THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
A DISCUSSION OF THE CAUSES OF THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE MAY SEEM
either superfluous or premature. 1 The massive study by the Misses
Dodds has been followed by a number of short discussions, in
general works on the period, in studies of monasticism, in studies of
government in the north, and so on.1 It will not be possible to write
confidently about the Pilgrimage until Mr. M. E. James has completed
the work which, in a series of remarkable short studies, has already
begun to show the importance of patronage, of tenurial relationship,
of kinship and connection, and, not least, of personality in northern
society at this time.3 Obviously, too, a good deal of work has yet to
be done on the comparative study of social structure in the north,
a study which would undoubtedly show up important regional
variations.* Nevertheless, I believe that an interim discussion is
worth-while. So much of what has been written seems to dodge the
main issue. It tries to apportion the causes of the Pilgrimage between
various "factors" and, by implication, to consider, for instance,
"economic" and "religious" factors as mutually exclusive. What is
needed is rather an attempt to see how the various factors were interrelated, to consider why the Pilgrims, whatever their other grievances,
marched behind the Banner of the Five Wounds and, ostensibly at
least, were prepared to fight for the defence of the church as they
knew it. It may be possible, as a result of this, to reconsider some of
the accepted views on the nature of the English Reformation.
At this stage, it will be objected that to talk of the causes of the
Pilgrimage is in any case misleading, since the Pilgrimage was a
concatenation of various local risings. Obviously, in a revolt in
which the commons of some seven counties covering a third of the
area of England played a leading, or perhaps the leading, part, a
1
Mr. K. V. Thomas and Mr. M. E. James were good enough to criticize an
early draft of this paper; though neither can be held responsible for the views
expressed.
1
M. H. and Ruth Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-7, and the Exeter
Conspiracy, 1538, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1915).
• Change and Continuity in the Tudor North and A Tudor Magnate and the
Tudor State (University of York, Borthwick Papers, nos. xxvii and xxx, 1965-6);
"The First Earl of Cumberland (1.493-1542) and the Decline of Northern
Feudalism",
Northern History, i (1966), pp. 43-69.
4
On the lines of Charles Tilly's study of The Vendie (London, 1964). For an
excellent start to such studies, see R. B. Smith, "A Study of the Landed Incomes
and Social Structure of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1535-46" (Leeds Univ.
Ph.D. thesis, 1962). Cf. also The Agrarian History of England and Wales,
1500-1640, ed. Joan Thirsk (Cambridge, 1967), ch. i.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
55
variety of grievances was expressed, a variety of "causes" induced
individuals to join the Pilgrims. Clearly, once the framework of
order, of obedience to established authority, had been removed, all
sorts of normally repressed local grievances found an outlet. Nevertheless, it is possible to isolate five main revolts, following the
traditional pattern; the Lincolnshire revolt, the revolt in the East
Riding, that of the north-western counties (including the Craven area
of the West Riding of Yorkshire), all in October to December 1536,
and the revolts in the early months of 1537 in both the East Riding and
the north-west.'
These last, though interesting in themselves as revolts of the commons, with little participation by the gentry and nobility, are not
relevant to a study of the causes of the Pilgrimage proper. They were
clearly outbursts by frightened commons who believed that they had
been betrayed by their social superiors, that the king would do little
or nothing to meet the grievances of the rebels, and that he would not
consider himself bound by the general pardon. 8 Again, there seems
to be universal agreement that, in the rising in Cumberland and
Westmorland and in the Craven district of the West Riding in 1536,
economic aims figured much more prominently than elsewhere. The
rebels demanded that "gressums" [entry fines] and other extraordinary
dues should be moderated or abolished, and complained about
enclosure of waste and forest. Moreover, as M. E. James points out,
and contrary to the usual impression, many of the gentry, themselves
mesne tenants of the great lords, were afflicted by increased rents and
dues, and encouraged, or at least tolerated, the commons' rising.7
Plainly, conditions in these highland areas were hard, probably
increasingly so. The population rise of the sixteenth century seems
to have been very much more acute in these areas, and the enclosure
of common, the increase of dues, or the incidence of bad harvests,
could have a disastrous effect on an economy balanced at the best of
times dangerously near the edge of subsistence.8 These conditions
had certainly produced a serious riot (or a small-scale rising) in Craven
in 1535, in which the hard-pressed tenants of the earl of Cumberland
1
A complete study would also deal with Durham and the North Riding, which
became linked to the West Riding revolt; and with Northumberland, where the
defence of Hexham Priory became involved with border free-booting and the
defence of the Percy interest. See Dodds, Pilgrimage, i, cap. ix.
• Dodds, op. cit., pp. 55-98; A. G. Dickens, in Lollards and Protestana in the
Diocese of York (London, 1959), pp. 97-102; James, "Earl of Cumberland",
p. 758, n. 84.
James, Change and Continuity, pp. 24-5; Letters and Papers of the Reign of
Henry VIII ^hereafter L.P.), vol. xi, no. 1080 (cf. Dodds, Pilgrimage, i, pp.
370-1); vol. xii, pt. i, nos. 163, 478, 914; James, "Earl of Cumberland", pp. 53-
62.
56
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
seem to have been encouraged in their defiance by agents of the earl of
Northumberland, in pursuit of a family feud.* But while such
conditions may well have produced yet more rioting in 1536, it would
be hazardous to guess that they would have resulted in peasant revolt,
at least on the scale of that of 1536-7, without the precipitating factor
of revolts in Lincolnshire and in the rest of Yorkshire.
These last, then, constitute the core of the Pilgrimage, revolts, in
appearance at least, about high politics: the nature of the Supremacy,
the continuation of monasticism, the suppression of heresy, the
composition of the Ring's Council, the conduct of business in
Parliament. Inevitably, the issues were complex. Enumeration is
facilitated by the vast amount of evidence available, but evaluation
is made difficult by the nature of that evidence, so much of which
consists of depositions in which suspects blame their neighbours,
especially those of a different social class. Discussion naturally
revolves around the question of how much weight to put on the
"secular" and how much on the "religious" factors. Fr. Philip
Hughes, Dom David Knowles and Dr. Scarisbrick, while acknowledging social and political factors, insist nevertheless on the defence
of Catholicism as the necessary unifying element in the situation.
Dr. Rachel Reid, on the other hand, concludes that "even if there
had been no Reformation, there must have been a rising in the North
about this time". 10 Professor A. G. Dickens, whose knowledge of
northern society at this time is unrivalled, whose perceptive and
sensitive studies of religious sentiment have transformed our understanding of religion in its social setting, endorses Dr. Reid's view; he
concludes a general account of the Pilgrimage, "the roots of the
movement were decidedly economic, its demands predominantly
secular, its interest in Rome almost negligible.... In short the
English remained incapable of staging genuine Wars of Religion".11
• James, "Earl of Cumberland", p. 53, and the authorities cited there; see also
Agrarian History, ed. Think, pp. 10-12.
• James, "Earl of Cumberland", pp. 60-2.
'• D. Knowles, The Religions Orders in England (Cambridge, 1950-9), iii,
pp. 320-35; Philip Hughes, The Reformation in England (London, 1954), i,
pp. 296-320; J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (London, 1968), pp. 338-48;
R. 11
R. Reid, The King^s Council in the North (London, 1921), p. 126.
A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (London, 1964), pp. 122-8; cf. also
Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation (London, 1959), pp. 95-104; and
"Secular and Religious Motivation in the Pilgrimage of Grace" in Studies in
Church History, ed. G. J. Cuming, vol. iv (1967), pp. 39-64. I must thank
Professor Dickens and Canon Cuming for their generosity in allowing me to see
this article in proof. Professor Dickens' particular studies are too numerous to
list here. See especially, Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, Tudor
Treatises, ed. A. G. Dickens (Yorks. Arch. Soc., Record Ser., exxv, 1959), and
"The Writers of Tudor Yorkshire", Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc, 5th ser., jail (1963),
pp. 49-76-
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
57
Economic grievances there were, of course. The general agrarian
situation was certainly serious. A rising general price level forced
landlords to increase dues traditionally regarded as fixed (whether by
changing copyholds to leases, or by increasing the amount or
frequency of entry fines), or find themselves unable to maintain their
traditional way of life. Moreover, there had been an unusually bad
series of harvests since 1527.11 But, within this context, it is more
difficult to explain why the Pilgrimage happened just when it did.
Here Professor Dickens and Dr. Reid instance a particular bad
harvest. But the bad harvest concerned is that of the summer of
T
535> which was no longer directly relevant to the economic situation
in October 1536. Dr. Reid's detailed evidence refers entirely to the
harvest-year 1535-6, which was undoubtedly very bad. Wheat
prices were 82% higher than the previous year, and there were
extensive grain-riots, for instance in Somerset in April 1536, while
the serious Craven riots of June 1535 were obviously connected with
the approaching bad harvest, the expectation of which would have
already raised grain prices. The new harvest of 1536, however, was
considerably better. The harvest of wheat and barley was mediocre,
but not disastrous, as it had been in 1535. Oats were dear, and this
was obviously dangerous for pastoral farmers. But rye, the principal
bread-grain of the lower classes in most of the north, was fairly
cheap.13
INDEX PRICES OF GRAIN
Harvest-Year
1533-4
1534-5
1535-6
1536-7
1533-7 (1450-99
Wheat
Barley
133
127
106
116
213
156
199
124
Oats
156
145
184
182
=
IOO)
Rye
202
225
303
154
Of course, these are annual average prices, which conceal seasonal or
regional variations. I have not been able to discover a reliable price
series referring specifically to the north. From scattered evidence it
11
On W. G. Hoskins' classification there had been 1 year of dearth, 2 of bad
harvest, 1 deficient, 4 average and 2 good. Nevertheless the "average" is
calculated as a 31-year moving average. As far as contemporaries were
concerned, only 2 of these years were "average" by the standards of 1522-6 or
1537-42: W. G. Hoskins, "Harvest Fluctuations 1480-1619", Agricultural
History Review, xii (1964), pp. 28-46; Agrarian History, ed. Thirsk, Statistical
Appendix,
Table I.
11
Dickens, Thomas Cromwell, pp. 95-6; Reid, Council of the North, p. 126;
3
LJ ., x, nos. 702, 1015(26); L.P. Addenda, i, nos. 1056, 1058, 1063, i°75J
Wriothesley, Chronicle (Camden Soc., new ser., xi), i, p. 61 (1536 in Wriothesley,
wrongly amended by the editor to 1537); Agrarian History, ed. Thirsk, Statistical
Appendix, Table I.
58
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
seems that Durham wheat prices, which tended normally to be below
the national average, were rather above it in the harvest-year 1536-7.
Rye, moreover, seems to have been more expensive in Durham than
in Dorset. A few indications of prices can be gleaned from the State
Papers. The earl of Derby reported "dearth" in Lancashire in
November 1536. At the same time wheat was 10s. 8d. a quarter,
and rye 9s. 4d. in Nottingham. Wheat was 10s. 4d. at Pontefract in
February 1537. But these were areas in which armies had probably
driven up local prices. Even so, they are not far above Professor
Hoskins's calculation of a "general average" (in fact, predominantly
London), wheat price of 9.17s.14 The short-term situation, then,
was at best difficult, perhaps worse; but below the peak-levels of the
harvest-year 1535-6. An explanation based on harvest failure tout
cottrt should have produced a revolt six months before the outbreak of
the Pilgrimage. Moreover, there is no clear correlation between bad
harvest and peasant revolt in sixteenth-century England. There was,
for instance, no major peasant revolt in 1527-30 (a sequence of dearth,
bad harvest, and deficient harvest), though there was a cloth-workers'
revolt directed against the embargo on trade with the Netherlands in
1528. Nor were there in 1555-7 a n ^ 1596-8, all much worse than
1535-7, although obviously there was a good deal of discontent in
those years." The harvest situation, then, is not a sufficient explanation of the Pilgrimage, though by embittering class-relationships and
causing riots it helped to prepare the way for it.
The very nature of the Pilgrimage makes an agrarian explanation,
whether short- or long-term, insufficient. Obviously, if an unpopular
landlord took the king's side in the revolt, his tenants could give free
rein to pent-up resentments. Thus the loyalist earl of Cumberland,
victim of the Craven riots of 1535, was besieged by his tenants in
Skipton Castle in 1536." The breakdown of order led to the refusal
of rent and tithe, and the expression of long-festering resentments.
When the Horncastle commons captured Sir William Sandon they
11
Y. S. Brenner, "Prices and Wages in England 1450-1550" (London Univ.
M A thesis, 1960), pp. 1401. Wheat was 6.8s. per qr. in Durham in 1532-3,
where Brenner calculates the national average at 8.82s.; in 1536-7, it was 9.74s.
in Durham, and 9.17s. on the national average. Rye in Dorset was 12s. a qr.
in 1534-5, and 5.33s. in 1536-7;
no figures exist for Durham in 1535-6, but
9.73s. is given for 1536-7. LJ3., jri, nos. 1066,1155(5); *",', n 0 - 35°J Hoskins,
"Harvest
Fluctuations", pp. 44-5.
11
1 omit i55O-2lbecause of the deterrent effect of the suppression of the 1549
revolts. The London riots of 1595, or the attempted Oxfordshire rising of
1596, though interesting, are hardly "major".
** James, "Earl of Cumberland"; Clifford Letters of the Sixteenth Century,
cd. A. G. Dickens (Surtees Soc., vol. clxxii, 1962), p. 25; LJP., xii, i, no. 919.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
59
"struck at the horse and said he could go a-foot as they did". The
smith of Wragby, in Lincolnshire, thought that "if we kill not [the
gentlemen], we shall lose all, for they will deceive us". The priest of
Croft exhorted his parishioners "to take the Commons part, for they
did intend a commonwealth".17 Suspicion of the intentions of the
gentry was, of course, the main cause of the second East Riding
rebellion, led by Bigod and Hallom, in February 1537. But if such
feelings were widespread, they did not determine the main course of
the Pilgrimage; even in the north-west, where class-hatred is
traditionally considered to have manifested itself most violently, the
rebels pressed the gentry into the lead, demanded the replacement of
Cromwell and his associates by "noble men of true blood", and only
elected their own "captains" when the gentry showed themselves
unable to defend them against the Scots.18 The leaders of the
Yorkshire Pilgrimage were unlikely defenders of an oppressed
peasantry against the landlord class. Lord Darcy*s estate was
remarkable for the extent of its grassland, the object of enclosure riots
three years before. The Percy family had extracted frequent, though
not necessarily high, gressums, and had introduced the customs of
Cumberland, less advantageous to the tenants, to their Yorkshire and
Northumberland estates. 1 ' Agrarian discontent, then, will explain
neither the timing of the Pilgrimage, nor its form as a revolt of
northern society against the central government, rather than as
class-warfare within that society.
Other economic factors are frequently mentioned, but again seem
less compelling on closer examination. The positive evidence for
cattle-plagues seems to be confined to one explanation (or excuse) by
the Pilgrims for their dislike of the subsidy.10 Another possible
economic grievance was the recent Act attempting to improve the
standard of cloth production; the government promptly ordered
a stay of execution. But Tudor governments, after their experiences
of 1525 and 1528, always tended to exaggerate the rebellious nature of
cloth-workers. In fact, as Dr. R. B. Smith has shown, the West
Riding clothing area was not one of the main centres of revolt.11
17
LJ>., xi, no. 1293; P.R.O., S.P. I/no f. 139 (L.P., xi, no. 967); E 36/118
f. 1 (/..P., xi, no. 975).
"P.R.O, S i \ I/i 17 f. 55 (L.P., xii, i, no. 687, p. 303); James, "Earl of
Cumberland",
pp. 53-62.
11
L.P., vi, nos. 355, 537; two-thirds of the income from Lord Darcy's West
Riding estate came from pasture, "a remarkable example of the exploitation of
grassland by a large landowner" (R. B. Smith, thesis cited, p. 95). J. M. W.
Bean, The
Estates of the Percy Family, 1416-1537 (Oxford, 1958), pp. 62-7.
"
LJ3., xi, no. 705.
11
Tudor Royal Proclamations, 148}-IS53> ed. P. L. Hughes and J. F. Larkin
(New Haven, 1964), no. 166; L.P, xi, no 603; Smith, thesis cited, pp. 304-5.
60
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
A great deal is made, especially by Dr. Reid, of urban class-conflict,
especially in Beverley in 1535-6 and in York. The trouble in Beverley
certainly merged into the Pilgrimage. But are not such disputes
a normal feature of sixteenth-century urban life, which would have
passed unnoticed but for the Pilgrimage ? After all, Newcastle had
also seen the recent victory of a merchant oligarchy over the artisan
guilds, yet was held by the mayor for the king in 1536 at the cost of
a few concessions." All told, then, economic conditions, while
undoubtedly serious, do not seem to have been so unusual as to have
provoked a major rebellion on their own account.
One economic grievance, taxation, undoubtedly did play a major
part in the rebellion; there was considerable resistance to the levy of
the second instalment of the subsidy voted in 1534. Even here,
however, matters are more complicated than they seem at first sight.
The northern counties (Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland,
and Durham) were exempt. Only those possessing goods worth £20
or an annual income of £20 were liable; Henry VIII reckoned that
less than 10% of the rebels were directly affected. Even fewer may
in fact have paid. The Lincolnshire subsidy commissioners explained
to an angry mob "there was none within the shire that paid after xx li,
but he was worth xl li. and further". One modern estimate is that
"only about 1.4% of the population normally liable to assessment
were in fact being assessed" in 1536." Opposition to the subsidy,
then, was not due to straight-forward taxpayers' resentment; but
rather to the belief that the subsidy would drain the north of coin,
especially if the tenants of the smaller monasteries would thenceforth
be paying their rents to London, and that the resulting lack of
liquidity would cause considerable unemployment. It was this which
had caused cloth-workers in 1525 to protest against the forced loan
levied on their employers.14 Nevertheless, as we shall see, taxation
was primarily important as an aspect of those irrational elements on
which Professor Dickens so rightly concentrates; the fear, presumably
inspired by the relatively unusual imposition of peacetime taxation,
that taxes were going to be enormously increased, that they were to be
levied on baptisms, marriages and burials, on cows and sheep, and on
" Reid, Council of the North, pp. 126-8; cf. also A. G. Dickens in V.C.H.,
City of York (London, 1961), pp. 137-9; LJ*., xii, i, no. 392, p. 183; Dodds,
Pilgrimage, i, pp. 204-7.
"26 Henry VIII c. 19, 8. xvii; LJ>., xi, no. 569; P.R.O., S.P. I/uo f. 165
(LJ>., xi, no. 971); R. S. Schofield, 'Tarliamentary Lay Taxation, 1485-1547"
(Cambridge Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1963). PP- 327-9" Aske*s narrative (Eng. Hist. Rev., v [1890], pp. 331-43), p. 336; cf. Smith,
thesis cited, pp. 45-8. For 1525 see LJ>., iv, introd., p. lxxxiii.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
61
men of low degree who dared to ape their superiors by eating white
bread or white meat." The extent of these fears, and their form,
betrays a crisis of confidence, a profound distrust of the London
government among the commons of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
A similar distrust, of course, was felt in the upper reaches of
northern society. The king was deliberately trying to undermine the
power of the great northern families. In 1534 Lord Dacre of the
North had been accused of treason, a charge which was probably
trumped up and certainly exaggerated." The Percy family had also
fared badly. The fifth earl of Northumberland, in spite of an
apparent willingness to serve the crown loyally, had never been given
office commensurate with his rank, or standing. The^sixth earl,
although entrusted with the great offices which his family had
traditionally held, had been induced to disinherit his brother and heir,
Sir Thomas Percy, by making his lands over the crown in return for
a pension.17 But the crown's attack was not confined to particular
families. As Dr. Reid has shown, the Acts of 1535-6 against liberties
and sanctuaries had involved the rights of several of the great lords,
and especially those members of the embryonic Council of the North
who, during the Pilgrimage, took refuge with Darcy at Pontefract and
subsequently countenanced, to say the least, the activities of the
Pilgrims. In these conditions the fining of the Yorkshire Grand Jury
(consisting, of course, of gentlemen) for its alleged perversion in not
preferring an indictment against a suspected murderer, could take on
a notoriety far in excess of its intrinsic importance." Moreover the
Statute of Uses (forced through Parliament in the face of considerable hostility by a skilful and somewhat dubious legal manoeuvre
on the part of the government) was extremely unpopular among the
gentry at large; so much so, that its most drastic provisions, which
effectively prevented land being devised by will, and thus made it
difficult to provide portions for younger sons or to raise loans on the
security of land, had to be repealed in 1540." Many of the nobility
and gentry demonstrably played a more active part in the Pilgrimage
than they afterwards admitted. Percy agents seem to have been very
active throughout. Robert Aske himself was probably one of them.
11
English Reformation, pp. 126-7; Dodds, Pilgrimage, i, pp. 63-86.
" LJP., vii, no. 962.
" James, A Tudor Magnate; "Earl of Cumberland", pp. 65-7; Bean, Estates of
the Percy Family, pp. 144-57.
11
Reid, Council of the North, pp. 137-9; Dodds, Pilgrimage, i, pp. 59-60.
" E. E. W. Ives, "The Genesis of the Statute of Uses", Eng. Hist. Rev.,
boorii (1967), pp. 673-97; J. M. W. Bean, The Decline of English Feudalism
(Manchester, 1968), pp. 257-301.
62
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
(The story of his being spontaneously taken by the commons of
Howdenshire to be their captain only because he had recently returned
from Lincolnshire, and his denial of any advance preparation for the
East Riding revolt, hardly ring true.) Obviously the attitude of some
of the great magnates was an important, and probably an essential
contributory factor to the revolt. Even during the 1537 rising, when
distrust of the gentry was at its height, it was said "that the country
. . . was ready to rise again if Sir Thomas Percy would have set
forward for they trusted him before any other man".30 Nevertheless,
the Pilgrimage was obviously far from being a mere feudal revolt. It
occurred, after all, in spite of the ambiguous attitude of the earl of
Northumberland, whose younger brothers, for all their energy, were
hardly an adequate substitute; in spite of the earl of Cumberland's
loyalty to the crown; in spite of Lord Dacre's wariness, anxious after
his experiences of 1534 not to incriminate himself." Lincohishire,
indeed, had no great feudal magnate to arouse ancient loyalties.
(Lord Hussey, who was certainly involved, hardly fits into this
category, nor does the duke of Suffolk.) Moreover the willingness of
the magnates to accept Aske as "Great Captain" (or perhaps their
conspiring to make him so), however prudent a political move, hardly
indicates that aristocratic charisma which might have raised northern
society against the king on its own account. The lead given by the
gentry and nobility was, of course, vital; indeed, it was more important
even in the north-west and in Lincohishire than is often alleged.
Loyalty to ancient families, however, was apparently not enough.
The Pilgrims needed an ideology. In certain circumstances this
could have been northern patriotism, of which a considerable element
appeared in the Pilgrim's programme and slogans. But it was, in
fact, religion.
The extent to which religion provided the slogans, at least, of the
Pilgrimage, hardly needs setting out in detail. But it would be as well
first to define terms. By contending that the Pilgrims fought for
"religion", I intend only to argue that they fought about ecclesiastical
matters. I do not intend to pass judgement on the extent to which
their motives were, in any sense, "spiritual". If by "War of
Religion" we mean a war fought only, or even primarily, about
differing interpretations of the means of salvation, then certainly
England was "incapable of staging genuine Wars of Religion". But,
on this basis, the rest of sixteenth-century Europe was equally
" Reid, Council of the North, pp. 133-4; Eng. Hist. Rev., v (1890), pp. 331-4;
P.R.O.,
S.P. I/115 f. 218 b (LJ>., xa, i, no. 369, p. 166).
11
James, "Earl of Cumberland", p. 62; Dodds, Pilgrimage, i, pp. 224-5.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
63
incapable. If, on the other hand, we mean a war in which ecclesiastical afiairs bulked large, then the question is why the Pilgrimage failed
to develop from an armed demonstration into a civil war. I would
suggest that this was due less to inherent weaknesses in its "religious
motivation" (though I do not rule these out) as to various short-term,
almost accidental, factors; above all, to certain nicely-balanced
political decisions taken by a few key individuals. The relative
fervour, or otherwise, of the contenders, is not a constant; the very
act of fighting a war about ecclesiastical issues can result in increased
zeal, can turn a tepid, rather habitual, Catholicism into something very
much more vigorous. (Thus the "spirituality of the CounterReformation", undoubtedly a key factor in the later French Religious
Wars, stemmed, at least in part, from the passions roused in the
earlier wars.) In this context, it is surely unreasonable to polarize
"religious" and "material" factors in men's attitude to ecclesiastical
institutions, and to adduce from this that men were not "really"
fighting a religious war; "material" factors reinforce rather than
detract from "religious" ones.
Of the major ecclesiastical demands, that for the ending of the royal
supremacy was probably the least important. As Professor Dickens
points out, the Lincolnshire rebels mentioned the royal supremacy
only once, and then to accept it (though, be it noted, grudgingly rather
than gladly).32 At Doncaster, the Pilgrims demanded the restoration
of the Pope, as far as cura ammarum was concerned, but the limitation
of the payments traditionally made to him. The clergy were divided
on the supremacy; though the fact that it was treason to deny the
Royal Supremacy is relevant here." As for laymen the evidence is
contradictory; at one stage Aske said that "all men much murmured"
at the Supremacy Statute, and that he himself inserted the qualification
"touching curam ammarum" into the Pilgrims' demands; at another,
he maintained that the article about the supremacy was only included
at his own request.34 The commons of Westmorland and Cumberland, on the other hand, seem to have adopted Papalist slogans, even
during the second, 1537, insurrection."
As far as the clergy is concerned, the reasons seem obvious enough.
The stress is less on the papal supremacy than on the rejection of that
of the king. What was anathema was the rule of the church by
"P.R.(X, E 36/118 f. 56 (L.P., xi, no. 853, p. 342); cf. Dickens, English
Reformation, p. 125.
" L.P., xi, no. 1246; xii, i, no. 786(ii); Dickens, "Secular and Religious
Motivation", pp. 59-61.
" Ens.
Hist. Rev., v (1890), pp. 565, 570.
" LJ1., xii, i, nos. 384, 671(2), 687(2), 914.
64
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
laymen; a sentiment amply confirmed by 1536, both by the increasing
tendency towards Protestantism under Cromwell's aegis, and by the
great increase in clerical taxation which followed the break with
Rome.36 Laymen's interest in the supremacy was probably less
immediate. It was resented less for itself, than for its associations;
the king's matrimonial proceedings, and the apparent attempt to
despoil the church. Obviously the divorce was no longer an immediate
issue, since Catherine had died in January 1536, and in May Henry
had had Anne Boleyn executed, and her daughter bastardized, and had
promptly married Jane Seymour. The ghost of the divorce may have
„accounted, for the Lincolnshire rebels' dislike, of their diocesan,
Lbhgland, who did nofffeasiry into the'category"of "heretic bishops"
but who had been deeply involved in the king's matrimonial affairs,
especially as the king's confessor. But now the Pilgrims could only
demand the restoration of Mary's rights. Dislike of new threats to
the church in 1536 could conveniently centre on heretics in high
places, especially Cromwell and the new bishops, rather than on the
supremacy. Nevertheless, it is worth stressing the point that the
Pilgrims did not show themselves implacably opposed to the papacy.
Provided that papal influence was not too pervasive, it was not in
itself a bad thing. Darcy himself had alleged two things, amongst
others, to Wolsey's discredit: first, that when Wolsey had ruled
Church and State in England, some foreign princes had unfortunately
ceased to obey the papacy; and secondly, that papal power in the
provision to benefices and in levying money had increased in England
in Wolsey's time. The Pilgrims' attitude was lukewarm, not hostile;
and in this, surely, typical of pre-Tridentine Catholicism.37
The Pilgrims' attitude to the monasteries is more complex.
Undoubtedly much of the rebellion was instigated or at least fanned
by the religious. For instance, the abbots of Holme Cultram and
Fumess allegedly ordered their tenants to join the rebels, and the
canons of Watton financed the Pilgrims, perhaps under threat. The
friars of Knaresborough played a leading part in spreading the
•• Cf. d. 2 of the opinion of the Northern Convocation (Strype, Ecclesiastical
Memorials [Oxford, 1822], i, pt. ii, pp. 266-8); L.P., n, no. n82(ii);
J. J. Scarisbrick, "Clerical Taxation, i4Ss-i547",Jl. of Eccles. Hist., xi (i960),
pp.1141-54G. E. Wharhirst, "The Reformation in the Diocese of Lincoln, as illustrated
in the life and Work of Bishop Longland", Lines. Architectural and Archaeological Society, new ser., i (1939), pp. 137-76, especially pp. 150-1, 155, 158,
166 ff.; Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, pp. 153, 256; G. Mamngly, Catherine of
Aragon (London, 1942), pp. 179, 233, 240, 269-70; L.P., iv, pt. iii, no. 5749;
vol. xi, nos. 714, 1246.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
65
rumours which were, perhaps, the major single cause of the revolt.38
Sometimes, of course, motives were clearly less than idealistic. Dr.
Elton has entertainingly told the story of the quondam abbot of
Rievaulx's attempt to use popular force to re-acquire the office from
which he had been ousted. Many, however, must have acted from
a desire to preserve the institution of the religious life; not in itself an
unworthy motive to those possessing a sense of vocation, though,
inevitably, inextricably mixed with a liking for their present style of
life. (Dr. Woodward notes that a large number of Yorkshire monks
from the smaller houses elected to remain in religion, with the result
that an exceptional number of smaller houses was granted exemption
from suppression for their benefit.) But conspiracy by the monks
themselves is obviously an inadequate explanation; we must still
explain why laymen followed them, why, for instance, some sixteen
of the fifty-five smaller houses suppressed or threatened with
suppression in the north (though none in Lincolnshire) were restored
by the Pilgrims.3'
Plainly there was a certain degree of ambivalence here. As
landlords and as rectors of parishes (and therefore receivers of tithe)
the monasteries were deeply enmeshed in the economy and objects,
therefore, of resentment; quarrels were carried on with vigour in the
courts, and frequently erupted into violence.40 The Pilgrimage
obviously provided the opportunity for settling old scores. The
evidence here, however, is not easy to handle. How far, for instance,
can one believe the story that the abbot of Jervaulx was forced to avoid
the threatening commons during the first insurrection by fleeing to
Witton Fell, and that he eventually took the Pilgrim oath to save his
own life and to prevent the burning of his house ? The abbot, after
all, played a major part in the second insurrection, for which he was
hanged. Can we accept his self-exculpatory account of the first
rising, and adduce from it evidence of strong anti-monastic feeling ? 41
What is surely striking is the degree to which, by-and-large, monastic
possessions generated not hostility but, apparently, loyalty, or at
least the seeming belief that they formed a necessary part of the social
" LJ>., xi, no. 1047; xii, i, nos. 201 (pp. 91, 96, 100, 102), 841 (2-3), 1259.
See also L.P., xii, i, no. 192 for a rather extreme example of the "clerical plot^'
theory.
•• G. R. Elton, Star Chamber Stories (London, 1958), pp. 147-73;
G. W. O. Woodward, "The Exemption from Suppression of Certain Yorkshire
Priories", Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxvi (1961), pp. 385-401; idem., The Dissolution of
the Monasteries (London, 1966), p. 94.
" Monastic Chancery Proceedings, ed. J. S. Purvis (Yorks. Arch. Soc., Record
Ser.,
lxxxviii, 1934).
41
L.P., xii, i, nos. 369 (p. 164), 1012, 1035, 1285.
66
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
order. Monasteries were exceptionally thick on the ground in
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. In the West Riding, for instance,
ecclesiastical property comprised some 30 per cent of the whole, three
times that of either crown or nobility; and two-thirds of the
ecclesiastical property was monastic. The religious, too, seem to have
appropriated an exceptionally large proportion of livings in these
counties; about hah0 in the county of Lincoln, about two-thirds in
Yorkshire, compared with a national average of about one-third.41
Involvement to such a degree in the economic framework could have
worked against the interests of the religious. But it does not seem
to have done so in this case; thus Robert Parkyn, curate of the
impropriated parish of Ardwick-le-Street, drawing £4 3s. 4& a year
from the lay rector, successor to the canons of Hamploe Priory, wrote
about 1555 a conservative account of the Reformation in which he
describes the Pilgrimage as intended "for the maintenance of holy
church". 43
Ecclesiastics in general, sensing coming dangers, may have gone
out of their way to appease their more influential tenants; "there is
not a head tenant of the abbey lands, bishops' lands [etc] . . . but they
have great familiarity and practices other than they have found in
times past of their land lords", reported Sir William Fairfax.
Nevertheless, the landlord-tenant tie was not merely one of temporary
appeasement; Fairfax went on to stress the pivotal position, the social
influence, of bailiffs who "be made fellows and brought up with priests
of children". John Hallom, a yeoman, a key-figure in both East
Riding revolts, said that he was easily persuaded that Robert Holgate
(the future archbishop of York) was "Cromwell's chaplain" and ought
to be replaced as prior of Watton because
all the time he was here he was good to no man, and of this nominate he took
xx marks in money which he should have been paid in corn when God should
send it, and giveth many unkind words and rebukeful to his tenants, sitting
in his court more like a judge than a religious man
Reinforcing the tie of landownership was the fear of economic change;
the belief which we have already mentioned that the rents of monastic
tenants would henceforth be paid to Westminster, and that there
41
D. Knowles and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses in England and
Wales (London, 1953), maps; Hughes, Reformation, i, pp. 295-9; A. Hamilton
Thompson, The Engush Clergy in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1947), p. 115.
See also P. Tyler, "The State of the Elizabethan Parochial Clergy" in Studies in
Church History, ed. J. G. Cuming, iv, pp. 76-81. I must thank Mrs. Margaret
Bowker for clearing a confusion in my mind on this point; she warns me that
Hamilton Thompson'sfiguresmay not be absolutely reliable.
" Tudor Treatises, ed. A. G. Dickens (Yorks. Arch. Soc., Record Ser.,
v, 1959), introd. pp. 17-27; Eng. Hist. Rev., brii (i947)> P- 65-
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
6j
would be a shortage of coin in the north; a general fear of what a new
landlord might do to "improve" his estate.44 And, as Aske stressed,
the monasteries performed a variety of useful social functions, even
if these were less than they were capable of: alms-giving; the provision
of employment; acting as inns and as boarding-schools for children
of the gentry; even, allegedly, keeping roads and bridges in good
repair.46
It would be wrong to rule out the spiritual functions of the monks,
even if these in restrospect fell far below the standards of St. Benedict
or St. Bernard. Aske stressed equally that the dissolution would be
followed by the diminution of divine service, sacrilege to relics and
tombs, and a decline in religious instruction in the highland areas,
where the inadequate parochial structure would have to shoulder the
entire burden of ministry and instruction. 4 ' (This last point should
not be over-stressed; the highland areas, after all, were not the main
centre of revolt.) Fear of the effect of the dissolution on prayers for
the dead, and hence on prospects in purgatory, presumably bulked
large. Professor Jordan notes that in Yorkshire a rather oldfashioned piety was still alive, that there were frequent legacies for
prayers for the dead, including the establishment of chantries (indeed
"more was given for prayers alone than for all the non-religious
charitable uses combined") and that gifts to monasteries continued
on a generous scale into the 1530s. Lancashire presents much the
same picture, though with a good deal less accent on monasteries,
presumably because the county contained so few.47 Unfortunately
Professor Jordan has produced no studies for the border counties or,
what would be in this connection the most interesting example of all,
Lincolnshire. Nevertheless, the materialistic, superstitious nature
of so much of immediate pre-Reformation popular religion must have
everywhere strengthened the fear of the consequences of the dissolution, at least until an alternative creed was efficiently expounded; more
especially in that the attack on the monasteries was linked, or so it was
believed, with an attack on the parish churches.
44
P.R.O., S.P. I/115 ff. 2-3; E 36/119 f. 30 (LJP., xii, i, nos. 192, 201, p. 92);
Reid, Council of the North, pp. 123-4. The reports of the Cromwellian agents
tend, of course, to exaggerate the degree to which the monasteries were making
uneconomic leases; see Joyce Youings, in Agrarian History, ed. Thirsk, pp. 32432" Eng. Hist. Rev., v (1890), pp. 561-2; cf. ibid., p. 338.
4
« Ibid., p. 561.
47
W. K. Jordan, The Charities of Rural England, 1480-1660 (London, 1961),
pp. 217-20, 360-75; The Social Institutions cf Lancashire (Chetham Soc., 3rd
ser., xi, 1962), pp. 5-6, 75-8; cf. also R. B. Dobson, "The Foundation of
Perpetual Chantries by the Citizens of Medieval York" in Studies in Church
History, ed. J. G. Cuming, iv, pp. 22-38.
68
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
On the parochial level we have the same sort of apparent contradiction as we had with the monks. On the one hand, the existence of
a good deal of anti-clericalism; on the other, the ability of the parish
clergy to enlist mass support. Anti-clericalism has, I believe, been
exaggerated. The strongest manifestation came from Westmorland
and Cumberland, where the commons demanded the deprivation of
non-resident clergy, excusing themselves by noting that several of
these were not in priests's orders, and that some were "Cromwell's
chaplains". In January 1537, 800 men helped themselves to grain
from the tithe-barns. Presumably, the exceptional economic
conditions in the north-west produced a dislike of priests as well as of
landlords. Indeed, the north-western rising adopted the phraseology
of the "Piers Plowman" tradition, with its outlook of down-to-earth
anti-clericalism combined with doctrinal orthodoxy." Outside the
north-west, however, attacks on tithe-barns seem to have been very
rare. (Dr. Reid talks of "frequent" riots against tithes, but all her
evidence refers to events in the north-west, except for one Star
Chamber case, in which the alleged exorbitancies of a tithe-fanner,
rather than the principle of tithe itself, was the issue.) 4 ' Even in the
north-west much of the alleged anti-clericalism is plainly a feeling of
bitterness at the refusal of certain priests to involve themselves when
the commons were risking their lives for their religion. The
frequently quoted case of the Cumberland rebel exclaiming that it
would be better if all the priests' heads were cut off is obviously of this
type; it followed the refusal of the abbot of Holme Cultram and two
priests to go and negotiate on behalf of the rebels at Carlisle. Moreover, the only source for this story is the evidence of a priest who was
using it, and probably exaggerating the rebels' anti-clericalism as
much as he could, to defend himself when accused of taking a leading
part as "chaplain and secretary of Poverty".50
For the positive influence of the parish clergy, on the other hand,
there is a wealth of evidence. Objecting to, and perhaps with reason
fearing, an examination of their morals, they played a vital part in
spreading rumours, promising spiritual and material profit ("Be of
good comfort and proceed in this journey" the Vicar of Louth told
"Captain
Cobbler",, "for it is both for the faith of Christ and
p
ing of his service and in doing this you should lack neither gold nor
41
LI1., xi, no. 1080; xii, i, no. 319; Dickens, "Secular and Religious Motivation", p. 63; cf. H. C. White, Social Criticism in Popular Religion of the Sixteenth
Century (New York, 1944), ch. i; Mr. M. E. James stressed this point to me.
" Reid, Council of the North, p. 123; Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings,
vol. i (Yorks. Arch. Soc., Record Ser., xli, 1909), pp. 95-6.
M
L.P., xii, i, no. 687(2), pp. 303-4.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
69
silver".), and threatening the recalcitrant ("If they should not assent
they should be hanged and killed at their own door posts", the priest
of Croft told his parishioners.)61 Obviously the demands in the
Pilgrims' programme that full benefit of clergy should be restored,
right of sanctuary extended, and clerical taxation reduced, came
directly from the clergy, and were conceived in terms of their own
self-interest; as was the parson of Sotheby's reason for calling the
King's Council "false harlots, in devising of false laws to spoil the
goods of the spirituality". The parish priests (to an extent which
shocked many of the more earnest clergy) shared many of the more
violent characteristics of their parishioners; one "having a great club
in his hands, said that if he had Cromwell there he would beat out
his guts"; another, harnessed and armed, said, "it was the best world
that ever he did see" and wished to have the Sacrament carried before
the Pilgrims."
Yet once again we must ask why the people were so ready to follow
the priests. Obviously spiritual sanctions played their part; so did
the position of the priest as a principal intermediary, a major dispenser
of news, between the world at large and his parishioners. But the
readiness of the people to follow (or in some cases to take the
initiative) stemmed largely from the "ecclesiastical" grievances which
most immediately concerned them: the state of their own parish
churches, and the efficacy of the traditional sacraments. The Ten
Articles of July 1536, backed up by Injunctions issued (significantly)
in the name of Cromwell as vice-gerent, drastically curtailed the
number of saints' days, because they led to idleness and sin. In
particular the festivals of parochial patron saints were not in future to
be observed as holy-days. They were to be replaced by a general
dedication feast, to be celebrated in all parishes on the first Sunday in
October. In the cirumstances rumours that the parochial organization itself was to be similarly and drastically rationalized, that churches
were not to be maintained if less than five miles apart, and that plate
and jewellery were to be confiscated, seemed credible." The failure
of the Ten Articles to mention four of the seven sacraments could
seem significant as a pointer to drastic doctrinal change in the future.
" L.P., xi, nos. 972, 975 (p. 401); jrii, i, nos. 70, 380,481; P.R.O., S.P. I/no
f. 148 (LJ*., xi, no. 968); £. 36/118 f. 1 (L.P., xi, no. 975, p. 399).
" P.R.O., SJ\ I/112 ft 143-5 (L.P., xi, no. 1246); F, J6/118 ft 3-5 (L.P., xi,
no. 975). F. W. Brooks, "The Social Position of the Parson in die Sixteenth
Century", Jl. of the British Archaeological Assoc., 3rd scr., x (1945-7), PP- 23-7,
shows that only 4 of a sample of 32 Lincolnshire parsons in the 1530s had books,
although their material comforts were rather better than a husbandman's.
" Dodds, Pilgrimage, i, pp. 63-86. For holy days see Hughes, Reformation,
i> P- 353-
70
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
(I cannot share Professor Dickens' view that the Pilgrims "should have
known that the King disliked both Lutherans and Anabaptists at
least as much as they did". This was hardly obvious in 1536.)"
Trouble at Louth began with Thomas Foster, a yeoman and
singing-man, proclaiming on Sunday, 1 October 1536, that "we shall
never follow [the cross] more" in procession; the same evening a
crowd, spurred on by rumours and by payments from the clergy,
demanded the keys of the treasure-house from the churchwarden, to
prevent the King's commissioners taking away the plate and jewels."
The East Riding rebels ascribed their initial rising to rumours from
Lincolnshire, in which the concept of a spoliation of the church was
linked with a general spoliation which would follow; trouble at
Watton began with a riot when St. Wilfred's day was not proclaimed.
Even in Westmorland the rebellion began with a protest when St.
Luke's Day was not proclaimed as a holiday."
There are, naturally, a number of motives mixed up here. As we
have seen, large numbers of Yorkshiremen continued to trust in the
sacraments of the church, and were likely, therefore, to fear drastic
changes. They were therefore prepared to join in the attack on
"heretic bishops". This was a threat for the future; and, as Bacon
observed in his essay "Of Seditions", "they are the most dangerous
discontents where the fear is greater than the feeling". And fear for
the sacraments obviously increased the determination to defend
churches and church-furnishings as symbols of the faith. More
immediately, a reduction in the number of churches would obviously
be a major inconvenience to the poorer classes, as it was in 1549 when
many chapels-of-ease were suppressed." A good deal of communal
pride was invested in the parish church and in its fittings. Louth,
significantly enough, had only in 1515 completed the building of its
church spire, an operation supervised by the elected churchwardens
and financed largely from donations and legacies." There was a
strong feeling that plate was the parishioners' own, and its
confiscation, therefore, a direct attack on the parishioners by the king.
The church-plate issue, especially in conjunction with the suppression
of the monasteries, might be seen as symptomatic of the royal policy.
" L. B. Smith, Tudor Prelates and PoHtici (Princetown, 1953), pp. 189-91;
Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 337; Dickens, "Secular and Religious Motivation",
P-58.
" L.P., xi, nos. 828, 854, 967-75; xii, i, nos. 70 (passim), 380.
" L J'., jrii, i, no. 201 (passim), 687(2).
" A. G. Dickens, "Some Popular Reactions to the Edwardian Reformation in
Yorkshire", Yorks. Arch. Journal, xxxiv (1938-9), pp. 160-1.
" The First Churchwardens' Book of Louth, 1500-24, ed. R. C. Dudding
(Oxford, 1941); cf. Dickens, English Reformation, p. 10.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
71
Thus "Captain Cobbler", a Louth shoemaker, heard that there was to
be a recoinage of gold coin, and a confiscation of church plate; if "it
was suffered in that town of Louth, all the whole country should be
likewise". John Hallom thought that the East Riding revolt was
because "the abbeys were plucked down, and for making of new laws,
which were thought to be made by my Lord Cromwell's counsel";
or, put another way, "for the pulling down of abbeys and divers
payments". In the West Riding it was reported "surely they will
pay no more money for they have it not, and for the jewels of their
church, surely they speak it openly, they will depart with none". 88
It has been necessary so far to separate out the various factors
making for revolt. But what has become increasingly apparent is the
impossibility of fixing on a single factor or group of factors and saying
that this is fundamental, in the sense of being in itself sufficient cause
of the Pilgrimage. Quite obviously the factors interact; rumours feed
on each other; a general feeling of distrust is created. The confirmation of one rumour can lead to a general conflagration. To quote
John Hallom once more, "the people saw many abbeys pulled down in
deed, they believed all the rest to be true". 80 This, indeed, may well
be the explanation of why it was the North which rose in 1536, while
the equally conservative West Country did not do so till 1549, and
Wales (where the magnates were threatened with a loss of privileges
as drastic, or even more drastic than in the North) failed to do so at
all. In Lincolnshire and the eastern half of Yorkshire (including
here the lowland areas of the West Riding) there were many smaller
monasteries; in Wales and the West Country there were very few.
In the former, then, a base for discontent existed. Fear of a wholesale
attack on church property, indeed on property in general, was stimulated by the near-simultaneous activities of the commissioners to
suppress the smaller monasteries, the subsidy commissioners, and the
commissioners enquiring into the morals of the clergy. All these
were at work in Lincolnshire in the late summer of 1536; trouble at
Louth began the day before the commissioners arrived to examine the
clergy; at Caister, on the day when the clergy and subsidy commissioners were both meeting there. For the East Riding, William
Stapleton listed a number of causes, including a large number of
economic ones (entry fines, enclosures, etc.) and the abolition of holydays, but believed that trouble was set off by a royal commissioner
" P.R.O., S.P. I/no f. 147; E 36/119 ff. 21, 27, 37; S.P. I/108 £ 11 {L.P., xi,
nos. 678, 968; xii> i, no. 201;; cf., too, the reaction in Dent, L.P., xi, no. 563(2).
" P.R.O., E 36/119 f. 54 (L.P., xii, i, no. 201, p. 90).
72
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
demanding an inventory of church goods, thus apparently confirming
the rumour that they were to be confiscated."
The activity of the commissioner is, of course, a "precipitating
factor". But to recognize this is not, I think, to diminish its
importance. Historians and sociologists prefer to concentrate on
long-term strain and then to slip hurriedly past "precipitating factors"
on the grounds they are unimportant. Dr. Woodward, for instance,
writes that "the dissolution of the lesser monasteries was not the
'cause' of the Pilgrimage of Grace, in the sense that without it there
would have been no rebellion: at the most it was the proverbial 'last
straw" which provided the rebels with a popular cause and a good
rallying cry"." But, as we have seen, social strain is most intensely
studied when there is a revolt to explain. Historians tend to neglect
its existence at other times, and then to underestimate the importance
of precipitating factors in changing a situation in which a rebellion is
possible (of which there must have been several, most of them
abortive) into an actual rebellion. The precipitating factors are surely
straightforward: in Lincolnshire, the coincidence of subsidy commissioners, the dissolution of the smaller monasteries, and the enquiry
into the clergy; in Yorkshire, the dissolution and the subsidy, the
ignoring of saints' days, and the Lincolnshire rising; in the northwest, the dissolution, the ignoring of saints' days, and the Yorkshire
rising. Without the Lincolnshire rising, it is surely probable that
conditions of strain would have lessened in the other counties, that
the rumours would gradually have been forgotten as the predicted
dire events failed to materialize.
Ecclesiastical factors, then, seem to have been a necessary element
(though obviously not the only element) in the Pilgrimage of Grace;
and ecclesiastical grievances were plainly inflammatory, precisely
because they could produce in participants a self-righteousness which
was more formidable than material interests were likely to be on their
own. Revolts, moreover, seem to need a simple objective; cohesion
seems to be possible only when men come to believe that a complex
set of grievances has a single cause, that if only that cause could be
removed, if only "noble men of the true noble blood may reign or
rule about the king, all should be well"." "If only" is the key here;
in this case, if only the king would free himself from Cromwell,
Audeley, Riche, and the heretic bishops, then the assorted grievances
" Dodds, Pilgrimage, i, pp. 89-96; L.P., xii, i, no. 392 (printed by J. C. Cox
in Trans. East Riding Anaq. Soc, x [1903], p. 82).
" Woodward, Dissolution, p. 91.
" See the illuminating analysis by N. J. Smelser, Theory of Collective
Behaviour (London, 1962), ch. v; L.P., xii, i, no. 1013, p. 458.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
73
of gentry, clergy, and commons could be met. And, in a society in
which clergy, however crude and unlearned, were by-and-large the
most articulate members, it is hardly surprising that the programme
should give priority to ecclesiastical grievances, or that the rebels
should sum up their programme in ecclesiastical slogans. Indeed,
even when the rebels turned against the interests of the churchmen
(as did those in the north-west) they forcibly expressed, with no
sense of contradiction, their devotion to the papacy and dislike of
liturgical innovation. Religion, then, provided the necessary slogans
which gave coherence to the movement.
Religion, too, was useful in legitimating rebellion. Of course, the
Pilgrims preferred to believe that they were not rebels at all; they put
forward the traditional belief that the king was really on their side,
that he would thank them for ridding him of his evil counsellors.
Henry may. be said to have encouraged this belief, by his attitude in
1525, when the forced-loan was withdrawn under popular pressure,
the king proclaiming that he had not realized how much his subjects
were being oppressed. Indeed, the fall of Wolsey (as later that of
Cromwell) is a striking example of Henry's tendency to seek scapegoats. Hence the men of Dent could believe, or at least profess to
believe, that the pulling down of churches "is not the king's deed but
the d[eed] of Crumwell, and if we had him here we would crum him
[and crum] him that he was never so Crumwed, and if [the king] were
[here] we would new crown h i m " . " But if-the king were not to
listen to the Pilgrim demands, then they would go further. Ancient
prophecies, such as the alleged prophecies of Merlin which talked of
the overthrow of the "Molewarp" (curiously identified with Henry
VIII) and the division of England into three kingdoms, of which the
North would be one, ceased to be merely a subject of alehouse
speculation, and acquired an unwonted importance as indications of
the immediate future; and hence to a certain extent as legitimation of
action designed to overthrow the king." But legitimation in terms
of the superiority of the laws of God to the laws of man was likely to
have greater effect, and it was to this that the Pilgrims appealed; hence
their rage when Archbishop Lee, either from conviction or because of
the sudden arrival of Lancaster Herald in the congregation, preached
them a politically orthodox sermon on the duty of obedience. Aske
preferred not to face the conflict of loyalties, but he was quite clear
"that if his grace had refused their petitions, that then their cause had
" A. F. Pollard, Wolsey (London, 1929), p. 146; L.P., xi, no. 841.
•• M. H. Dodds, "Political Prophecies in the Reign of Henry VIH", Modern
Language Review, xi (1916), pp. 276-84. I owe this point to Mr. K. V. Thomas.
74
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 41
been just". So, too, Captain Cobbler thought that "their purpose
was to advance themselves towards the king's highness, and to fight
against his power if he would not grant them such things as they
wrote to him for".'"
Religious factors, then, were an essential feature of the Pilgrimage;
they figured large among the causes, they served to give the movement cohesion, to bind together different classes with widely different
interests, providing slogans and scapegoats, in the last resort legitimating resistance to the king. But it can be argued that such
cohesion as the Pilgrimage possessed evaporated very quickly; that
by December 1536 the Pilgrims were prepared to accept the king's
pardon and return home; that in the New Year class division had
reasserted itself and the commons of the East Riding rose again
because they believed they had been betrayed by the gentry.
There is obviously a good deal of truth in this. Certainly early
sixteenth-century Catholicism seems very largely to have lost its
dynamism, inspiring solid piety rather than enthusiasm, acceptance
rather than action. But, as I have argued, religious zeal is a variable,
not a constant. Prolonged religious fighting could (and probably
would) have produced a vigorous, crusading Catholicism. The
failure of the Pilgrimage to reach this stage was due at least as much
to short-term, almost accidental factors, as to more profound ones.
Some of these have been stressed by Dr. Scarisbrick." The
Pilgrims, or at least their leaders, trusted the king and were tricked
into disbanding by his promises of redress. A pitched battle, unless
it had been a shattering defeat for the Pilgrims, would have strengthened their cohesion. The Pilgrimage did not develop into a succession war, which it could have done, had, for instance, a credible
alternative candidate for the throne existed. Had the divorce issue
still been a live one, or had Bishop Tunstall of Durham persisted in
his earlier opposition to Henry's assumption of the supremacy and
followed John Fisher to the block, passions might have been more
inflamed than they were. But, above all, the particular decisions
taken by a small group of men seem to be of vital importance here.
Such success as the Pilgrims had, depended on the (at best) halfhearted opposition put up by the effective representatives of government in the area. Lord Hussey and the gentry, led by the sheriff,
Sir Edward Dymmoke, in Lincoln; the earl of Northumberland and
the Council of the North, led by Lord Darcy, elsewhere. Mr. M. E.
M
L_P., xii, i, nos. i o n , 1021-2; Eng. Hist. Rev., v (1890), p. 571; P.R.O.,
S.P. I/109 f. 2a (LJ>., 3d, no. 828).
" Henry VIII, pp. 341-8.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE RECONSIDERED
75
James has noted how important for the king's cause was the continued
loyalty of the earl of Cumberland; and how important, too, was the
fact that the earl's heir held Carlisle, and his half-brother held
Berwick, for the king." Moreover, if the earl of Northumberland
had been able or willing to play a less ambiguous rdle, the rebels'
cohesion would have been greater. Most important of all was the
personality of a handful of peers who commanded the royal army.
The earl of Derby was an opponent of Cromwell, and was expected
by the Pilgrims to join them. The earl of Shrewsbury was a man of
definite conservative opinions, although too loyal or too cautious to
rebel and, indeed, distinguished by his promptness in raising troops to
crush the rebels. Above all, the duke of Norfolk, recalled from semidisgrace to lead the royal army, many of them his own East Anglian
tenants, sympathized with a large part of the rebels' demands, and
especially with the hatred of Cromwell and the heretic bishops.
Professor Dickens argues that the adhesion of Norfolk and Shrewsbury to the king shows that the Pilgrimage "was not a struggle between
Catholics and Protestants"." In the event, of course, it was not.
But the Pilgrims obviously intended that it should be, and this is
surely the point at issue. Their aims were directed against Protestants in the government; it was against that ill-perceived evil summed
up in their minds by the parrot-cry Cromwell that they had taken up
arms, not against Norfolk. They obviously had no means of telling
in advance that it would be Norfolk who would lead an army against
them. Norfolk's decision to oppose them was surely a matter of
expediency and calculation. He evidently preferred to fight Cromwell by intrigue (and to gain many of the Pilgrims' points in 1540)
rather than by force of arms, putting up meanwhile with insult and
humiliation. Possibly, too, he looked forward to a grateful king
establishing him as the leading magnate in the North on the ruins of
the Perries, a hope fostered in the Howard family since 1489.70 Had
Norfolk possessed a less calculating temperament, the temptation to
join the rebels would surely have been overwhelming. In these
circumstances Henry would probably not have lost his throne; but
he might have found it expedient to anticipate the Catholic reaction
which set in in 1539.
" "Earl of Cumberland", p. 68.
"Diet. Nat. Biog. (sub Edward Stanley and George Talbot); Dodds,
Pilgrimage, i, p. 116. For Norfolk's character, see G. R. Elton, "Thomas
Cromwell's Decline and Fall", Cambridge Historical Jl., x (1950-2), pp. 150-85;
Dickens, Thomas Cromwell, p. 99; "Secular and Religious Motivation , p. 63.
'• See M. E. James, "The Fourth Duke of Norfolk and the North", Northern
History, ii (1967), pp. 150-2: a review of N. J. Williams, Thomas Howard,
Fourth Duke of Norfolk (London, 1964).
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PAST AND PRESENT
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Beyond all these hypotheses lurks an even larger one. What would
have been the attitude of the rest of the country had the Pilgrims
pressed on, rather than dispersing in December 1536 ? As we have
seen, many of the factors predisposing towards revolt were more
pronounced in the north, including, in Professor Jordan's analysis,
catholic piety — though there is evidence that belief in prayers for the
dead was more widespread, even in London, than Jordan allows.71
Nevertheless, there seems to have been a good deal of sympathy for
the rebels. There were murmurs in Kent, which, after all, had
already seen large-scale riots against the dissolution of certain monasteries by Wolsey in 1525. Walsingham was a centre of considerable
disturbance; had the duke of Norfolk wished to swing East Anglia
behind the Pilgrims, he might well have done so. The government
thought that Wales was likely to revolt, and postponed the bringing
into operation of the Act of Union, which was designed to reduce
drastically the privileges of the Marcher lords. Above all, it is easy
to overlook the degree to which 1549 was to demonstrate popular
ecclesiastical conservatism, not only in the West Country, but in such
counties as Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Hampshire." All
in all, the elements making for change, the degree of anti-clericalism,
the survival of Lollards and so on, have been commonly over-stressed,
in order to explain how the Henrician Reformation was possible. I
am not denying that had a fervent Catholicism been widespread, had
more people been prepared to risk then- lives for their faith, Henry's
path would have been impossible. But it is important, too, to stress
how far, given the right circumstances, a not very heroic piety might
have been transformed into a much more dangerous enthusiasm; and
to what extent the chance of such a transformation depended on such
incalculables as the death of Queen Catherine or the temperament of
the duke of Norfolk. It was to the accident of political circumstances,
not to any peculiar lukewarmness of religious feeling, that England
owed its immunity from religious war in the sixteenth century.
Wadham College, Oxford
71
C. S. L. Daoies
J. A. F. Thomson, "Piety and Charity in Late Medieval London", Jl. of
Eccles. Hist., xvi (1965), pp. 178-95.
" See the references given in Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 341; cf. also Dodds,
Pilgrimage, i, pp. 324, 326; ii,pp. 167-8, 174-55 P.R.O., S.P. I/109 f. 44 (L.P.,
xi, no. 841); T. H. Swales, "The Opposition to the Suppression of the Norfolk
Monasteries", Norfolk Archaeology, xxriii (1962-5), pp. 254-65; G. Baskerville,
EngUsh Monks and the Dissolution of the Monasteries (London, 1937), pp. 156-7;
R. Robinson, "Early Tudor Policy towards Wales", pt. iii, Bull, of the Board of
Celtic Studies, xxi (1966), p. 349. For 1549, see A. Vere Woodman, "The
Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Rising of 1549", Oxoniensia, m i (1957),
pp. 78-84; and P.R.O., S.P. 10/8, no. 41, quoted in part by E. F. Gay, in Trans.
Roy. Hist. Soc, new ser., xviii (1904), pp. 203-4.