The Pilgrimage of Grace in October 1536 was one of the most dangerous rebellions of Henry VIII’s reign, when over 40,000 men marched on Doncaster. What made this rebellion so dangerous was that the local gentry and JPs, men who should have crushed the first risings and maintained the peace, instead joined with the yeomen farmers and “middling sort” to protest against the recent policies of Henry’s reign.
By July 1536 Henry VIII’s domestic relations were more settled than they had been for the last ten years. His first wife Katherine of Aragon died on 7 January 1536 and Henry VIII could now be said, even by Catholics, to be legally married to his second wife Anne Boleyn. Henry was in fact so happy that he organised a tournament to celebrate his freedom for Katherine of Aragon. Ironically, during the tournament Henry fell from his horse, hit his head, and was unconscious for a couple of hours. News of this unhappy accident was conveyed to Anne Boleyn, who, fraught with worry, consequently suffered a miscarriage. This miscarriage, and Anne’s inability to conceive a male heir, led ultimately led to Anne’s trail for treason and execution on 19 May 1536. Within a few weeks, on 30 May, Henry VIII had married his third wife Jane Seymour. On 8 June Henry declared his two oldest daughters illegitimate and barred them from the throne in the full expectation that Jane Seymour would deliver him a male heir.
By the summer of 1536 Henry VIII was also confidently extending his sovereign power into the north of England, intent on raising more new taxes and enforcing changes to the dogma and doctrine of the Church of England. In June 1536 Henry VIII published Ten Articles of Faith for his new Church of England in which only three of the seven sacraments were seen as essential. Praying to saints to intercede on behalf of sinners, images of saints, purgatory and prayers for dead were not deemed necessary and pilgrimages were effectively banned. The belief in purgatory, and the need to do good deeds to lessen time in purgatory, had long been a cherished belief and was one of the key principles for the establishment of monasteries. Monks were the frontline troops of God. They prayed and chanted masses to enable the souls of all Christendom to escape the torments of hell. If the doctrine of purgatory was unnecessary in Henry’s new Church of England, then monasteries were redundant. Therefore Henry VIII and his ministers plotted the dissolution of the monasteries to enable Henry to get his hands on their lucrative estates and valuables. In March 1536 an Act to Suppress the Lesser Monasteries with incomes of less than £200 a year was passed by parliament as the first stage in this plan. By the summer of 1536 fifteen abbeys in Yorkshire had been dissolved including Coverham Abbey.
Although the rebels in October 1536 deliberately called themselves Pilgrims, in defiance of Henry VIII’s changes to the doctrine of the Church of England, it was not only religious change which led them to march against their king. Two years of bad harvests had brought hardship to Yorkshire, and yet in 1536 Henry VIII’s chief minister, Cromwell, introduced a new subsidy where all men earning under £20 a year were also to be taxed. In an environment of rising prices, landlords were also under economic pressure and they therefore raised rents, turned fields into pasturage and enclosed common land to increase their incomes. In Richmondshire and Nidderdale lands held on military tenures also faced increases in gressums, or entry fines as the lords and gentry sought to increase their income.
In October 1536 these economic and religious tensions erupted into rebellion, at first in Lincolnshire and then in Yorkshire. Those that should have suppressed the first flames of rebellion, the local gentry and JPs had also been alienated by Henry VIII’s policies. The north was conservative in its religion and many still clung to Catholic dogma and doctrine, particularly disliking the new prohibitions against the use of rosaries and the fact that services were now in English rather than Latin. Some, like Thomas, Lord Darcy, had objected publicly to Henry VIII’s divorce from Katherine of Aragon. Others were alarmed at the way in which Henry VIII had effectively disinherited his two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary. If he could change royal inheritance laws in this way, how could the gentry protect their own estates? Moreover in April 1536 the Statute of Uses had been passed by parliament which many saw as detrimental to landed estates. This act effectively banned the practice of putting lands into the hands of feoffees, or trustees, who would dispose or treat the lands as the original owner stipulated. This practice had enabled landowners to provide estates for younger sons, but also more importantly, neither the landowner, nor the feoffees had paid taxes on the lands in trust. By closing a tax avoidance scheme Henry VIII had irritated and alienated those on whom he depended to enforce law and order in the localities.
On Sunday 1 October Thomas Kendale, vicar of Louth, preached a sermon in the parish church in which he told his parishioners that the next day they should have a visitation, so they should lock up their valuables. In fact by the end of September 1536 there were three sets of royal commissioners in Lincolnshire. The first was the commission for dissolving the smaller monasteries, the second to assess and collect the subsidy, and the third was a commission of inquiry into the condition of the clergy. On Monday, 2 October, rioting began and the masses rose. Church bells rang out the alarm and the sixty parish priests assembled at Louth for the visitation were compelled to take an oath to the commons and also to swear to ring common bells of their parishes and raise the people. Ten thousand rebels marched on Lincoln and the rebels presented their demands against taxation, the Statute of Uses, the dissolution of the monasteries and Cromwell to the King’s representatives. By the 13th October the rebels had dispersed and been pardoned, but the rebellion had caught the attention of Yorkshire.
On 11 October 1536, St Wilfred’s Day, the Archbishop of York’s proclamation that order should be maintained was read out at Ripon market. This incited three commoners of substance all from the lordship of Masham: Ninian Staveley, Thomas Lobley and Edward Middleton. They led 200-300 people to occupy Jervaulx Abbey and to restore the dissolved abbey at Coverham. The rebels occupied Middleham and sent messengers throughout Nidderdale and Richmondshire to rouse the people. The rebels also captured or threatened local lords to lead them. By the 18 October, twelve thousand men from Richmondshire, Kirkby Malzeard, Ripon and Nidderdale had risen. They were led by Christopher Danby, William Mallory, Ralph Bulmer, John and Richard Norton, Richard Bowes, Christopher Metcalfe, Thomas Markenfield, William Ingleby and Christopher Wandesford . Rather than march to York with the rebels from Durham and East Yorkshire, the Richmondshire host turned towards Skipton in search of Lord Scroope of Bolton Castle who was rumoured to have taken shelter there. The Nortons and their kin, the Mallorys, Wandesfords, Markenfields and Inglebys, also had old scores to settle with the Cliffords of Skipton Castle.
Skipton Castle proved too strong to be taken by twelve thousand men without heavy artillery, so the rebels satisfied themselves with attacking Clifford’s enclosures and taking his crops . After ten days they resumed their march south and arrived at Doncaster on 27 October to find the discussions with the King’s representatives almost finished. The “wild and evil” men of Nidderdale were reluctant to go home but were eventually persuaded by their leaders to disband.
The month of November 1536 saw lengthy negotiations between Robert Aske and the gentlemen who had led the rebels to determine an agreed set of demands to set before the king. On 6 December Twenty Four articles were presented to the Duke of Norfolk at Doncaster who assured the rebels that the King would consider their demands and pardon all the rebels. Henry VIII declared that he fully pardoned all the north and that he intended to hold the parliament at York, where Queen should be crowned. However, negotiations had been going on a long time and many of the rank and file were getting frustrated. In January 1537 new risings were threatened at Richmond, Ripon, Cleveland, Sheriff Hutton and Middleham and Sir Francis Bigod tried to take Beverley and Hull. This gave Henry VIII the excuse he had been waiting for to renege on his promises and over 200 people lost their lives in the north of England for their support of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
On 7 April 1537 Aske was arrested and committed to the Tower of London where he joined Adam Sedbar, the Abbot of Jervaux and Sir Thomas Percy . On Thursday 12 July Robert Aske was drawn on a hurdle through the streets of York to Clifford’s Tower where he was executed.
As a result of the Pilgrimage of Grace the government postponed the collection of the subsidy which had been due in October 1536. Four of the seven sacraments that were omitted from the Ten Articles, were restored in the Bishop’s Book of 1537. This marked the end of the drift of official doctrine towards Protestantism. The Statute of Uses was negated by a new law in 1540, the Statute of Wills which allowed landowners to determine who would inherit their land upon their death by permitting a “device by will”.