These are obviously the words of a disaffected clergyman and no doubt are prone to exaggeration, but again one can see fear and violence associated with the king and his regime. It also illustrates that dissent and disaffection were not confined to the North of England.
Richard Morison produced a new treatise against treason in February 1539, An invective against the great and detestable vice, treason, wherein the secrete practises and traitorous workinges of theym that suffrid of late are disclosed. Made by Rycharde Morisyne,71 and Henry thanked his nephew, James V, for prohibiting slanderous rhymes against him by proclamation in Scotland.72 Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall of Durham delivered a pro-regime sermon the following month on Palm Sunday. Preaching in the presence of the king, Tunstall denounced the worldliness and ambition of the papacy and criticised the Bishop of Rome’s encouragement of war against England.73
It seems clear, as G.W. Bernard has stated, that Henry came to view himself as an Old Testament king, a Josiah, with responsibility before God to implement the laws of God. In this respect, he was aided and abetted by Thomas Cromwell in attempting to promote this perception to his subjects. In the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace, Cromwell insisted that pamphlets and sermons published by his scholarly clients, such as Morison and Starkey, should reiterate the message of due obedience to the king.74
Royal propaganda increased in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage and one famous and unashamedly biased account of the events in the North was written by the Tudor chronicler Edward Hall. This document is commonly referred to as Hall’s Chronicle, but its full title is The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and York, and was first published in 1542. Hall was a lawyer by profession and sat in Parliament on four occasions – 1529, 1539, 1542 and 1545. Hall’s account of the rising is relatively brief (compared to Morison) and is worth highlighting as it reveals a deep-seated enmity towards the Pilgrims, the North and Roman Catholic doctrine. As C.H. Williams has argued, Hall’s objective was to provide an account which was a deliberate, unqualified praise of the achievements of the Tudor dynasty.75
Hall’s description of events is a blatant piece of propaganda and reveals more about his deep-rooted prejudices than actual detailed, historical fact. His account will be examined below. He described the Lincolnshire Rising in quite scathing terms: ‘The inhabitants of the North parts being at that time very ignorant and rude, knowing not what true religion meant but altogether noseled in superstition and popery had risen as a result of rumours and prompting by priests.’76
Having dealt with the demise of the Lincolnshire Rising, he turned his attention to the Pilgrimage in Yorkshire. He began his narrative of the Pilgrimage with:
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.77
Hall’s description of the Pilgrims as ‘warlike’ is pejorative and actually at odds with the restraint with which the Pilgrim host conducted itself. He is broadly correct with his estimation of the amount of men involved – 40,000 – and the Duke of Norfolk did indeed describe the Pilgrims as the ‘flower of the north’.78 Hall then stated that the Pilgrims believed their action as being for ‘the maintenance and defence of the faith of Christ and the deliverance of Holy Church, sore decayed and oppressed’. In Hall’s eyes, the rebels had embarked upon ‘their seditious and traitorous voyage and called this a holy and blessed pilgrimage’.79 Revealingly, he treated the Pilgrims’ use of imagery with complete contempt. He described the Pilgrims’ banners as depicting Christ on the cross on one side and a chalice with ‘a painted cake’ on the other.80 The ‘painted cake’ – the Eucharist – is scathingly dismissed. That King Henry upheld his belief in the doctrine of Transubstantiation (that bread and wine is literally the body and blood of Christ) is conveniently ignored. Transubstantiation had been confirmed as an essential tenet of doctrine in the Church of England by the Act of Six Articles in 1539.81
The banners were, according to Hall, hypocritical and they ‘feigned sanctity’. The Pilgrims’ badges of the Five Wounds of Christ appear to have particularly irked Hall, thus ‘the rebellious garrison of Satan set forth and decked themselves with his false and counterfeited signs of holiness’. This, in Hall’s opinion, was done ‘only to delude and deceive the simple and ignorant people’.82 It has been noted how the king and others perceived the people of the North as rude – Hall was a little more gracious in his use of the word ‘ignorant’.
Hall then described how the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the Earl of Shrewsbury and others, ‘led a mighty royal army of great power and strength to set upon the rebels’.83 The contemporary sources do not lead one to believe that the army royal was either mighty or possessed of great strength and power. According to Hall, the nobles encountered the rebels and saw ‘how determined they were on battle’ and the noble captains then ‘worked with great prudence to pacify all without shedding blood’.84 Hall then drew upon previous descriptions of the northern men as being obstinate,85 ‘But the northern men were so stiff necked that they would in no way stoop, but stoutly stood and maintained their wicked enterprise’.86 The nobles then, ‘perceiving and seeing no other way to pacify these wretched rebels, agreed upon a battle’.87
Hall continued by painting a picture whereby the superior royal army would have routed the rebels but for divine intervention. The night before the battle:
… a little rain fell, nothing to speak of, but yet, as if by a great miracle of God, the water … suddenly rose to such a height, depth and breadth that … when the hour of battle should have come, it was impossible for one army to get at the other.
God had intervened, according to Hall, because of his ‘compassion on the great number of innocent persons who in the deadly slaughter would likely to have been murdered’ and the battle could not take place. This is not mentioned as being a significant event in any of the contemporary sources and one wonders if Hall was drawing upon some of the accounts of the battles during the Wars of the Roses for inspiration and embellishment.88 In Hall’s portrayal, the Pilgrims were belligerent, traitorous, superstitious, ignorant and obstinate. That their annihilation was prevented was only attributable to divine providence and the king’s promise of a pardon and assurance that the grievances they had would be ‘gently heard and their reasonable petitions granted’.89
Another valuable source for the Pilgrimage is Thomas Master’s Narrative, written between 1635 and 1638.90 Master (1603–43) was a fellow of New College, Oxford, and Richard Hoyle has arranged his documents into a narrative account of the rebellion. Most of the documents in Master’s collection are familiar from the State Papers, but as Hoyle has pointed out, five were previously unknown and are thus important in filling in some of the gaps in the understanding available to the Dodds some seventy years before Hoyle’s research.
One such illuminating document highlights a description of the military situation at Doncaster prior to the first meeting there.91 This account can be compared with Edward Hall’s description and perhaps drew upon it. It also refers to the weather as being instrumental in the outcome of proceedings at Doncaster. The account mentions a ‘Foorde not [more] than 2 foote deep’ that separated the rebels and the Duke of Norfolk’s forces. The ‘Enemyes’ forces were estimated at being at least 30,000 and contained all the lords from Doncaster to Scotland, apart from the earls of Westmorland and Cumberland and Lord Dacre. However, ‘God of his infinite goodness sent, that night, such a Raine that it was not possible without swimming to passe the water’.92 This account goes on to state that the country was in the hands of the rebels and they ‘have made it desolate’. There was pestilence in the Crown’s army and they were in need of ‘vittayles and Money’. Of the rebels, it was said
, ‘we cannot force them to a Battayle’, but they ‘have made us condescend to a Treaty with them’.93
Master’s account continues on 28 October and confirms that Sir Ralph Ellerker and Robert Bowes were sent with the Duke of Norfolk following the rebels’ dispersal. It makes the highly dubious claim that Ellerker and Bowes had ‘manfully’ defended Hull ‘against the Rebells, yet were forced to yield it to them, and ioyne with them’, but acknowledges the fact that Ellerker and Bowes presented the Pilgrims’ petition to the king.94 On 22 November, it was recorded that the ‘Rebells’ were at York to hold their council and hear the reports of Ellerker and Bowes from the king. By 26 November, the commons are described as being of great number ‘and so well provided and so stubbornely minded’. They were, in this account, of the mindset that ‘they will all dy, in case theyr Articles sent to the king be refused, and they will rather dy than deliver up Ask’. Norfolk’s council is described as thinking ‘it necessary for the present to grant a generall Pardon, and Parlement, and afterwards time may be to rectify all’. It is revealing that here again, the ‘rebels’ are portrayed as stubborn (see Hall’s term, ‘stiff-necked’) and it is quite obvious that the pardon and promise of a parliament was a delaying tactic to buy the Crown time. The time to ‘rectify’ this condescension would come.
By 30 November, this account tells us that ‘the Rebells increase in number and malice’, and that they ‘are so strong, and our forces so small, that, if this meeting take no effect, and warre follow, we are in ill case’.95 This is in marked contrast to Hall’s contention that a far superior royal army would have routed the commons but for divine intervention.
Master’s description of the Pontefract Articles on 4 December is highly illuminating – the Articles, he stated, were, ‘far from all reason’.96 Master also confirmed a letter written by Edward Lee to the king on 3 December, although he dates it as tenth of that month. This account records that the Archbishop of York noted the mindset of the ‘Rebells’ at the start of the rising and stated that they ‘took it ill that mention was made but of 3 sacraments, and no Purgatory. He told the king how he preached to them and shewed them how theyr Pilgrimage (with the sword in the hand) was not lawfull’.97
Master continued his account with a description of Bigod’s rebellion in January 1537. By 4 February, Master described how the ‘Duke of Norfolk’s coming into the North terrified the Comons and indeed he took punishment of many through hanging them up in chains in divers places’. However, he emphasised that ‘they were such as had attempted New Rebellion, since the king’s generall pardon granted’. Master then referred to the letter from Darcy to Cromwell of 18 March 1537, in which Darcy stated that ‘I have served above 50 years the king’s Majesty and his Father, and should not willingly in my ould age enter Rebellion’. Master, however, confirmed that Darcy was sent to London shortly afterwards and ‘imprisioned’. By July, it is confirmed that Robert Constable and Aske had been executed but no mention is made of Darcy’s fate. The king, meanwhile, had sent his ‘Pardon to the North: which was received with great joy for they were in a great feare’.98
The demise of the Pilgrimage of Grace was swift and the Henrician regime seized the opportunity that Bigod’s futile uprisings presented in order to deal harshly with those it believed had been instrumental in the initial rising. In the period during and after the rising, the Crown defended and justified its position through the medium of propaganda, preaching, punishment and the personal involvement of King Henry. The works of Richard Morison, the foremost propagandist of the time, and those of Edward Hall and Thomas Master, have been useful in illuminating the perceptions of those in agreement with the king’s stance and hostile to the Pilgrimage and all it represented. These ideas of loyalty and obedience to the prince were recurring features of the late 1530s in England, specifically with regard to religious changes. Obedience to God, the king, one’s lord or husband was expected and should not be questioned. Such obedience was reinforced by biblical evidence and created the deference which held the system together.99 These constructs were to influence thinking about religion, obedience and national identity far into the future.
Of course, propaganda in the form of treatises was not the only weapon the Crown had at its disposal. Henry and his council justified and defended both his religious innovations and response to the Pilgrimage using the other methods mentioned. The use of uniform and consistent preaching and sermons in tandem with written propaganda was meant to ensure that the king’s religious policies were disseminated and reinforced. This was carried out in conjunction with the promulgation of both the First (1536) and Second Henrician Injunctions (1538) and the setting forth of the Royal Supremacy. The theme and duty of obedience was of paramount importance and was reiterated at every opportunity.
Henry also justified his actions in writing: he responded with characteristic righteousness to the demands of the rebels and defended his position in correspondence with other monarchs and diplomats abroad. He based his position and justified his actions citing God, nature and, revealingly, Parliament. Henry also gave explicit instructions to his commanders in the field and issued circulars to the Justices of the Peace.
These tactics were allied with the use of punishment and retribution. Reports of sedition were followed up and individuals were apprehended. In addition to the retribution following the collapse of the Pilgrimage, suspected sedition was investigated by the Council of the North. The Crown sought to win the hearts and minds of its northern subjects by consistent persuasion, allied with fear and the use of force. To this end, it ostensibly achieved its goals – the result was that another uprising in the North was not attempted for more than thirty years.
Let us now turn to consider how the prevailing, ‘official’, domestic paradigm was contested and examine the instances of dissent and sympathy for the Pilgrims and the ideas they stood for.
Notes
1 Richard Morison, ‘A Lamentation in Which is Showed What Ruin and Destruction Cometh of Seditious Rebellion’ (1536), Humanist Scholarship and Public Order: Two Tracts against the Pilgrimage of Grace by Sir Richard Morison, David Sandler Berkowitz (ed.), London, Associated University Press, 1984, p.95.
2 BL, Cotton, Cleo, E/IV, f.138 (L&P, Vol. X: 92).
3 BL, Cotton, Cleo, E/V, f.301 (L&P, Vol. X: 172).
4 BL,Cotton, Cleo, E/IV, f.286 (L&P, Vol. X: 716).
5 Steven G. Ellis, ‘England in the Tudor State’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 26, No 1 (1983), p.203.
6 L&P, Vol. X: 725.
7 TNA, SP1/105, f.118 (L&P, Vol. XI: 156).
8 Harris, Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic, pp.30 & 36.
9 Thomas F. Mayer, Thomas Starkey and the Commonweal: Humanist Politics and Religion in the Reign of Henry VIII, Cambridge, 1989, pp.2 & 9.
10 BL, Cotton, Cleo, E/VI, f.379 (L&P, Vol. XI: 402).
11 TNA, SP1/106, f.51 (L&P, Vol. XI: 369).
12 L&P, Vol. XI: 656 (spelling modernised).
13 TNA, SP1/110, ff.100–14 (L&P, Vol. XI: 956).
14 L&P, Vol. XI: 888.
15 TNA, SP1/108, f.231 (L&P, Vol. XI: 826) (my italics).
16 TNA, SP1/109, ff.224–26 (L&P, Vol. XI: 894).
17 L&P, Vol. XI: 957 (spelling modernised).
18 TNA, SP1/111, f.144 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1110) (spelling modernised).
19 TNA, SP1/112, ff.71–87 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1227).
20 L&P, Vol. XI: 1236.
21 TNA, SP1/112, f.94 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1232).
22 L&P, Vol. XI: 1353.
23 Ibid., 1354.
24 Ibid., 1363.
25 Harris, Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic, p.3.
26 Block, ‘Thomas Cromwell’s Patronage of Preaching’, pp.37 & 41.
27 TNA, SP1/99, f.213. Quoted in Richard Rex, ‘The Crisis of Obedience: God’s Word and Henry’s Reformation’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 39, No 4 (December 1996), p.885.
28 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 125.
29 BL, Cotton, Cleo, E/VI, f.377 (L&P, Vol. XII.I:
105).
30 Block, ‘Thomas Cromwell’s Patronage of Preaching’, p.40.
31 Berkowitz, Humanist Scholarship and Public Order, p.21.
32 Ibid., pp.30–31.
33 Ibid., p.85.
34 Ibid., pp.86–88.
35 Harris, Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic, p.2.
36 Berkowitz, Humanist Scholarship and Public Order, pp.89–92.
37 Shagan, Catholics and the ‘Protestant Nation’, p.17.
38 Berkowitz, Humanist Scholarship and Public Order, p.93, 95 & 97.
39 R.W. Hoyle, ‘Petitioning as Popular Politics in Early Sixteenth-century England’, Historical Research, Vol. 75, No 190 (November 2002), p.367.
40 L&P, Vol. XI: 780 (2) (spelling modernised).
41 Berkowitz, Humanist Scholarship and Public Order, pp.98–99.
42 Ibid., p.100.
43 Ibid., pp.46–47.
44 Ibid., pp.116–17.
45 Ibid.
46 Fletcher & MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions, 5th edition, p.3.
47 Berkowitz, Humanist Scholarship and Public Order, p.119.
48 Ibid., p.117.
49 Ibid., pp.128–29.
50 This principle was accepted in the Holy Roman Empire as part of the Religious Peace of Augsburg in 1555. Essentially it meant that the prince dictated the religion of his subjects.
51 As Harris has observed, an external threat was frequently complicit in domestic conflict – see Harris, Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic, p.13.
52 Berkowitz, Humanist Scholarship and Public Order, p.130.
53 Ibid., p.131.
54 Ibid., pp.137–38.
55 Ibid., p.142.
56 Ibid., pp.144–46.
57 Ibid., p.131.
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