Insurrection
Page 14
This aim was clearly not achieved, as is demonstrated by the 1569 rising. The Crown’s continuing religious innovations in the reign of Edward VI and Elizabeth I and the intermediate false dawn of the Marian reaction only served to confuse people even more. At the time, religious belief was in a state of constant flux and Catholics, as well as Protestants, would have had grounds for optimism at different stages. It is, however, important to emphasise that divide-and-rule tactics were deployed effectively and the adept use of patronage created a gentry with a vested interest in a stable northern society – whatever they may have felt in their private consciences.
The relationship between the Crown and the Church had become explicitly enshrined in statute by virtue of the Royal Supremacy legislation. An individual’s faith came to be a symbol of loyalty and a prerequisite for advancement, power and patronage. The legislation of the Crown was expected to be adhered to and, on the surface at least, respected. The Crown’s powers of retribution were to be feared, and outward compliance became a matter of expediency, not only for the gentry but for the populace as a whole.
What may to us appear as apathy in the North for the remainder of Henry’s reign and into Edward VI’s was, in reality, practicality and self-preservation. Pragmatism was imperative if one were to survive unscathed, let alone prosper during this period. Notwithstanding, Catholic sympathies remained in the North, as illustrated by the Northern Rising. J.T. Cliffe has contended that more than half of Yorkshire gentry families were Catholic in 157096 but that most Catholics continued to attend Protestant services.97 It is, though, beyond the scope of this book to examine the details of the 1569 rising or to offer a study of the recusancy in the region thereafter.
In the next chapter, an analysis of how power and patronage were distributed in northern society and an examination of the careers, gains and religious leanings of the men who had been loyal to the Crown from the outbreak of the Pilgrimage, and the legacy this bequeathed to their heirs, will be undertaken.
Notes
1 TNA, SPI/120, f.200 (L&P, Vol. XII.I:1285) (spelling modernised).
2 G.R. Elton, Policy and Police.
3 Rex, Henry VIII and the English Reformation, p.181.
4 D.M. Loades, Politics and the Nation 1450–1660 – Obedience, Resistance and Public Order, 4th edition, London, 1992, pp.194–95.
5 Sharon Kettering, Patrons, Brokers and Clients in Seventeenth-century France, Oxford, 1986, p.9.
6 TNA, SP1/108, f.233 (L&P, Vol. XI: 827); SP1/111, f.139–41 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1105); SP1/111 f.177 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1120).
7 TNA, SP1/III, f.141–44 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1106).
8 TNA, SP1/116, f.2 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 401); SP1/116, f.4 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 402).
9 TNA, SP 1/116, f.13 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 410).
10 Sarah L. Bastow, The Catholic Gentry of Yorkshire, 1536–1642: Resistance and Accommodation, New York, 2007, pp.18, 22, 23 & 25.
11 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 905; TNA, SP1/122, f.155 (L&P, Vol. XII.II:187).
12 S.T. Bindoff, History of Parliament: 1509–1558, ‘Sir John Hussey’, London, 1982, p.424.
13 L&P, Vol. XII: 1087.
14 J. Pollen (ed.), ‘Unpublished Documents Relating to the English Martyrs, 1584–1603’, Catholic Record Society, Vol. 5 (1908), p.30.
15 Christine Newman, ‘Robert Bowes and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, North Eastern History, No 7 (1997), p.27.
16 Testamenta Eboracensia: A Selection of Wills from the Registry at York, Vol. V, pp.306–19; TNA, Prob/11/41.
17 TNA, SP1/120, ff.138 & 148 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1227, 1239).
18 William Flower and Charles Best Norcliffe, The Visitation of Yorkshire in the Years 1563 and 1564, London, 1881, pp.314 & 153.
19 TNA SP1/114, ff.160–62 and 164–66 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 134, 136); SP1/114, f.198 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 160); SP1/114, ff.212–19 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 174).
20 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 201; TNA, SP1/115, ff.57–61 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 228).
21 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 734; TNA, SP1/117, ff.127–32 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 731).
22 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1207 (spelling modernised).
23 TNA, SP1/120, f.118 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1218).
24 TNA, SP1/121, f.51 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 30); SP1/121, f.61 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 43); L&P, Vol. XII.II: 100; SP1/121, f.133 (L&P, Vol. XII.II:102).
25 BL, Cotton, Caligula, B/III, f.246; TNA, SP1/122, f.239 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 249, 250); SP1/123, f.102 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 345); SP1/125, f.176 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 914); L&P, Vol. XII.II: 918.
26 Reid, The King’s Council in the North, Part I–II, pp.147–49 and pp.153, 154,157 & 159.
27 TNA, SP1/127, f.51 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 1212).
28 TNA, SP1/130, f.22 (L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 487, 705).
29 L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 591, 597.
30 L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 1309 (21) (spelling modernised); L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 1309, nos (22), (2); L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 1509 (19); L&P, Vol. XIII.II: 734 (27); TNA, SP1/140, f.61 (L&P, Vol. XIII.II: 1010).
31 L&P, Vol. XIV.II: 239; L&P, Vol. XV: 831 (33). (Term twenty-one years: rent £18 14s 9d.)
32 J. Hodgson, A History of Northumberland (1820–58), Part 2, Vol 2, pp.171–248; L&P, Vol. XVI: 1274; L&P, Vol. XVII: 283 (13); L&P, Vol. XX.I: 465 (81).
33 TNA, SP1/127, f.127 (L&P, Vol. XXI.I: 694).
34 L&P, Vol. XXI.I: 1165; 1383 (16) (51) (91).
35 Chancery Court of York, Abp Reg 29, f.159.
36 TNA, C142/74/52.
37 L&P, Vol. XI: 921.
38 Newman, ‘Robert Bowes and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, p.23.
39 Ibid., pp.13, 16 & 17.
40 Ibid., p.19.
41 However, Norman Jones has shed more light on this situation. Jones maintains that when Knox proposed marriage to Marjory Bowes, her father resisted the idea. Marjory and her mother abandoned the rest of the family (who appear to have rejected the new doctrine) to follow Knox to Geneva. See Jones, ‘Living the Reformations: Generational Experience and Political Perception in Early Modern England’, Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 60, No 3, (1997), pp.273–88, p.277.
42 Newman, Robert Bowes and the Pilgrimage of Grace, p.24, p.11.
43 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 259.
44 TNA, SP1/117, ff.189–201 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 786).
45 BL, Cotton, Titus, B/I, f.447 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1106); L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1207; L&P, Vol. XII.II: 100; TNA, SP1/121, f.133 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 102).
46 TNA, SP1/123, f.102 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 345); SP1/124, f.115 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 589); SP1/125, f.176 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 914); L&P, Vol. XII.II: 1150 (11).
47 TNA, SP1/131, f.40 (L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 705); SP1/140, f.61 (L&P, Vol. XIII.II: 1010); SP1/144, f.145 (L&P, Vol. XIV.I: 566); Bindoff, ‘Sir Robert Bowes’, History of Parliament, p.472; L&P, Vol. XIX.I: 278 (45).
48 L&P, Vol. XX.I: 465 (53); BL, Add MS 32646.
49 TNA, SP1/202, f.183 (L&P, Vol. XX.I: 1042, 1085); L&P, Vol. XX.II: 1035; SP1/218, f.76 (L&P, Vol. XXI.I: 804); L&P, Vol. XXI.II: 771 (26).
50 Hodgson, A History of Northumberland (1820–58), Part 3, Vol. 2, pp.171–248; Steven G. Ellis, ‘Civilizing Northumberland: Representations of Englishness in the Tudor State’, Twenty Years of the Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 1, Essays on the British State, Oxford, 2008, p.208.
51 BL, Sloane, 2442, ff.138 & 140; Add MS 35844, f.213.
52 BL, Add MS 38136, f.27.
53 J.G. Nichols (ed.), The Chronicle of Queen Jane, and of Two Years of Queen Mary, Camden Society Old Series, No 48 (1850), p.100; Bindoff, History of Parliament, p.472; Newman, Robert Bowes and the Pilgrimage of Grace, p.6; James Raine, Wills and Inventories from the Archdeaconry of Richmond, Surtees Society, 1853, p.117; Christine M. Newman, ‘The Bowes of Streatlam, Co. Durham: A Study of the Politics and Religion of a Sixteenth-century Northern Gentry Family’, DPhil diss., University of York, 1991.
54 Raine, Wills and Inventories, p.117.
55 Raine, Wills and Inventories, p.145; TNA, C142/102/46 – this also included two manors in Yorkshire.
56 Newman, Robert Bowes and th
e Pilgrimage of Grace, p.28.
57 BL Add 32646, ‘Transactions Between England and Scotland, 1532–1590’.
58 Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace, pp.219 & 235; L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1014.
59 TNA, SP1/118, f.275 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1020).
60 Reid, The King’s Council in the North, part I–II, pp.103–104.
61 TNA, C142/59/11.
62 BL, Cotton, Titus, B/I, f.447 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1106).
63 TNA, SP1/121, f.175 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 152) (spelling modernised); SP1/123, f.102 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 345); R.B. Smith, Land and Politics in the England of Henry VIII: The West Riding of Yorkshire, 1530–46, Oxford, 1970, p.246; TNA, SP1/125, f.176 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 914, 1150 (16)).
64 TNA, SP1/115, ff.247–59 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 392).
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid.
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid.
69 Smith, Land and Politics, pp.172–73.
70 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 392.
71 Bindoff, ‘William Stapleton’, History of Parliament, p.375.
72 J. Clay (ed.), North Country Wills, Surtees Society, 1908, p.194.
73 Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace, p.237.
74 TNA, SP1/115, ff.2–4 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 192) (spelling modernised).
75 TNA, SP1/123, f.134 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 365); SP1/126, f.49 (L&P, Vol. XII.II: 1016).
76 J.T. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry: From the Reformation to the Civil War, London, 1969, p.385.
77 Ibid.
78 Reid, The King’s Council in the North, pp.104 & 138.
79 L&P, Vol. XI: 841.
80 Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace, pp.186, 308–09.
81 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 392.
82 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 901.
83 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 171.
84 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1207 (1).
85 L&P, Vol. XVIII.II: 107 (67); J.T. Cliffe, ‘Sir William Babthorpe (c. 1490–1555)’, ‘Babthorpe Family (per. c. 1501–1635)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, January 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/71868, accessed 13 March 2013].
86 TNA, SP. Dom. Elizabeth Addenda, SP 15/vii/58.
87 Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry.
88 L&P, Vol. XI: 729; L&P, Vol. XI: 928; L&P, Vol. XII.I: 6; L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1207 (3).
89 J.T. Cliffe, ‘Sir Christopher Danby (1503–1571)’, ‘Danby family (per. 1493–1667)’, ODNB, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2011 [www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/71867, accessed 13 March 2013].
90 Ibid.
91 Zeeveld, Foundations of Tudor Policy, pp.210–11.
92 L&P, Vol. XVIII.I: 226 (66).
93 Steven G. Ellis, ‘Henry VIII, Rebellion and the Rule of Law’ in The Historical Journal, Vol. 24, No 3 (September 1981), pp.513–31. See pp.515 & 529.
94 Newman, Robert Bowes and the Pilgrimage of Grace, p.27. See also Rosemary Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, Cambridge, 1989, pp.1 & 8; Gunn, Grummitt & Cools, War, State and Society in England and the Netherlands, p.191 and also Rose, ‘Kingship and Counsel’, p.132. The enforcement of laws and governance depended upon the co-operation of local elites.
95 Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, p.124.
96 Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry, p.169. Cliffe has conceded that the prevalence of outward conformity at this time makes it difficult to estimate the strength of the Catholic gentry ‘with any degree of precision’, but has attempted to do so using archiepiscopal visitation books, the Archbishop of York’s lists of recusants compiled in 1577 and the records of the Northern High Commission. He has stated that 368 out of 567 Yorkshire gentry families were Catholic at the time.
97 Ibid., p.171.
5
Loyalty and Patronage
In the previous chapters the retribution of the Crown against some rebels and the successful political rehabilitation of others were discussed. It is now important to turn our attention to a more extensive exploration of power and patronage in the latter part of Henry’s reign. The events of the Pilgrimage provide an opportunity to highlight and analyse issues of power, patronage and clientage – focusing, in this case, on the North of England. Who held power? Who were the patrons? And who were the clients? How were loyal clients rewarded in the period following the Pilgrimage of Grace?
The study of power and the associated themes of clientelism and patronage have occupied political scientists and sociologists for decades. However, writing in 1986, Sharon Kettering was of the view that historians have undertaken surprisingly little work on patronage.1 The exploration of power, patronage and clientelism is essential to aiding an understanding of how northern society recovered from the tumultuous events of 1536–37 and how good governance in the region was restored. In this chapter, numerous examples will be given of how a client’s loyalty during the period resulted in his reward.
At the outset, it is necessary to give a brief appraisal of the concepts and definitions of power, patronage and clientage. At its most basic, power is the control of the behaviour of others. It may rest upon the potential for physical force, the control of economic resources or the existence of social prestige. Power may manifest itself directly as coercion, or indirectly as manipulation or influence. Patronage is an indirect type of power: the patron manipulates his clients by granting or withdrawing benefits and favours. In this way, he rewards compliance and punishes disobedience. The patron can assist and protect his clients. He can provide them with offices and opportunities for career advancement. He has the power to distribute wealth and resources, in particular, political office. Clientage, conversely, is the service and loyalty the client owes a patron in return. The client acts as an obedient, reliable subordinate. He provides information and can secure places for other dependents. Clientage is the patron–client relationship characterised by the fact that it is unequal, personal and reciprocal.2 As Steve Gunn has recognised, nobles built up clienteles or affinities to serve their purposes in local government and court politics in England.3
Patronage was the lord’s contribution to the personal relationship between he and his man and, conversely, service was the man’s – the relationship was mutual. Service was also underpinned by the ingrained duty of obedience. It was also performed so as to result in some return, e.g. a grant (of fee, office or land). Horrox summarised the reciprocal relationship when discussing late fifteenth-century England: medieval kings had relied heavily on the co-operation of their subjects in implementing their wishes, especially with regard to regional governance. Geographical specialisation meant that men were ideally employed in areas where they possessed influence and knowledge. This strategy was deployed by Henry VIII in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage, particularly with regard to Ellerker and Bowes. That men of local standing served the Crown in this way was necessary for effective royal governance.
When discussing loyalty and examples of reward in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace, it is important to bear in mind the nature of patron–client relationships. These relationships were dyadic (two-person), personal, unequal and reciprocal. There is a superior, the patron, and an inferior, the client. Thus, they are unequal in rank. For this study, although the ultimate source of power and patronage was quite obviously the monarch, King Henry, the patron mainly under consideration is the Lord Privy Seal, Thomas Cromwell.
With regard to the evidence, we need to add the caveat that the operation of patronage is difficult to observe because patrons often veiled their activities. This is exacerbated by the distance of nearly 500 years and reliance upon written documentation. The three basic types of evidence that Kettering accepts as indicators of a patron–client relationship – letters, requests for patronage and expressions of gratitude – are all present with regard to Cromwell. It is fortunate that much of his correspondence survives. There are also the monthly lists of grants, which have been carefully scrutinised for evidence of reward.4
Cromwell’s role was of particular importance in the enforcement
of the king’s policies. It is not the place here for a discussion of Cromwell’s career and rise to power. Suffice it to say that he is an example of both patron and client. His own career prospered despite his ‘low-born’ and obscure background. On 2 July 1536, he replaced Anne Boleyn’s father, the Earl of Wiltshire, as Lord Privy Seal and six days later he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Cromwell of Wimbledon. He was made Earl of Essex on 18 April 1540, shortly before his fall.
What is important here is the consideration of him in his role as a patron and how adeptly he fulfilled it. Henry VIII, unlike his father, had little interest in the day-to-day bureaucracy the governance of a kingdom entailed and had a particular aversion to writing letters.5 The second Tudor monarch entrusted the minutiae of correspondence to ministers who were both able and shrewd. Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was the main influence upon the king until the ascendancy of Anne Boleyn. After Wolsey’s demise in 1530, Thomas Cromwell fulfilled the minister’s role. Thus, Henry’s inattention to detail gave more scope to these ministers to maximise their roles and power – and to dispense patronage.
Cromwell himself had been a client of Wolsey’s. Cromwell was to acquire a reputation for generously rewarding those who served him and thus he could exercise power because he had the potential to reward compliance and influence behaviour.6 D.M. Loades is also of the opinion that Cromwell’s success depended upon a network of local patronage.7 The blatant deference and requests contained in some of the correspondence cited here suggests that some were undoubtedly motivated to inform by the possibility of some sort of reward. What strikes the reader in the reports sent to Cromwell is the sycophantic nature adopted by the informants.
On the evidence to be presented here, it would be difficult to concur with Elton’s assessment that the vicegerent did not use spies. It is impossible to categorically state one way or the other, but one has to be at least open to the possibility. Examples of this occur in the middle of the Pilgrimage. Cromwell was informed by Sir William Pykering that he had been spying on the Dean of Lincoln and revealingly went on to beg ‘remembrance of his late suit’. Similarly, William Wood of Stamford, Lincolnshire, reported information regarding the missals in his church and revealed that he would be willing to provide further information ‘that it may please your honourable lordship’. He informed Cromwell that he lived at ‘great cost’ and was ‘but of small substance’. The king himself instructed the Earl of Derby to secretly search for sedition in a letter dated 27 November 1536.8