debated what they should do. Lincoln cathedral is a
natural fortress. The main body of the insurgents lay round the bottom
of the hill on which the cathedral stands; the gentlemen, with their
retinues, seem to have been lodged in the houses round the close, and to
have been left in undisputed possession of their quarters for the night.
Suffolk was known to be advancing. They determined, if possible, to cut
their way to him in the morning, or else to hold out in their present
position till they were relieved. Meanwhile the division in the council
had extended to the camp. Alarmed by the desertions, surprised by the
rapidity with which the king's troops had been collected, and with the
fatal distrust of one another which forms the best security of
governments from the danger of insurrection, the farmers and villagers
were disposed in large numbers to follow the example of their natural
leaders. The party of the squires were for peace: the party of the
clergy for a battle. The former in the darkness moved off in a body and
joined the party in the cathedral. There was now no longer danger. The
gentry were surrounded by dependents on whom they could rely; and though
still inferior in number, were better armed and disciplined than the
brawling crowd of fanatics in the camp. When day broke they descended
the hill, and told the people that for the present their enterprise must
be relinquished. The king had said that they were misinformed on the
character of his measures. It was, perhaps, true, and for the present
they must wait and see. If they were deceived they might make a fresh
insurrection.[115]
[Sidenote: Friday, October 13. The Duke of Suffolk enters Lincoln.]
They were heard in sullen silence, but they were obeyed. There was no
resistance; they made their way to the king's army, and soon after the
Duke of Suffolk, Sir John Russell, and Cromwell rode into Lincoln. The
streets, we are told, were crowded, but no cheer saluted them, no bonnet
was moved. The royalist commanders came in as conquerors after a
bloodless victory, but they read in the menacing faces which frowned
upon them that their work was still, perhaps, to be done.
[Sidenote: The ringleaders are surrendered, and the commotion ceases.]
For the present, however, the conflagration was extinguished. The
cathedral was turned into an arsenal, fortified and garrisoned;[116] and
the suspicion and jealousy which had been raised between the spiritualty
and the gentlemen soon doing its work, the latter offered their services
to Suffolk, and laboured to earn their pardon by their exertions for the
restoration of order. The towns one by one sent in their submission.
Louth made its peace by surrendering unconditionally fifteen of the
original leaders of the commotion. A hundred or more were taken
prisoners elsewhere, Abbot Mackarel and his canons being of the
number;[117] and Suffolk was informed that these, who were the worst
offenders, being reserved for future punishment, he might declare a free
pardon to all the rest "without doing unto them any hurt or damage in
their goods or persons."[118]
In less than a fortnight a rebellion of sixty thousand persons had
subsided as suddenly as it had risen. Contrived by the monks and parish
priests, it had been commenced without concert, it had been conducted
without practical skill. The clergy had communicated to their
instruments alike their fury and their incapacity.
But the insurrection in Lincolnshire was but the first shower which is
the herald of the storm.
On the night of the 12th of October there was present at an inn in
Lincoln, watching the issue of events, a gentleman of Yorkshire, whose
name, a few weeks later, was ringing through every English household in
accents of terror or admiration.
[Sidenote: September. A party of foxhunters at Yorkyswold.]
[Sidenote: The family of the Askes.]
Our story must go back to the beginning of the month. The law vacation
was drawing to its close, and younger brothers in county families who
then, as now, were members of the inns of court, were returning from
their holidays to London. The season had been of unusual beauty. The
summer had lingered into the autumn, and during the latter half of
September young Sir Ralph Ellerkar, of Ellerkar Hall in "Yorkyswold,"
had been entertaining a party of friends for cub-hunting. Among his
guests were his three cousins, John, Robert, and Christopher Aske. John,
the eldest, the owner of the old family property of
Aughton-on-the-Derwent, a quiet, unobtrusive gentleman, with two sons,
students at the Temple: Robert, of whom, till he now emerges into light,
we discover only that he was a barrister in good practice at
Westminster; and Christopher, the possessor of an estate in Marshland in
the West Riding. The Askes were highly connected, being cousins of the
Earl of Cumberland,[119] whose eldest son, Lord Clifford, had recently
married a daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, and niece therefore of the
king.[120]
[Sidenote: October 3. Robert Aske's going to London is stopped by the
rebels in Lincolnshire.]
[Sidenote: October 4. He takes the command.]
[Sidenote: Crosses back into Yorkshire,]
The hunting-party broke up on the 3d of October, and Robert, if his own
account of himself was true, left Ellerkar with no other intention than
of going direct to London to his business. His route lay across the
Humber at Welton, and when in the ferry he heard from the boatmen that
the commons were up in Lincolnshire. He wished to return, but the state
of the tide would not allow him; he then endeavoured to make his way by
by-roads and bridle-paths to the house of a brother-in-law at Sawcliffe;
but he was met somewhere near Appleby by a party of the rebels. They
demanded who he was, and on his replying, they offered him the popular
oath. It is hard to believe that he was altogether taken by surprise; a
man of so remarkable powers as he afterwards exhibited could not have
been wholly ignorant of the condition of the country, and if his loyalty
had been previously sound he would not have thrown himself into the
rising with such deliberate energy. The people by whom he was "taken,"
as he designated what had befallen him,[121] became his body-guard to
Sawcliffe. He must have been well known in the district. His brother's
property lay but a few miles distant, across the Trent, and as soon as
the news spread that he was among the rebels, his name was made a
rallying cry. The command of the district was assigned to him from the
Humber to Kirton, and for the next few days he remained endeavouring to
organize the movement into some kind of form; but he was doubtful of the
prospects of the rebellion, and doubtful of his own conduct. The commons
of the West Riding beginning to stir, he crossed into Marshland; he
passed the Ouse into Howdenshire, going from village to village, and
giving orders that no bells should be rung, no beacon should be lighted,
except on the receipt of a special message from himself.
[Sidenote: And again returns into Lincolnshire.]
[Sidenote: October 12. And is at Lincoln when Suffolk enters.]
Leaving his own county, he again hastened back to his command in
Lincolnshire; and by this time he heard of Suffolk's advance with the
king's answer to the petition. He rode post to Lincoln, and reached the
town to find the commons and the gentlemen on the verge of fighting
among themselves. He endeavoured to make his way into the cathedral
close, but finding himself suspected by the commons, and being told that
he would be murdered if he persevered, he remained in concealment till
Suffolk had made known the intentions of the government; then, perhaps
satisfied that the opportunity was past, perhaps believing that if not
made use of on the instant it might never recur, perhaps resigning
himself to be guided by events, he went back at full speed to Yorkshire.
And events had decided: whatever his intentions may have been, the
choice was no longer open to him.
[Sidenote: October 13. The beacons lighted in Yorkshire.]
As he rode down at midnight to the bank of the Humber, the clash of the
alarm-bells came pealing far over the water. From hill to hill, from
church-tower to church-tower, the warning lights were shooting. The
fishermen on the German Ocean watched them flickering in the darkness
from Spurnhead to Scarborough, from Scarborough to Berwick-upon-Tweed.
They streamed westward, over the long marshes across Spalding Moor; up
the Ouse and the Wharf, to the watershed where the rivers flow into the
Irish Sea. The mountains of Westmoreland sent on the message to Kendal,
to Cockermouth, to Penrith, to Carlisle; and for days and nights there
was one loud storm of bells and blaze of beacons from the Trent to the
Cheviot Hills.
[Sidenote: October 9. An address bearing Aske's signature invites the
commons of Yorkshire to rise.]
All Yorkshire was in movement. Strangely, too, as Aske assures us, he
found himself the object of an unsought distinction. His own name was
the watchword which every tongue was crying. In his absence an address
had gone out around the towns, had been hung on church-doors, and posted
on market crosses, which bore his signature, though, as he protested, it
was neither written by himself nor with his consent.[122] Ill composed,
but with a rugged eloquence, it called upon all good Englishmen to make
a stand for the Church of Christ, which wicked men were destroying, for
the commonwealth of the realm, and for their own livings, which were
stolen from them by impositions. For those who would join it should be
well; those who refused to join, or dared to resist, should be under
Christ's curse, and be held guilty of all the Christian blood which
should be shed.
Whoever wrote the letter, it did its work. One scene out of many will
illustrate the effect.
[Sidenote: Scene at Beverley.]
[Sidenote: October 8. Priests, women, and families.]
[Sidenote: William Stapleton made captain of Beverley.]
William Stapleton, a friend of Aske, and a brother barrister, also bound
to London for the term, was spending a few days at the Grey Friars at
Beverley, with his brother Christopher. The latter had been out of
health, and had gone thither for change of air with his wife. The young
lawyer was to have set out over the Humber on the 4th of October. At
three in the morning his servant woke him, with the news that the
Lincolnshire beacons were on fire, and the country was impassable.
Beverley itself was in the greatest excitement; the sick brother was
afraid to be left alone, and William Stapleton agreed for the present to
remain and take care of him. On Sunday morning they were startled by the
sound of the alarm-bell. A servant who was sent out to learn what had
happened, brought in word that an address had arrived from Robert Aske,
and that a proclamation was out, under the town seal, calling on every
man to repair to Westwood Green, under the walls of the Grey Friars, and
be sworn in to the commons.[123] Christopher Stapleton, a sensible man,
made somewhat timid by illness, ordered all doors to be locked and
bolted, and gave directions that no one of his household should stir.
His wife, a hater of Protestants, an admirer of Queen Catherine, of the
Pope, and the old religion, was burning with sympathy for the
insurgents. The family confessor appeared on the scene, a certain Father
Bonaventure, taking the lady's part, and they two together "went forth
out of the door among the crowd."--"God's blessing on ye," William
Stapleton heard his sister-in-law cry.--"Speed ye well," the priest
cried; "speed ye well in your godly purposes." The people rushed about
them. "Where are your husband and his brother?" they shouted to her. "In
the Freers," she answered. "Bring them out!" the cry rose. "Pull them
out by the head; or we will burn the Freers and them within it." Back
flew the lady in haste, and perhaps in scorn, to urge forward her
hesitating lord--he wailing, wringing his hands, wishing himself out of
the world; she exclaiming it was God's quarrel--let him rise and show
himself a man. The dispute lingered; the crowd grew impatient; the doors
were dashed in; they rushed into the hall, and thrust the oath down the
throat of the reluctant gentleman, and as they surged back they swept
the brother out with them upon the green. Five hundred voices were
crying, "Captains! captains!" and presently a shout rose above the rest,
"Master William Stapleton shall be our captain!" And so it was to be:
the priest Bonaventure had willed it so; and Stapleton, seeing worse
would follow if he refused, consented.
It was like a contagion of madness--instantly he was wild like the rest.
"Forward!" was the cry--whither, who knew or cared? only "Forward!" and
as the multitude rocked to and fro, a splashed rider spurred through the
streets, "like a man distraught,"[124] eyes staring, hair streaming,
shouting, as he passed, that they should rise and follow, and flashing
away like a meteor.
So went Sunday at Beverley, the 8th of October, 1536; and within a few
days the substance of the same scene repeated itself in all the towns of
all the northern counties, the accidents only varying. The same spirit
was abroad as in Lincolnshire; but here were strong heads and strong
wills, which could turn the wild humour to a purpose,--men who had
foreseen the catastrophe, and were prepared to use it.
[Sidenote: Lord Darcy of Templehurst a known opponent of the
Reformation.]
Lord Darcy of Templehurst was among the most distinguished of the
conservative nobility. He was an old man. He had won his spurs under
Henry VII. He had fought against the Moors by the side of Ferdinand, and
he had earned laurels in the wars in France against Louis XII. Strong in
his military reputation, in his rank, and in his age, he had spoken in
parliament against the separation from the see of Rome; and though sworn
like the rest of the peers to obey the law, he had openly avowed the
reluctance of his assent--he had secretly maintained a correspondence
with the Imperial court.
[Sidenote: The king's letter to Lord Darcy.]
The king, who respected a frank opposition, and had no suspicion of
anything beyond what was open, continued his confidence in a man whom he
regarded as a tried friend; and Darcy, from his credit with the crown,
his rank and his position, was at this moment the feudal sovereign of
the East Riding. To him Henry wrote on the first news of the commotion
in Lincolnshire, when he wrote to Lord Hussey and Lord Shrewsbury, but,
entering into fuller detail, warning him of the falsehoods which had
been circulated to excite the people, and condescending to inform him
"that he had never thought to take one pennyworth of the parish
churches' goods from them." He desired Lord Darcy to let the truth be
known, meantime he assured him that there was no cause for alarm, "one
true man was worth twenty thieves and traitors," and all true men he
doubted not would do their duty in suppressing the insurrection.[125]
This letter was written on the same 8th of October on which the scenes
which I have described took place at Beverley. Five days later the king
had found reason to change his opinion of Lord Darcy.
[Sidenote: Lord Darcy will not be in too great haste to check the
rebellion.]
[Sidenote: He will raise no musters,]
[Sidenote: And shuts himself up in Pomfret Castle without provisions.]
To him, as to Lord Hussey, the outbreak at this especial crisis appeared
inopportune. The Emperor had just suffered a heavy reverse in France,
and there was no prospect at that moment of assistance either from
Flanders or Spain.... A fair occasion had been lost in the preceding
winter--another had not yet arisen.... The conservative English were,
however, strong in themselves, and might be equal to the work if they
were not crushed prematurely; he resolved to secure them time by his own
inaction.... On the first symptoms of uneasiness he sent his son, Sir
Arthur Darcy, to Lord Shrewsbury, who was then at Nottingham. Young
Darcy, after reporting as to the state of the country, was to go on to
Windsor with a letter to the king. Sharing, however, in none of his
father's opinions, he caught fire in the stir of Shrewsbury's camp;--he
preferred to remain where he was, and, sending the letter by another
hand, he wrote to Templehurst for arms and men. Lord Darcy had no
intention that his banner should be seen in the field against the
insurgents. Unable to dispose of Sir Arthur as he had intended, he
replied that he had changed his mind; he must return to him at his best
speed; for the present, he said, he had himself raised no men, nor did
he intend to raise any: he had put out a proclamation with which he
trusted the people might be quieted.[126] The manœuvre answered well.
Lord Shrewsbury was held in check by insurrections on either side of
him, and could move neither on Yorkshire nor Lincolnshire. The rebels
were buying up every bow, pike, and arrow in the country; and Lord Darcy
now shut himself up with no more than twelve of his followers in Pomfret
Castle, without arms, without fuel, without provisions. and taking no
effectual steps to secure either the one or the other. In defence of his
conduct he stated afterwards that his convoys had been intercepted. An
experienced military commander who could have called a thousand men
under arms by a word, could have introduced a few waggon-loads of corn
and beer, had such been his wish. He was taking precautions (it is more
likely) to enable him to yield gracefully to necessity should necessity
arise. The conflagration now spread swiftly. Every one who was disposed
to be loyal looked to Darcy for orders. The Earl of Cumberland wrote to
him from Skipton Castle, Sir Brian Hastings the sheriff, Sir Richard
Tempest, and many others. They would raise their men, they said, and
either join him at Pomfret, or at whatever place he chose to direct.
But Darcy would do nothing, and would allow nothing to be done. He
replied that he had no commission and could give no instructions. The
king had twice written to him, but had sent no special directions, and
he would not act without them.[127]
[Sidenote: The organization of the rebellion.]
Lord Darcy played skilfully into the rebels' hands. The rebels made
admirable use of their opportunity. With method in their madness, the
townships everywhere organized themselves. Instead of marching in
unwieldy tumultuous bodies, they picked their "tallest and strongest"
men; they armed and equipped them; and, raising money by a rate from
house to house, they sent them out with a month's wages in their
pockets, and a promise of a continuance should their services be
prolonged. The day after his return from Lincoln, Aske found himself at
the head of an army of horse and foot, furnished admirably at all
points. They were grouped in companies by their parishes, and for
colours, the crosses of the churches were borne by the priests.
[Sidenote: Aske is chosen commander-in-chief.]
[Sidenote: Stapleton summons Hull.]
The first great rendezvous in Yorkshire was on Weighton common. Here
Stapleton came in with nine thousand men from Beverley and Holderness.
The two divisions encamped upon the heath, and Aske became acknowledged
as the commander of the entire force. Couriers brought in news from all
parts of the country. Sir Ralph Evers and Sir George Conyers were
reputed to have taken refuge in Scarborough. Sir Ralph Ellerkar the
elder, and Sir John Constable were holding Hull for the king. These
places must at once be seized. Stapleton rode down from Weighton to Hull
gate, and summoned the town. The mayor was for yielding at once; he had
no men, he said, no meat, no money, no horse or harness,--resistance was
impossible. Ellerkar and Constable, however, would not hear of
surrender. Constable replied that he would rather die with honesty than
live with shame; and Stapleton carrying back this answer to Aske, it was
agreed that the former should lay siege to Hull upon the spot, while the
main body of the army moved forward upon York.[128]
Skirting parties meantime scoured the country far and near. They
surrounded the castles and houses, and called on every lord, knight, and
gentleman to mount his horse, with his servants, and join them, or they
would leave neither corn-stack in their yards nor cattle in their sheds,
and would burn their roofs over their heads.
[Sidenote: The Percies join the insurgents.]
Aske himself was present everywhere, or some counterfeit who bore his
name. It seemed "there were six Richmonds in the field." The Earl of
Northumberland lay sick at Wressill Castle. From the day of Anne
Boleyn's trial he had sunk, and now was dying. His failing spirit was
disturbed by the news that Aske was at his gates, and that an armed host
were shouting "thousands for a Percy!" If the earl could not come, the
rebels said, then his brothers must come--Sir Thomas and Sir Ingram. And
then, with side-glances, we catch sight of Sir Ingram Percy swearing in
the commons, and stirring the country at Alnwick: "using such malicious
words as were abominable to hear; wishing that he might thrust his
sword into the Lord Cromwell's belly; wishing the Lord Cromwell were
hanged on high, and he standing by to see it." And again we see the old
Countess of Northumberland at her house at Semar, "sore weeping and
lamenting" over her children's disloyalty; Sir Thomas Percy listening,
half moved, to her entreaties; for a moment pausing uncertain, then
borne away by the contagion, and a few hours later flaunting, with gay
plumes and gorgeous armour, in the rebel host.[129]
[Sidenote: Aske marches on York.]
[Sidenote: York surrenders.]
[Sidenote: The monks and nuns who had been dispossessed invited to
return to their houses.]
On Sunday, October the 15th, the main army crossed the Derwent, moving
direct for York. On Monday they were before the gates. The citizens were
all in the interest of the rebellion; and the mayor was allowed only to
take precautions for the security of property and life. The engagements
which he exacted from Aske, and which were punctually observed, speak
well for the discipline of the insurgents. No pillage was to be
permitted, or injury of any kind. The prices which were to be paid for
victuals and horse-meat were published in the camp by proclamation. The
infantry, as composed of the most dangerous materials, were to remain in
the field. On these terms the gates were opened, and Aske, with the
horse, rode in and took possession.[130] His first act, on entering the
city, was to fix a proclamation on the doors of the cathedral, inviting
all monks and nuns dispossessed from their houses to report their names
and conditions, with a view to their immediate restoration. Work is done
rapidly by willing hands, in the midst of a willing people. In the week
which followed, by a common impulse, the king's tenants were
universally expelled. The vacant dormitories were again peopled; the
refectories were again filled with exulting faces. "Though it were never
so late when they returned, the friars sang matins the same night."[131]
[Sidenote: Lord Darcy sends to Aske to inquire the meaning of the
insurrection.]