Insurrection
Page 25
13 L&P, Vol. XI: 1319.
14 Gunn, Grummitt & Cools, War, State and Society in England and the Netherlands, p.244.
15 BL, Cotton, Cleo, E/IV f.157 (L&P, Vol. X: 594).
16 TNA, SP1/112, ff.114–16 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1244).
17 TNA, SP1/112, f.116 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1245).
18 TNA, SP1/112, f.18 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1246).
19 TNA SP1/114, ff.201–3 (L&P, Vol. XII: 163).
20 TNA, SP1/118, f.277 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1021).
21 TNA, SP1/119, f.1 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1022).
22 TNA, SP1/117, ff.5–7 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 652); SP1/117, ff.42–65 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 687); SP1/117, ff.175–77 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 778).
23 TNA, SP1/115, f.244 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 384); SP1/116, f.30 (L&P, Vol. XII.I: 424) (spelling modernised).
24 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 976 (quotation).
25 TNA, SP1/130, ff.140–42 (L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 604).
26 Quoted in Elton, Policy and Police, pp.129–30, who discusses this event in more detail.
27 TNA, SP1/133, f.233 (L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 1282).
28 TNA, SP1/134, f.30 (L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 1346).
29 L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 1428.
30 L&P, Vol. XIII.II: 561.
31 Hoyle, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s, p.43.
32 L&P, Vol. X: 576.
33 TNA, SP1/107, f.83 (L&P, Vol. XI: 603).
34 L&P, Vol. XI: 1012, 1160; CSP Sp., 1536, p.124 (L&P, Vol. XI: 1204). David Starkey and Susan Doran, Henry VIII: Man and Monarch, London, 2009, p.165.
35 L&P, Vol. XI: 1250.
36 CSP Sp., 1536, p.306 (quotation).
37 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 463.
38 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 368 (quotation).
39 Ibid.
40 Elton, Reform and Reformation, pp.252 & 267. Elton attributed the Pilgrimage to a disappointed Aragonese court faction and maintained that the conspiracy did not go as planned. See also Introduction.
41 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 665.
42 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 779 (quotation).
43 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 1189.
44 Ibid., 696.
45 Ibid., 1242. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p.347.
46 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 988 (quotation, spelling modernised).
47 Ibid.
48 L&P, Vol. XII.II: 310 (quotation, spelling modernised).
49 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 696.
50 S.G. Ellis, ‘The Kildare Rebellion and the Early Henrician Reformation’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 19, No 4, 1976, pp. 815, 822 & 825.
51 TNA, SP1/128, ff.66–69 (L&P, Vol. XIII.I: 77).
52 L&P, Vol. XIV.I: 36.
53 L&P, Vol. XIII.II: 1087. See also, Arthur F. Marotti, Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy: Catholic and Anti-Catholic Discourses in Early Modern England, Notre Dame, 2005, p.16.
54 L&P, Vol. XII.I: 987.
55 L&P, Vol. XIV.I: 37.
56 CSP Sp., 1539, Vol. 1, Part 1, No 37 (L&P, Vol. XIV.I: 98) (quotation).
57 Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp.362–63. See also Wim Blockmans, Emperor Charles V: 1500–1558, London, 2002, pp.108–9. Blockmans argues that although Charles emphasised his position as protector of all Christendom, political interests forced him to override dynastic and religious scruples.
58 A.G. Dickens, ‘Robert Parkyn’s Narrative of the Reformation’ in The English Historical Review, Vol. 62, No 242 (1947), p.58.
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid., pp.64–65. My italics for emphasis.
61 Ibid., p.63.
62 Wooding, Henry VIII, pp.171 & 227.
63 Rose, ‘Kingship and Counsel in Early Modern England’, p.67.
64 Ronald Hutton, ‘The Local Impact of the Tudor Reformations’ in The Impact of the English Reformation: 1500–1640, Peter Marshall (ed.), London, 1997, p.143. Only 1/13 of 198 sets used for the years between 1535 and 1570 related to the third of England north of the Trent. The four northernmost counties have yielded only one set each.
65 Diana Newton, ‘The Impact of Reformation on North-East England: A Preliminary Survey’, Northern History, Vol. XLV (2008), p.38.
66 Sheils, The English Reformation, p.75; Rex, Henry VIII and the English Reformation, p.162.
67 Clay, Testamenta Eboracensia, pp.1–309.
68 Clay, Testamenta Eboracensia, p.152.
69 Ibid., p.166.
70 Ibid., p.183.
71 Ibid., p.185.
72 Ibid., pp.200–2.
73 Exchequer Court of York, Vol. 13, f.70; TNA C142/73/58.
74 Clay, Testamenta Eboracensia, p.152.
75 Ibid., p.66.
76 Clay, North Country Wills, pp.138–246.
77 Ibid., pp. 144, 162 &163.
78 Ibid., pp. 232 & 245.
79 James Raine (ed.), Wills and Inventories of the Northern Counties of England from the Registry at Durham, Vol. II, Surtees Society, 1835.
80 Ibid., p.112.
81 Ibid., p.115.
82 Ibid., p.118.
83 Ibid., p.171.
84 J.C. Hodgson (ed.), Wills and Inventories from the Registry of Durham, Part III, Surtees Society, 1906.
85 Ibid., pp.8, 12 & 16.
86 Rex, Henry VIII and the English Reformation, p.159.
87 Sheils, The English Reformation, p.77.
88 Andrew Clark, Lincoln Diocese Documents: 1450–1544, London, 1914, p.221.
89 Christopher J. Sansom, ‘The Wakefield Conspiracy of 1541 and Henry VIII’s Progress to the North Reconsidered’, Northern History, Vol. XLV (2008), pp.217 & 220.
90 Bastow, The Catholic Gentry, pp.31–32.
91 Diana Newton, ‘The Impact of Reformation on North-East England’ in Northern History, p.39.
92 Bastow, The Catholic Gentry of Yorkshire, 1536–1642, pp.34 & 40.
93 Clay, Testamenta Eboracensia. See Clifford, p.127. Lord Latimer also made a very traditional will – see Clay, Testamenta Eboracensia, p.159. Latimer, as previously mentioned, was at the Pilgrim’s Council at Pontefract between 2 and 4 December 1536 but appears to have extricated himself from any further intrigues.
94 John E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth, London, 1945, p.203.
Conclusion
In the summer of 1536, the changes that the Pilgrims sought were not out of the question: with Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn both dead and Protestantism a minority in England, there appeared to be an opportunity for a return to Rome. Instead the king, aided and abetted by Cromwell, continued down the road towards that which many perceived as heresy. The timing of the first risings in Lincolnshire, barely six weeks from the First Henrician Injunctions, was surely no coincidence. The insurrection was a reaction to a suddenly imposed Crown religious experiment. The Pilgrimage was indeed the most potentially dangerous of all the unsuccessful rebellions of the Tudor period.1 For a monarch whom Felicity Heal has labelled ostentatious in his piety2 – the ‘Defender of the Faith’ and one-time adversary of Luther – to go to such seemingly heretical lengths over the space of a few short years must have been regarded as shocking to his conservative subjects. The Pilgrims blamed one man, Thomas Cromwell.
In the introduction, the point was made about distinguishing between secular and religious motivations in the Pilgrimage and it is hoped that it has been demonstrated that the motivation was overwhelmingly religious. However, it should also be noted that the two do not have to be regarded as rigidly mutually exclusive. Church and Crown were closely interlinked and this relationship was now enshrined in statute. Ecclesiastics were also power holders and bishops, for instance, sat in the House of Lords. The Church possessed vast influence and wealth. Its religious teaching sanctioned secular authority and shaped mentalities. Instead of being an insular development, any change in religion ‘could not fail to be full of political consequence for a world in which its significance was so pervasive’.3
If Henry deluded himself that his religious policies were sincere and motivated by a desire for the good of the commonwealth, others disagreed. The spontaneous reaction of religious conservatives is evidence of this, b
ut it is also interesting to note the disillusion of genuine reformers in the period after the Henrician religious innovations. The Complaynt of Roderyck Mors by Henry Brinkelowe, written towards the end of Henry’s reign, is illuminating in this regard.4 Brinkelowe felt compelled to remind people how to ‘employ the goods and lands of the bishops, deans, canons and chantries, to God’s glory, to the common wealth and to the help of the poor’. He clearly felt his ‘Godly advisement’ was required when he saw so much bounty from the dissolutions fall into private and speculative hands. The wealth, he stated, should be used to provide houses for poor men, those unable to work due to ill health and the blind.5
In a similar fashion, Thomas Lever preached a sermon at St Paul’s on 2 February 1550. Speaking about the dissolutions, which had been necessary because the monasteries were idle, superstitious and indulged in vain ceremonies, he lamented what had been done with the abundance of goods resulting from the closures: ‘Howbeit covetous officers have so used this matter, that even those goods which did seem for the relief of the poor, the maintenance of learning, and to comfortable necessary hospitality in the common wealth, be now turned to maintain worldly, wicked, covetous ambition.’6
The evidence supports a contention that the English ‘Reformation’ was, to use Christopher Haigh’s analytical matrix,7 a reformation from above but slow in the localities. This would be in contrast to those who advocate a rapid reformation from above, such as Geoffrey Elton. It is also a different perspective to the ‘reformation from below’ school, including Geoffrey Dickens and Claire Cross. For Dickens, the Reformation was one of conversion as opposed to coercion – the evidence presented here does not support such a view. The research presented here concurs with Haigh’s assessment that the early Reformation was ineffective in the northern counties.8 The Pilgrimage of Grace indicates that the English Reformation, far from being inevitable, was indeed a disturbing and long drawn-out process. The insurrection provoked a conservative reaction, and a genuine and sincere attempt to introduce Protestant theology and doctrine did not occur until the reign of Edward VI.
It is worth referring to the fact that small-scale resistance occurred early in the reign of Edward VI, indicative of latent Catholic sympathies in the North. In 1548, in Seamer, Yorkshire, some 3,000 people attacked the commissioners for the dissolution of the chantries with violence. Matthew White and four others were murdered. However, this was a rare example of resistance and the leaders of the mob were executed. Thus, resistance was futile. There was clearly no appetite for large-scale protests a decade or so after the Pilgrimage. Outward conformity appeared to be the order of the day, given all the changes and tumultuous events which had gone before.9 As Norman Jones has observed, there was ‘scarcely a peep heard in complaint’ during the second round of monastic dissolutions in 1540, as many knew of the profits to be made. Jones went on to argue that even ‘men who might have led resistance to the changes of the late 1530s, had been either cowed or convinced’. Self-interest ‘more effectively converted the propertied classes than evangelization’;10 such men included Norfolk, Shrewsbury, Latimer, Babthorpe and Danby.
Sixteenth-century England was a society of orders and the ruling landed elite normally viewed the commons as beneath contempt. Yet, on this occasion, some of the nobility, the gentry and the commons combined for a common purpose. Their mission was to save the Holy Church and preserve the religion of their forebears. Unlike the gentry and the nobility, however, the commons had no political voice and their only avenue to making the king aware of their grievances was generally by riot. Deference in society was ingrained; the commons expected the gentry to lead. This is exactly what happened during the Pilgrimage, irrespective of tales of coercion and life-threatening potential violence. Some of the gentry were involved precisely because they wanted to be involved. As Ralph Sadler perceptively alleged, the gentlemen ‘winked’ at the rising.11 They were not immune to the same concerns and anxieties in matters of religion or the succession.
Yet, this is not to concede that the contention that there was a conspiracy holds any weight. The Pilgrimage was a mass, popular and spontaneous rising. There is nothing in the evidence to support a theory of preplanning and preparation. If the Pilgrimage had been conceived and planned by a defeated faction, or indeed anyone else, one would expect to find evidence of a more co-ordinated approach. One would also, perhaps, find evidence of preplanning and, indeed, requests for foreign assistance and/or intervention. As has been shown, despite the best efforts of Reginald Pole, support from the papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor were, at best, lukewarm and hardly conducive to achieving the objective of reconciling England with Rome or deposing Henry. The prayers and ‘support’ of other Catholic princes and the pope were woefully inadequate and when Pole did eventually set off for England, the momentum and the Pilgrimage were over. It was, quite simply, far too little, too late.
The hypothesis that the Pilgrimage of Grace was a result of a religious reaction against the Henrician religious experiment has been borne out by the evidence. The Pilgrimage was undoubtedly overwhelmingly about religious grievances. Although the Pilgrims could be, and may very well have perceived themselves as, armed crusaders, no actual physical violence occurred. However, Zagorin has made an interesting point in relation to the use of ‘symbolic violence’. This, he argued, incorporated speech, gesture and writing deployed to transgress and reverse prevailing social norms: the objective being to destroy the sanctity or prestige of ruling people or institutions.12 Such symbolic violence was undoubtedly a feature of the Pilgrimage of Grace, if one accepts Zagorin’s analysis.
The Pilgrims’ gestures were at the same time sacred (i.e. the Badge of the Five Wounds and St Cuthbert’s banner) and profane (for instance, their appearance in military harness). This is important in that it highlights the fact that symbols and rituals were under threat as a result of the Henrician experiment. The Pilgrims deployed symbols because they wished to retain aspects which were ingrained and sacred in their religious experience and were manifestations of piety. Although the Pilgrims were careful not to destroy the sanctity or prestige of the king, they attacked his chief minister. The perception of Cromwell as a heretical, malign influence was not exclusive to the North. A ballad, in circulation at Reading, Berkshire, rejoiced in Cromwell’s fall when it came: ‘Thou dyd not remember, false heretyke, One God, one faith, and once Kynge Catholyke, For thous hast bene so long a sysmatyke’.13
The events of the early months of 1537 were discussed, as it was important to try to ascertain the reasons for the resumption of revolts. No discussion of the Pilgrimage as a protest would be complete without analysing these events. This exploration was also necessary to identify and highlight the behaviour of certain individuals who featured in the subsequent discussions of rehabilitation and reward. It was argued that the king never intended to fulfil any of the undertakings given by the Duke of Norfolk. Henry, as has been seen, was severely affronted by the ‘rude’ and ignorant people having questioned his policies and choice of advisors. The Crown’s duplicity is amply illustrated by Norfolk’s self-proclaimed use of a ‘defective’ commission. The sources suggest that a vengeful monarch was simply biding his time until his opportunity for retribution arose. Bigod’s futile uprising presented this and the executions of 178 people ensued, most notably, Lord Darcy, Lord Hussey and Robert Aske.
The fate of the rebels posed an interesting question. How did some individuals manage successfully to rehabilitate themselves and prosper, whilst others perished? Some nobles managed to extricate themselves, for instance, Lords Latimer and Scrope. Latimer recalled, however sincerely, that his being among the Pilgrims was a painful experience.14 This appears to be a disingenuous statement from an elderly and conservative nobleman who had been in attendance at the York council. However, the need for suitable candidates for the efficient government of the North overrode the king’s appetite for revenge. There was indeed a dearth of suitably qualified gentry in this peripheral region.
Sir Robert Bowes’ career demonstrates that the Pilgrimage and its aftermath provided many of the gentry with the opportunity to rehabilitate themselves by pursuing a career in government service in the region. It was a mutually beneficial situation. Both the Crown and some of the northern gentry benefited from the repercussions of the Pilgrimage. This situation was also a propaganda coup for the Crown. Demonstrably penitent Pilgrims had realised the error of their ways and became loyal servants of the regime. Patronage and the opportunity for social advancement were pivotal in this transformation. The chief patron was Thomas Cromwell, until his fall in 1540. Perhaps Cromwell’s character is best summarised by Sir Thomas Elyot in his letter to the king when he described the Lord Privy Seal as the ‘chief patron of virtue and cunning’.15
The Crown was provided with an opportunity for a realignment of power structures in the North and exerted its authority in the region anew. This it did through the diligent service of both ‘rehabilitated’ and consistently loyal gentry. Indeed, the study of reward and grants has indicated that the gentry were by far the most spectacular beneficiaries of lucrative grants and offices. The traditional northern nobles appeared to have been side-lined. Perhaps this was a contributory factor in the 1569 rising. The potential latent resentment of the nobility and their long-suppressed religious misgivings gave vent to open rebellion – a rising that was led by the nobles themselves.
So what exactly can be deduced from this study about the link between loyalty to the Crown during the Pilgrimage and its aftermath and reward? It is obvious that deference to a lord could secure work, land, credit, gifts, charity and patronage.16 The ultimate Lord was, of course, the king, so the prospect of patronage through loyalty would have been very enticing, especially given the new-found wealth with the dissolution of the monasteries. The men who were within the scope of the Crown’s patronage were generally quick to realise the implications and capitalise on their loyalty. Individuals such as Ellerker, Bowes, Arthur Darcy and, indeed, John Dudley prospered in the aftermath. Fletcher and MacCulloch have also pointed out that it was necessary to preserve the idea of a static social structure. Those who were successful in the competition for social advancement made ‘frenzied efforts to conceal their movement in society by inventing pedigrees or taking arms’.17