The Pilgrimage of Grace

These acts roused the nobles of the north and led to a very remarkable uprising that had noteworthy consequences. The Pilgrimage of Grace was at bottom a revolution of the northern counties, where a spirit of independence and a devotion to the old forms and ceremonies still existed, and where rugged border methods still prevailed. The nobles of the north hated the low-born varlet," Cromwell ; the middle classes there were aroused by the acts of parliament and by the attack on the monasteries; the common people greeted sullenly the economic changes resulting from the enclosing of lands; while all in those northern regions resented the religious innovations of the south. In October the men of Lincolnshire rose, led by several hundred vicars and priests bearing a banner upon which was a plough, a chalice and host, the five wounds of Christ, and a horn. But this revolt broke down through internal dissensions. Later in the month, under Robert Aske, a more formidable uprising took place in Yorkshire. The duke of Norfolk compromised with the rebels, promising pardon and a redress of grievances. But new revolts, in February, 1537, gave the king, who never intended to keep his promises, the opportunity of wreaking a ferocious vengeance. "You must cause such dreadful executions upon a good number of the inhabitants," he wrote to Norfolk, "hanging them on trees, quartering them, and setting their heads and quarters in every town, as shall be a fearful warning." Seventy-four were executed, including Aske, Lord Darcy, and all the abbots of the greatest monastic establishments of the north.

The importance of this event lies not only in its effect on the supporters of the papacy, but in the fact that it prepared the way for the final incorporation of these counties Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, and York into England. Henry II had prevented them from becoming a part of Scotland, but since his time they had been outside the regular administration, and under the control of special officers and councils. They had remained a lawless frontier, where feudal barons were privileged and powerful, and depredations and petty wars were of frequent occurrence. Henry VIII, though he had put down this dangerous rebellion, did not himself incorporate the counties, but made permanent and powerful the special council system that had prevailed there for a century. This council, which he reorganized as the Council of the North, and to which he gave extensive powers, had jurisdiction until its abolition in 1641.

Dissolution of the Monasteries

Though the rebellion in the north for the moment checked Henry's attacks on the monasteries, it probably in the end rendered the suppression of them more complete. As early as 1534 Cromwell had begun to break up the houses of the friars, declaring that they were centres of hostility to the king. The next year Houghton, prior of Charterhouse in London, was hanged with others, at Tyburn, for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, and in 1539 Charterhouse itself was broken up.

These acts were merely preliminary to a general attack on the monasteries, which had already been planned. They were charged with being useless organizations, centres of idleness and corruption, of licentious and frivolous life; but the evidence is far from sufficient to prove a condition worse than had been the case two centuries before. Archbishop Warham had made an investigation in 1511 and had found practically no evidence of immorality. Useless they may have been, and in decay they undoubtedly were. But these were not the reasons influencing Cromwell and the king. The monasteries possessed immense estates of land, the result of ancient gifts. These gifts had, however, greatly fallen off in the preceding century owing to diversion of benefactions to hospitals and universities, and many of the monasteries had become impoverished. In the south the people hated the monastic organizations ; though in the north, as we have already seen, they still deemed them, as they doubtless were, centres of refuge and charity.