L'INQUISITIONE — 异端裁判所

http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Documents/PilgrimageofGrace.htm

"....the King was truly informed that there was a new insurrection made by the northern men, who had assembled themselves into a huge and great army of warlike men, well appointed with captains, horse, armour and artillery, to the number of 40,000 men, who had encamped themselves in Yorkshire.  And these men had bound themselves to each other by their oath to be faithful and obedient to their captain.

The also declared, by their proclamation solemnly made, that their insurrection should extend no further than to the maintenance and defence of the faith of Christ and the deliverance of holy church, sore decayed and oppressed, and to the furtherance also of private and public matters in the realm concerning the wealth of all the king's poor subjects. They called this, their seditious and traitorous voyage, a holy and blessed pilgrimage; they also had certain banners in the field whereon was painted Christ hanging on the cross on one side, and a chalice with a painted cake in it on the other side, with various other banners of similar hypocrisy and feigned sanctity.  The soldiers also had a certain cognizance or badge embroidered or set upon the sleeves of their coats which was a representation of the five wounds of Christ, and in the midst thereof was written the name of Our Lord, and thus the rebellious garrison of Satan set forth and decked themselves with his false and counterfeited signs of holiness, only to delude and deceive the simple and ignorant people.

After the king's highness was informed of this newly arisen insurrection he, making no delay in so weighty a matter, caused with all speed the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the marquis of Exeter, the Earl of Shrewsbury and others, accompanied by his mighty and royal army which was of great power and strength, immediately to set upon the rebels.  But when these noble captains and counsellors approached the rebels and saw their number and how they were determined on battle, they worked with great prudence to pacify all without shedding blood.

But the northern men were so stiff-necked that they would in no way stoop, but stoutly stood and maintained their wicked enterprise.  Therefore the abovesaid nobles, perceiving and seeing no other was to pacify these wretched rebels, agreed upon a battle; ... but the night before the day appointed for the battle a little rain fell, nothing to speak of, but yet as if by a great miracle of God the water, which was a very small ford which the day before men might have gone over dry shod, suddenly rose to such a height depth and breadth that no man who lived there had ever seen before, so that on the day, even when the hour of battle should have some, it was impossible for one army to get at the other.

After this appointment made between both the armies, disappointed, as it is to be thought, only by God who extended his great mercy and had compassion on the great number of innocent persons who in that deadly slaughter would have been likely to have been murdered, could not take place.  Then... a consultation was held and a pardon obtained from the king's majesty for all the captains and chief movers of this insurrection, and they promised that such things as they found themselves aggrieved by, all would be gently heard and their reasonable petitions granted, and that their articles should be presented to the King, so that by his highness' authority and the wisdom of his council all things should be brought to good order and conclusion.  And with this order every man quietly departed, and those who before were bent as hot as fire on fighting, being presented by God, went now peaceably to their houses, and were as cold as water..."

Why was there the revolt anyway? Well it was the result of a series of events which when added together generated enough heat and lack of thought as to the possible consequence that it just seemed to feed off one half truth and rumour till it swept onward ever onward until finally running out of purpose and real leadership that it fizzled out like a damp squib. The only trouble was that the sparks created a real conflagration. Particularly the executions which followed.

The churches in the main Lincolnshire towns were extremely rich and possessed some very valuable treasures which were thought to be under threat of confiscation. As well as cutting down of feast days and other traditional holidays there were increasing taxes, foreign wars, unpopular ministers, the split from Rome and the divorce from Catalina de Aragon were all part of the general unrest which caused the march from Horncastle, Louth, Caistor and other Lincs towns to get things sorted out at Lincoln. It also prominently raised the question of Princess Mary's status; in the north Mary was still looked on as the king's legitimate daughter, who, on her mother side, came of the gratest blood in the Christendom and whom the Roman Church had never proclamed to be baseborn.

Three government commissions were at work in Lincolnshire at Michaelmas in 1536. That for dissolving the smaller monasteries had been in the county since Jun, a second commission was assessing and collecting the subsidy and a third was appointed to enquire into the fitness and education of the clergy. They worked in an atmosphere of rumour and alarm. It was asid that jewels and plate were to be confiscated from parish churches, that all gold was to be taken to the mint to be tested, and that taxes were to be levied on all horned cattle, and on christenings, marriages and burials. There were even wilder rumours: "that there shall be no church within five miles, and that all the rest shall be put down", that people would not be allowed to eat white bread, goose or capon without paying a tribute to the King. It was said that every man would have to give an account of his property and income and a false return would lead to forfeiture of all his goods. There is evidence that these rumours had spread to many parts of the eastern and midland counties by the autumn of 1536. But they were strongest in Lincolnshire. The rising there, based on the three towns of Louth, Caistor and Horncastle, was an outburst by people who, as Wriothesley told Cromwell, "think they shall be undone for ever".

The Lincolnshire Uprising

On the cool evening of Saturday 30th Sep, in the little village of Louth in Lincolnshire, the spark which was to end in the tragic Pilgrimage of grace was kindled. Some local people, proud of the magnificent spire of their church completed only twenty years before, feeling threatened by the imminent arrival of the commissioners, collected the keys of the church and handed them to a shoemaker, Nicholas Melton to keep safe. He thus became "Captain Cobbler" the leader of a rebellion against the King. The people gathered in the twilight on the village green and, with the great silver cross af the parish before them, marched through the streets in protest at the coming of John Heneage, one of Cromwell's examiners, to "visit" the local Church. They established a guard over the property, and when Heneage appeared the next morning, the people swarmed into the streets, protesting the injustice of the visit with louth voices and weapons. When Heneage attempted to read Cromwell's commission in the marketplace, a "hideous clamour" broke out. The people bore down the hapless man, tearing the book from his hand and threatening him with a sword at his breast; his companions were put into the stocks.

In that part of England the Duke of Richmond, natural son of the Henry VIII, had the most influence, and a great number of contacts and relatives including his mother,  Elizabeth Blount, the widow of Lord Talboys and now the wife of Edward, Lord Clinton.

By Monday 2 Oct, men from Horncastle and East Rasen arrived in Louth. By then a large crowd, they marched to Caistor where the King's Commissioners were at present taking inventories of church property. Here they were joined by Sir Robert Dymoke and his sons and friends who "just happened to be staying with them at that time". From Goltho, home of Richmond's step-grandmother, Lady Talboys' chaplain arrived with a large group of armed men. More than 500 armed retainers from South Kyme joined the rebels, under the leadership of Sir Thomas Percy, a relative of the Talboys family, (who "just happened to be there for the hunting") and a similar number headed by Edward Dymoke.

The same Monday, 2nd Oct, Lord Clinton left home on horseback, with just one servant. He headed first for Sleaford, and Lord Hussey. Hussey had been Princess Mary's Chamberlain, and his wife had been imprisoned for continuing to refer to her as "Princess Mary" not "Lady Mary". Hussey had been assured of the support of the Emperor (Mary's cousin) and seemed a natural leader of the rebellion against the King. But he was not their leader. Clinton galloped on to Nottingham, then on to Lord Huntington at Ashby. By Friday, he reached the Earl of Shrewsbury at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. He carried letters from Cromwell. Meanwhile the rebels were joined by other groups of armed men, alerted by beacons, and had spread across the Humber to Yorkshire. The Member of Parliament for Lincoln, Thomas Moigne met Robert Aske, who led the rebellion in Yorkshire.

Sir John Russell and Sir William Parr both had been in the service of the Duke of Richmond, blocked the Great North Road at Stamford, with a large force of armed men, they were in the way of anyone coming up from London. The only substantial Lincolnshire landowner that the King could depend on was his friend and brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk. Suffolk arrived at Stamford with a large, equipped army. The rebellion lacked a positive leadership and cause, so dispersed.

Henry VIII's answer to the grievances that had been put to them was read out in the Chapter House of Lincoln Cathedral by Moigne. The King had never yet heard that a prince's counsellors and bishops should be appointed by ignorant common people, and least of all by the "rude commons of one of the most brute and beastly shires in the realm". The rebellion was put down with punishing retribution and many executions.

The rebellion failed because there was no one uniting leadership and cause. Had the Duke of Richmond still been alive, then he might have been there, at his palace of Collyweston, by Stamford, with an army at least as large as the 5,000 men the Duke of Suffolk brought with him. As the King's son and the heir to the throne, he would have provided an alternative to his now very unpopular father. But Richmond had died on 23 Jul 1536.

The King's strange reaction to his son's death may be because he had information that he was to lead an uprising against him. There is no direct evidence, but any such would have been destroyed as soon as Richmond died. His death might just have been a timely coincidence, or arranged. If the King had been told there were plans for an uprising to replace him with his son, then that might account for his reaction to his son's death, it might even account for his timely death.

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