Having provided a title of the Pilgrimage of Grace I provided you with the Lincolnshire Rising as a preliminary and now will round it all off with Bigod’s Revolt – demonstrating that the rebels, or pilgrims as they preferred to be known, definitely didn’t do joined up.
In December 1536 the Duke of Suffolk agreed terms with the Pilgrims and Henry pardoned them. He didn’t really have much choice. His army was too small and besides which Suffolk was rather busy restoring order in Lincolnshire. Aske’s error lay in taking Henry’s word that they were free to go and that he would address their grievances. In reality the king had been on the receiving end of a nasty shock. There may have been as many as 50,000 rebels across the north of England and it didn’t help Henry that the gentry were involved. Their organisational skills and use of the regional wapentake system meant that it was harder for the royal authorities to put the rebellion down. It was perhaps only because the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire rebellions weren’t co-ordinated that matters hadn’t taken a turn for the worse – that and of course, the rebels didn’t want to overthrow the king, they just wanted him to change his mind about getting rid of Catholicism and the monasteries.
Henry invited Aske to spend Christmas with him at Greenwich and the lawyer had complained to the king about Thomas Cromwell little realising that the minister was acting on the king’s orders.
SIr Francis Bigod, initially in favour of reform and one of Thomas Cromwell’s commissioners tasked with looking at the monasteries before he had a change of heart, disagreed with Robert Aske. He didn’t believe that the king would keep his word. His view was corroborated by the evidence of a military build up at Hull. On 16 January 1537, Bigod renewed the rebellion. He was supported by men who had grievances with their landlords putting up the rent. This was a result of the closure of monasteries. Men purchased land but needed to get their money back – putting up the rent was one way of doing that. Bigod planned to attack Hull and to capture Scarborough Castle.
At the end of January the Duke of Norfolk declared martial law – rebels could be hanged without trial. On 1 February 74 rebels were hanged in Westmorland. Thee executions continued even though the Duke of Norfolk expressed pity for the rebels to Cromwell. He understood that land enclosure and rent rises had as much to do with the rising as rebelling against the king.
Aske returned to Yorkshire and gathered his men intending to defeat Bigod. His intention was to join up with the Duke of Norfolk’s army but so far as the king was concerned the agreement made in December was off because Bigod’s revolt, in his eyes was an extension of the Pilgrimage of Grace. When Norfolk arrived at Beverley, most of Aske’s men were captured.
Francis Bigod was found hiding with two servants in Cumbria. He was taken to Carlisle Castle before being sent to London where he was executed on 2 June 1537. Aske, Thomas Percy and Lord Darcy were also arrested as were other members of the gentry, along with six abbots including the Abbot of Jervaulx who was a very unwilling participant in the Pilgrimage of Grace. They were all executed as were six abbots. Aske was executed on 12 July 1537 at York. Perhaps they were marginally more fortunate than Margaret Bulmer whose husband John was one of the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace. A priest called John Watts testified as to her involvement and she was promptly tried, found guilty of treason and burned at Smithfield. Women found guilty of treason were burned rather than being hanged because apparently it preserved their decency. It was only in 1790 that the Treason Act abolished the penalty of burning for high treason.
In 1536 an act was passed closing the lesser monasteries worth less than £200 per year. By September there were three groups of commissioners in Lincolnshire i)commissioners to dissolve the monasteries, ii) commissioners to collect a subsidy and iii) commissioners to investigate the fitness of the clergy for their jobs. There were lots of rumours about church plate being stolen, that taxes were to be levied on all horned cattle, that there would be new taxes for baptisms, marriages and burials…there were other even wilder rumours. An atmosphere of suspicion and panic began to brew. It didn’t help that the monasteries were the organisations which provided alms and medical care to the poorest members of society. The gentry and northern nobility had their own grievances. Thomas Cromwell, the king’s chief minister was busy reducing the power of landowners. Inflation continued to rise. Basically the north was not a happy place and men had just about had enough of their king playing with their long established beliefs.
The Lincolnshire Rising turns into the Pilgrimage of Grace.
1 October 1536 – Thomas Kendall, Vicar of St. James’ Church, Louth, preached a sermon which made his listeners believe that the church, of which they were very proud because of its spire, and their beliefs were in danger.
2 October 1536 – The ordinary people of Louth, led by shoemaker Nicholas Melton (Captain Cobbler), seized John Heneage, the Bishop of Lincoln’s registrar, as he tried to read out Thomas Cromwell’s commission to the townspeople. His papers were ripped from his hands and burned.
3 October 1536 – 3,000 men marched from Louth to Caistor and seized the King’s subsidy commissioners (remember a subsidy is a tax that doesn’t conform to the accepted fifteenths and tenths).
4 October 1536 – Trouble in Horncastle. Thomas Wulcey (or Wolsey), one of Cromwell’s men, and Dr Raynes, the chancellor of the Bishop of Lincoln were murdered by the rebels. Articles of complaint were drawn up by the gentry, Sheriff Edward Dymmoke and his brother, and then presented them to the gathered crowd. The rising until then was inspired by the commons but now the gentry took their place as captains of the ordinary people. They objected to the dissolution of the religious houses, the grant to the king of the tenths and first-fruits of spiritual benefices ( a clerical tax that usually went to Rome), the rise of Thomas Cromwell and Richard Rich onto the King’s Council and the promotion of archbishops and bishops who they felt “subverted the faith of Christ”. The rebels then decided to march to Lincoln Cathedral. In north Lincolnshire the gentry called out the wapentakes for which they were responsible – the administrative system was turned against the king.
7 October 1536 – Rebels from Horncastle, Louth and other Lincolnshire towns met at Lincoln Cathedral. There were between 10,000 and 20,000 men. Peers loyal to the king discovered that their tenants would not join forces against the rebels. The clergy of Lincolnshire, in particular Barlings and Kirkstead, also did did their part to rouse the commons. Without the gentry and the clergy, the king was not able to use the administrative system to put down the rebellion locally.
8 October 1536 – Lawyer Robert Aske roused the people of Beverley in Yorkshire to the same cause as the Lincolnshire rebels – calling on them to maintain the ‘Holy Church’.
9 October 1536 – The rebels in Lincoln sent their petition of grievances to the King, and also sent messengers into Yorkshire. The rebellion began to spread throughout Yorkshire.
10 October 1536 – Robert Aske, a lawyer, was named the leader of the rebels in West Yorkshire, which now joined in with the uprising.
11 October 1536 – The King’s herald arrived at Lincoln with the King’s reply. He wasn’t amused and told them to go home unless they wanted to be found guilty of treason. If they didn’t he would send an army commanded by the Duke of Suffolk. Many of the rebels went home – they didn’t fancy being hanged, drawn and quartered.
13 October 1536 – Lord Darcy reported that the whole of Yorkshire was in rebellion and the following day rebels gathered in York.
15 October 1536 – Henry VIII wrote to his commanders, the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Duke of Suffolk with orders and also sent another message to the rebels in Lincolnshire promising to show them mercy if they left their weapons and went home.
19 October 1536 – Henry VIII wrote to the Duke of Suffolk ordering him to destroy Louth. He also wrote to the Earl of Derby, giving him instructions for the Abbey of Salley in Lancashire – which was to be recaptured, the rebellion put down and all the traitors executed including the abbot and the monks.
20 October 1536 – Lord Darcy handed Pontefract Castle to the rebels, or pilgrims as they were known. The castle’s inhabitants – which included Lord Darcy and Edmund Lee, Archbishop of York swore the rebel oath.
21 October 1536 – Robert Aske refused to allow the Lancaster Herald at Pontefract Castle read out the proclamation explaining that the Lincolnshire rebels had submitted. Instead, Aske announced that the rebels would march on London.
25 October 1536 – Four chaplains of Poverty were appointed by the Pilgrimage of Grace rebels to instruct them in the true Catholic faith. A mass, known as the Captains’ Mass was performed at Penrith Church and again on the following day.
26 October 1536 – The rebels stopped near Doncaster, where they met troops commanded by the Duke of Norfolk. There were about 50,000 pilgrims by then while the duke only had about 8,000 men. But Robert Aske who always declared his loyalty to the Crown preferred to negotiate. He wanted to make it clear that they did not object to the king but they did object to the changes he was making to religion.
November 1536 – Norfolk promised, on behalf of Henry VIII that the people’s demands would be met and that they would be pardoned. Aske then dismissed his troops.
3rd December 1536 – A proclamation was made to the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace offering them a pardon. They hurried home to celebrate Christmas – little realising that the king had no intention of keeping his word and that someone had kept a list of all the gentry involved with the pilgrimage, whether they joined willingly or not….
There’s 2 more parts to the Pilgrimage of Grace – but to get you thinking, these are the kinds of question that sixteen year olds are being asked for their history exam where a working knowledge of the Pilgrimage of Grace is useful:
Have ideas, such as equality and democracy, been the main reason for protest in Britain? Explain your answer with reference to ideas and other factors. Use a range of examples from across your study of Power and the people: c1170 to the present day. (16 marks)
Has religion been the main factor in causing protest in Britain since Medieval times? Explain your answer with reference to religion and other factors. Use a range of examples from across your study of Britain: Power and the People: c1170 to the present day. (16 marks)
And for those of you who would like to know more about The Pilgrimage of Grace – click on the picture to open a new tab.
Henry VII’s hated tax collectors – Empson and Dudley. The Duke of Rutland Collection
Society remained unequal even though feudalism was no more. Rebellion against the Tudors was not about class or fairness, it was, after the Wars of the Roses, about belief and, of course, money! Equality and democracy were not always reasons to protest.
Kings should only tax their subjects to meet the needs of war or other exceptional circumstances. In 1483 an act of parliament made non-parliamentary taxation illegal. In medieval times this was eventually worked out as a fixed about known as fifteenths and tenths and was a valuation made upon a whole communities. The Tudors came up with the idea of assessing individuals. These taxes were known as subsidies and were arbitrary. They were levied in 1489, 1497 and 1536. Opposition to the subsidies in Parliament led to heated arguments and to outbreaks of violence in the wider realm. Tax collectors were not popular men. Between 1485-1547 there were 11 recorded cases of tax collectors being assaulted and more than 100 occasions when goods and property seized by the tax collector was forcibly taken back. On occasion resistance to taxation resulted in the challenge to royal authority turning into rebellion.
In April 1489 the 4th Earl of Northumberland tried to collect a subsidy that had been granted to Henry VII by Parliament so that he could support Brittany against the French. Northumberland confronted a gathering near Thirsk and was promptly assassinated. He was the only person to be killed during the uprising. Polydore Virgil and the Great Chronicle of London suggested that Northumberland was killed by men sympathetic to the Yorkist cause. Although the Percy family was traditionally Lancastrian in sympathy, the 4th earl was a teenage in 1461 at the Battle of Towton and was eventually rehabilitated by Edward IV who he served in various roles. In 1485 he was at the Battle of Bosworth in charge of the reserves. His failure to enter the fray was regarded as extremely treacherous by the Yorksist supporters of Richard III and even today historians regard him as being a supporter of Henry VII rather than the man whose colours he wore. Vergil and the writer of the Great Chronicle of London thought much the same. In either case Northumberland was either killed because of the loyalty of the north to the memory of Richard or because Henry wished to impose his will on the north – and Northumberland paid the price for forcing it upon the men of Yorkshire.
The rebellion of 1497 was perhaps more serious. Taxation became a major issue in Cornwall where Henry was levying a subsidy to raise an army to deal with the Yorkist pretender Perkin Warbeck (obviously if you’re a Yorkist then he wasn’t a pretender but this isn’t the time or the place for that discussion). Parliament granted the king two fifteenths and tenths and a subsidy equating to £120,000 which was huge. In addition wealthier members of society found themselves subject to a forced loan. The Cornish were already fairly irritated by regulations imposed on the tin mining industry and the loss of their privileges which were an important part of the local economy.
Recognising that blaming the king would be treason the agitators blamed the king’s advisors Cardinal Morton and Reginald Bray. They marched to London to present their grievances to the government and to demand an end to the taxation. They were led by a blacksmith and a lawyer. As well as gentry, and tin miners there were men from all the working class ranks of society and by the clergy. At Wells in Somerset they even gained the support of Lord Audley – who was fairly cash strapped at the time. In a way it made the rebellion more alarming because it crossed the social hierarchy.
By the 13 June 15,000 protesters were at Guildford. The army that Henry intended to send to Scotland had to be diverted south. On 16 June the rebel army arrived at Blackheath causing panic in London but the support wasn’t as widespread as many of the protesters hoped. Plus no one wanted to be a rebel – the consequences were unpleasant. A large number of men deserted, especially when they heard that Henry’s army had swelled from 8,000 to 25,000 – making it one of the largest armies ever gathered by a king of England.
The Battle of Blackheath took place on 17 June 1497 at the bridge at Deptford Strand. Lord Daubeney, the king’s commander crossed the bridge, was captured by the Cornish but quickly rescued. The Cornish didn’t have any reserves or any artillery. They were soon defeated. The leaders of the rebellion, including Lord Audley, were hanged, drawn and quartered. Originally the king thought he would send the butchered body parts to Cornwall as a warning but decided that it wouldn’t be wise – he was right. Instead he fined everyone involved with the rebellion – he was systematic and severe – unsurprisingly the Cornish promptly rebelled again, still in 1497, and joined forces with Perkins Warbeck who landed in Cornwall that September.
Polydore Vergil, who was a Tudor historian, recorded that resistance to Tudor taxation did not always take the form of violence. When Cardinal Wolsey tried to raise funds for Henry VIII’s French campaigns between 1513 and 1525 many men simply shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn’t afford the payments. The Amicable Grant of 1525 was aimed specifically at the clergy but Wolsey found that many abbots simply claimed not to have the money or that the economy was so bad that even if they sold goods they would be unable to afford what the king wanted. At Lavenham in Suffolk the subsidy was largely paid by wealthy clothiers but they owned less than 3% of the property and many of the adult males of the area were out of work. As a consequence some 4,000 men from all walks of life banded together to protest – the tax collectors, on this occasion the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, were hesitant to stir the anger of the protesters and had some sympathy with their difficulties. Public opinion wa becoming more vocal and it meant that the first two Tudor kings were forced to recognise that the Crown rested on partnership with the men who paid tax. Popular opinion was becoming more important than ever before.
For a comprehensive overview of Tudor Rebellions click on the image to open the link.
Today I’m offering a warm welcome to Paul, the son of Michael Hodgetts who wrote Secret Hiding Places first published in 1989. Given my views about the religious beliefs of the original designer of the Unstitched Coif project from 2023, this re-publication seems serendipitous as does the idea of hiding in plain sight.
The English Reformation was given official approval because King Henry VIII wished to divorce his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Inevitably, Henry’s marital disharmony led to the mid Tudor crisis of which religion was a part and to difficulties for those of his daughter, Elizabeth I’s, subjects who chose to remain Catholic. So, over to Paul for a fascinating guest post.
_____________________________________
Priest-holes are a familiar feature of the English country house. Some are on show to the public – King Charles II’s hide at Boscobel has been a tourist attraction for nearly 300 years – and at Harvington Hall in Worcestershire children and small adults can squeeze into one of the hides. But while most people are aware that they were built to shelter Catholic priests at the end of the sixteenth century, and the name of Nicholas Owen has become well known, very few realise quite how many of these strange spaces there originally were or know of the carefully planned strategy behind them.
From almost the start of the reign of Elizabeth I, Catholic services were supressed and fines could be imposed for non-attendance at the Parish Church, but for the first fifteen years or so the laws were not enforced very strictly. The early 1570s saw a tightening, with searches and arrests becoming more frequent: the first record of a purpose-built hide is in 1574 and in 1577 the first execution took place of an overseas-trained priest. The Jesuits arrived in 1580 but the real turning point was after 1585, when a new law made, not only the priests, but also their hosts, liable to execution. A year later, the government was winning the war: fewer than one-third of the 300 priests who had returned from abroad over the previous twelve years were still at work and the tempo of arrests and executions was increasing.
But in July 1586 at a week-long conference organised by the only three Jesuits then at liberty (William Weston, Henry Garnet and Robert Southwell) and attended by other non-Jesuit priests and some young noblemen, a new strategy was born. Instead of priests moving around constantly as they had previously been doing, each would now have a base of operations in a country house and a network of sympathisers would be set up to smuggle incoming priests to holding points until a suitable base could be found for them. Because the priests would be henceforth static, these houses also had to be equipped with hides. Most such houses would only need a single hide, but the holding points would need more, to be able to conceal larger numbers of priests. Weston was arrested two weeks later and spent the next seventeen years in prison, but Garnet and Southwell put the scheme into effect and it is not an exaggeration to say that Catholicism in England and Wales would not otherwise have survived. Southwell, who had relatives all over the Sussex and Hampshire aristocracy, created the ‘underground railroad’ whilst Garnet took into his service a carpenter from Oxford called Nicholas Owen with a very particular set of skills – the ability to create hidden spaces within the fabric of buildings.
In this private house, the two plaster panels and the sturdy upright beam are a secret door into a large hide. The house was owned by two of the Gunpowder Plotters and the hide may have been built by Nicholas Owen.
All three eventually met grisly deaths: Southwell was arrested in 1591 and executed four years later and Owen and Garnet were arrested in the crackdown that followed Gunpowder Plot. Owen was tortured to death in the Tower of London without revealing any of his hides and Garnet was hanged, drawn and quartered. But the network they had set up survived and grew. By 1610 there were 400 priests at work in England and Wales and the danger of extinction had passed. Eventually, this network sustained Charles II after the Battle of Worcester and took him safely to exile in France.
Secret Hiding Places, first published in 1989, uses eyewitness documents and the physical evidence of the buildings themselves to tell the story of how Owen and others created enough safe hides to enable the Catholic mission to grow to by 1610 and details many searches, narrow escapes, arrests and executions. The book was originally written by Michael Hodgetts, leading Catholic historian and undisputed authority on priest holes. Following his death in 2022, his family have reissued the book and advances in printing technology have enabled, for the first time, full colour illustrations to show these fascinating spaces in unprecedented detail and the new edition has 250 photographs of the hides and their houses.
One of the first priests to be arrested and executed, Edmund Campion, was captured because the searchers saw light shining out of his hide through cracks in the panelling. The door to this hide, at Ripley Castle in Yorkshire, has the remains of cloth that was glued along the inside of the hinge line to prevent that problem.
Amazon Associate
This hide, at Towneley Hall in Burnley is enormous – big enough to stand up and walk around in, as shown by the two members of Hall staff. The floor is of sound-deadening clay. This house has a list dating from around 1710 listing no fewer than eleven hides that then existed.
The book covers all the famous houses and hides but here are some pictures of places that are less well known and that the public cannot see. The book is available on Amazon at
Monday afternoon and I miss my Zoom class – it’s my own fault of course as I should have organised advertising and plotted where the block of classes would fit. Easter’s early this year so I’m working out the dates and thinking how best to fit things in.
Today’s post is slightly left field but the duke did have his part to play in the education of Henry Tudor while he was in exile. Francis was Duke of Brittany from 1458 to his death. His policies were aimed at maintaining independence from France which was ruled by Louis XI of France and, from 1483, King Charles VIII. Despite his best efforts to play the French and the English off against one another, he was forced, in 1488, to sign a treaty becoming a vassal of the French and after his death his heiress, Anne, married King Charles VIII.
The duke became the protector of Henry and Jasper Tudor from 1471 to 1485 despite attempts by both Edward IV and Richard III to negotiate their return to England. Francis treated his guests well but in reality, they were hostages used as a diplomatic tool by the duke to hold out for better terms against Louis, who was Jasper’s cousin and wanted control of the Tudors himself. In 1484, when the duke was unwell, his treasurer Pierre Landais came to an agreement with Richard III. Fortunately for the Tudors, Jasper and Henry were able to make a daring escape. When he recovered from his illness, Francis paid the expenses of the Lancastrian supporters of Henry Tudor who remained in Brittany to travel to France where Henry and Jasper had fled before Landais could send them back to Richard.
Buckley was from Lilleshall in Shropshire. He was probably a pupil at the abbey there before being sent to Eton College. At about the age of 18-years he was admitted to King’s College, Cambridge where he took up a scholarship for talented pupils. In 1541 he received his degree and four years later became a Master. His studies resulted in the publication of mathematical textbooks which led to him being employed to teach the subject to King Edward VI and his companions for three years from 1544 to 1548.
Buckley wrote Arithmetica Memorativa, in rhyme, to help pupils remember the laws of mathematics. In addition, he created a short introduction to mathematics which contained an explanation of Euclid’s De Arte Geometria. While he taught at King’s he also distributed copies of Euclid to his students at his own expense. His interests were not limited to mathematics; he produced a treatise of astronomical ring dials, in 1546, which he dedicated to Elizabeth who was 11-years-old at the time. He also worked with Thomas Gemini, the Flemish instrument maker who settled in London. The instruments were etched with scales representing hours, dates and points on the zodiac. He is associated with an astronomical quadrant made for the king and another which he bequeathed to John Cheke. Ownership of scientific instruments, his use of practical guides and his desire for accuracy marked him as a Renaissance scholar.
In 1548, by which time Cheke was provost of King’s College, Buckley returned to Cambridge to teach arithmetic and geometry. On 4 January, 1549 King Edward appointed him to the prebendary of Lichfield but Buckley resigned the post soon afterwards. In 1550, the king, who admired the mathematician, gave him the post of tutor at Greenwich to the royal henchmen, or pages, with an annual pension of £40. Buckley made his will in July 1551 and is thought to have died the following year, a relatively young man. His will reflected that he was a reformer. He left no money or property to the church and left no requests that prayers might be said for the benefit of his soul.[i]
Yes – I know it’s Tuesday! let’s just say that the wifi and I agreed to disagree.
I am delighted to welcome Helene Harrison, the TudorBlogger, to the History jar to talk about her book. If you’re a fan of the Tudors in both fiction and non-fiction and haven’t yet found her blog, I urge your to take a digital stroll in her direction! I did wonder which conspiracy Helene would post about and was very pleasantly surprised when I opened up her email to discover the Babington Plot – I’d never thought about having a favourite rebellion but I’d have to say, now she’s said it – Babington is right up there, mainly I think because of childhood memories of a BBC serialisation of A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley. I would have to say I have a sneaking regard for the Northern Rebellion of 1569 mainly because quite a lot of the action takes place on the borders between England and Scotland – and as those of you who know me are aware, anything hinting of border reivers makes me very happy.
And now over to Helene.
When I was invited to write something for The History Jar, it took me a while to decide what to write about – my first book is entitled ‘Elizabethan Rebellions: Conspiracy, Intrigue and Treason’ and I wondered whether to write about a popular rebellion, or a lesser known one, but in the end, I’ve decided to write about my favourite of the Elizabethan rebellions: the Babington Plot of 1586. There is so much to it, and I discovered a lot in the research.
The Babington Plot of 1586 was a key plot in Elizabeth I’s reign, as it resulted in the execution of Mary Queen of Scots the following year. But it also demonstrated many of the things that our secret services traditionally are believed to have used and valued, including espionage, double agents, and codes and ciphers. Elizabeth’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Secretary of State, William Cecil, Baron Burghley, were critical figures who effectively highjacked a plot in its very early stages and turned it to their own advantage – to condemn Mary for treason and stop her being a threat to Elizabeth.
Mary Queen of Scots had been in England since she had fled from Scotland in 1568 after her forced abdication in 1567. She had been shunted between various residences in England, never allowing to meet her cousin, Elizabeth I. She had hoped that Elizabeth would provide her with an army to retake the Scottish throne from her son, James VI, who was governed by a Regency in his infancy. Mary became desperate when it was obvious that she wasn’t going to get any help from Elizabeth and that the queen just intended to keep her in captivity, not really knowing quite what to do with her.
The plot gets its name from Anthony Babington, who was raised in a Catholic family, and had previously worked for Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, who was Mary Queen of Scots’s gaoler. There were even rumours that Shrewsbury was having an affair with Mary; his wife, Bess of Hardwick, is certainly said to have believed it. It is probably while working for Shrewsbury that Babington first encountered Mary and became her supporter. Many of these young Catholic gentlemen that Babington gathered around him saw Mary almost as a damsel in distress who needed to be rescued. It was this which drew them together in their decision to assassinate Elizabeth I and replace her on the throne with Mary Queen of Scots.
Mary’s communications were cut off when she was moved to Chartley in the charge of the much stricter Amyas Paulet. When Mary was approached by Gilbert Gifford, who told her he could reopen her lines of communications securely, she jumped at the chance! Walsingham had planned well, hoping that cutting Mary’s lines of communication completely and then reintroducing some hope for word from the outside world, would force her into making a mistake. It worked. The plan was for any letter Mary wrote to be put in a waterproof pouch and inserted into a cask used to delivered ale to the house. The brewer would then remove the letter and give it to Gifford who would take the letter to the plotters in London. It would also work in reverse for Mary to receive letters.
However, what Mary didn’t know was that Gilbert Gifford was a double agent working for Francis Walsingham. The brewer was also in Walsingham’s pay as well as Mary’s. Any letters that Gifford couriered would go via Walsingham and his codebreaker, Thomas Phelippes. Walsingham was aware of the Babington Plot almost from the beginning, using it to attempt to implicate Mary Queen of Scots in treasonous activity. The letters would all be written in cipher, but Phelippes cracked the cipher, it seems fairly easily, and so could read all of the letters going between Mary and the plotters. Neither the plotters nor Mary realised that their cipher had been broken and their plans revealed. The plot never had a chance of succeeding.
Babington wrote to Mary at Chartley asking her to consent to the killing of Elizabeth I, her own rescue, and her replacing Elizabeth on the English throne. Mary made a fatal mistake and wrote back, consenting to Elizabeth’s assassination, and asking the six men to go about their work. When the codebreaker, Phelippes, received Mary’s letter he drew a small gallows on the bottom of the deciphered letter before sending it to Walsingham. Mary had condemned herself, even though the plan never really got off the ground. Phelippes also added a postscript to the original letter before sending it on to its destination, asking for the names of the men who would carry out the regicide.
Mary was arrested when out riding at Chartley, and her rooms were searched. Anthony Babington was discovered hiding in a tree in St John’s Wood. Legend says that the plotters commissioned a painting of them together and that is how they were identified and captured. The plotters were executed in two batches, having been found guilty of treason. The first batch, including Babington himself, were hung, drawn, and quartered. Elizabeth wouldn’t allow any mercy. However, there was a public outcry, so the second batch were allowed to hang until dead before being disembowelled and quartered.
Mary Queen of Scots was tried in the great hall at Fotheringhay Castle in October 1586, where statements from her own secretaries were read out, and Walsingham presented the evidence of the letters and the cipher. Babington had signed a copy of the cipher to confirm that this was in fact the cipher used. Mary was found guilty of treason at a council session at Westminster and condemned to death. Elizabeth I initially refused to sign the death warrant, but signed it several times and destroyed it, before finally signing it and entrusting it to her secretary, William Davison. Davison took it straight to the privy council who sealed it and sent it to Fotheringhay Castle without further consultation with the queen.
Mary Queen of Scots was executed in the great hall at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587. She died wearing red, the colour of martyrdom. The executioner, Bull, missed the neck with the first stroke and hit the back of the head. The second stroke hit the neck leaving only a few sinews attached which were quickly severed. The executioner held up the head, but it fell, leaving Bull holding only a wig. Mary’s dog was found hiding in her skirts, covered in his mistress’s blood. The dog was cleaned up but pined away shortly after Mary’s death.
Peterborough Cathedral was Mary’s initial place of burial, before her removal from there to be buried at Westminster Abbey when her son, James VI of Scotland, became James I of England. Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I are now closer in death than they ever were in life.
Author Bio
Helene Harrison MA MSc BA (Hons) studied at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, achieving both a BA and an MA in History before going on to complete an MSc in Library Management. Her passion for Tudor history started when studying for A Levels and completing a module on Tudor rebellions. Her Masters dissertation focused on portrayals of Anne Boleyn through the centuries, from contemporary letters to modern TV and film adaptations. Now she writes two blogs, one Tudor history and one book-related, and loves visiting royal palaces and snuggling up with a book or embroidery project.
Book Blurb & Links
Elizabeth I. Tudor, Queen, Protestant.
Throughout her reign, Elizabeth I had to deal with many rebellions which aimed to undermine her rule and overthrow her. Led in the main by those who wanted religious freedom and to reap the rewards of power, each one was thwarted but left an indelible mark on Queen Elizabeth and her governance of England. Learning from earlier Tudor rebellions under Elizabeth’s grandfather, father, and siblings, they were dealt with mercilessly by spymaster Francis Walsingham who pushed for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots due to her involvement, and who created one of the first government spy networks in England.
Espionage, spying, and hidden ciphers would demonstrate the lengths Mary was willing to go to gain her freedom and how far Elizabeth’s advisors would go to stop her and protect their Virgin Queen. Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots were rival queens on the same island, pushed together due to religious intolerance and political instability, which created the perfect conditions for revolt, where power struggles would continue even after Mary’s death. The Elizabethan period is most often described as a Golden Age; Elizabeth I had the knowledge and insight to deal with cases of conspiracy, intrigue, and treason, and perpetuate her own myth of Gloriana.
Firstly, a very happy new year to everyone who enjoys the History Jar blog and thank you for your continued support. 2023 was something of a quiet year although the page underwent something of an overhaul towards the end of the year. I have further plans for 2024, although I am currently aware of a looming deadline for my fifth book with Pen and Sword! I have offered up the occasional ‘on this day in the past’ but this year it will make a more regular appearance.
On this day Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther whose objections to some of the more corrupt practices of the Catholic Church at the time led to the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Luther’s 95 theses were nailed to the cathedral door at Wittenberg where the monk was a professor in October 1517 – he particularly objected to the sale of indulgences which meant people were able to buy a pardon from various sins. By the time he had refused to recant his views it was 1521.
In April 1521, Luther was called to the Diet of Worms to justify his views. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, declared him an outlaw but Luther found protection from German princes.
King Henry VIII got in on the act when he wrote a paper defending the seven sacraments -known as the Assertio (Assertio Septum Sanctorum) resulting in Henry being given the title Defender of the Faith by the Pope. When Henry split with Rome following his failure to gain an annulment of his marriage from Katherine of Aragon, he kept the title. It should also be noted that Henry, who saw himself as something of a top notch Renaissance Prince on the academic front, may have had a helping hand from his friend Sir Thomas More – Tom found himself in dire trouble in 1534 when he refused to accept Henry as the supreme head of the Church of England or to recognise Henry’s divorce from Katherine granted by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533.
Henry’s defence of the papacy had been a best seller for ten years by then and Luther had taken the time in 1522 to write an attack on Henry mocking the Church for needing a defender and pointing out that the English king was totally unqualified at any level to write the riposte to Luther’s objections to the church – not that it ever stopped Henry. Nor did the Tudor monarch appear to notice the irony of leaning more towards Protestantism in 1527 when Pope Clement VII first refused the king his request to annul his marriage.
Following the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, the Tudors did everything possible to bolster their somewhat tenuous claim to the throne. Henry married Elizabeth of York on 18 January 1486 nearly six months after his victory at Bosworth and two months after he was crowned king. Edward IV’s daughter would have to wait until November 1487, the year of Stoke Field, for her own coronation. It was not in the new regime’s interest to remind the populace that Elizabeth had a better claim to the throne than Henry VII.
The queen was either already pregnant, or conceived during the marriage celebrations given that Henry’s longed for heir arrived exactly eight months after the wedding. As soon as it became apparent that Elizabeth was expecting, Margaret Beaufort began to plan for her daughter-in-law’s laying in. She created a set of ordinances drawn up from her experiences as part of Elizabeth Woodville’s household during the 1470s and from the procedures set out in Edward IV’s own book of household regulations.
The result was a treatise on royal ceremonials ensuring that the birth, baptism and care of Tudor princes and princesses was conducted according to customs established by the earlier Medieval kings of England. Modern understanding of the rules relies upon Leland’s Collectanea which gleans the material from a manuscript in the Harleian Library (No 6079).
The book identified what the queen’s chamber should contain before she withdrew to it in the month preceding the birth as well as how it should be furnished and decorated. The walls were to be hung with Arras tapestries and heavy fabrics. Only one window should be available to allow in some light and fresh air should it be required. There were two beds – a state bed with cloth of gold and satin sheets and a more practical pallet bed on which the child might be delivered. There were to be two cradles – one a state cradle in which the infant was to be placed when it was being viewed and the other, again a more practical affair for when the child slept. All the males in the household were to be replaced with females for the duration of the pregnancy and the forty days afterwards.
There were instructions for the baptism and the number of staff required to care for the new arrival. The royal wet nurse’s food was to be tested for poison and her health monitored by physicians. Nothing would be left to chance – no one would say that the Tudors were less royal than their predecessors. Whatever else you might think, you’ve got to admire Margaret’s organisational skills! And her powers of observation – she had been a part of Edward IV’s court since her marriage to Lord Stanley.
If you’d like to read the instructions for caring for a Tudor prince or princess follow the link.
Elizabeth Denton or Elizabeth Jerningham as she was when she was born was appointed as Lady Governess to the infant Prince Henry in 1491. She also looked after his younger sister Mary until the queen appointed the child’s own lady governess. Elizabeth continued to be a part of Elizabeth of York’s household until the queen’s death on 11 February 1503.
King Henry VIII showed his affection for his former lady governess with gifts of a tun of Gascon wine each year and appointment as keeper, for life, his Coldharbour, one of Lady Margaret Beaufort’s homes, soon after he became king. In 1515 she was granted an annuity of £50 for her service to the Tudors. The gifts led to Philippa Gregory portraying Elizabeth as the first of Henry’s mistresses. It seems unlikely, but not impossible, that Henry would have wanted a former mistress looking after his own daughter! She next appears as Lady Governess in 1516 caring for Mary Tudor. Also, as Amy Licence observes, the suggestion rests wholly on the grants.
Elizabeth’s family was part of the Suffolk gentry but their service to the Tudors saw them rise during Elizabeth’s life time marrying into the Dacre and Stanhope families. She was distantly related by to Anne Stanhope, the wife of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. And her family served the king in other capacities. One of her brothers, Richard Jerningham, was a Gentleman of the Chamber and is recorded as being sent to Germany in 1511 to buy armour on Henry’s behalf.
So who was Elizabeth Denton?
She was the daughter of Sir John Jerningham of Somerleyton Hall near Lowestoft in Suffolk who died in 1474 and his wife Agnes Darell. (Image from https://www.somerleyton.co.uk) Her half-brother, Edward[i], inherited the bulk of his father’s estate but under the terms of Sir John’s will, upon the death of her brother Osberne, she was to inherit the manor of ‘Little Worlingham with all the commodities etc. within the towns of Little Worlingham, Cove, Ellough and Great Worlingham . . . and in default to Elizabeth Denton, my daughter, for life, and after to Walter Denton, her son for life, and after to be sold.’ The date indicates that she was significantly older than Henry – so unlikely to be mistress material for a man who was known to like a younger woman.
Elizabeth was married before she entered royal service, potentially to John Denton, but very little is known about her family except that she had a son called Walter. By 1515 she was a widow and was granted an annuity by Henry who continued to be fond of her. Elizabeth recognised that her time was running out. She had become a tenant at Blackfriar’s Priory and erected a tomb for herself there. Her will, dated April 26 1518 stipulated that she was to be buried near the staned glass window which featured St Thomas Aquinas. She ensured her last resting place with gifts to the monastic community:
To the Prior 20s. to the Sub-prior 10s. to Frier Simond 20s. to Frier De la hay, 10s. to every other Firer of the said Place, that is a Priest, and shall be within the said Place at the time of my burying, 2s. To every of the Novices of the same Place 12d. To the intent of the same Prior, etc, shall pray for the Soul of my late Husband, my Soul, and all Christen Souls. (John Strype’s Survey of London and Lady Elizabeth Denton’s will Guildhall Labrary S 9171/15 f/108v.)
The content of the will is conventional and it is perhaps not surprising that Elizabeth Denton was a pious woman given the piety of Lady Margaret Beaufort. Her eldest brother’s family continued in their Catholic beliefs after Elizabeth I ascended the throne and chose to emigrate to America rather than conform.
Licence, Amy, The Six Wives and Many Mistresses of Henry VIII. (p.XLII)
Suckling, Alfred, The History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, (London: John Weale, 1846), Vol. I,
Weir, Alison, Elizabeth of York
[i] Richardson, Douglas, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd ed., 2011, Vol. I, p. 512; Druery, John Henry, Historical Notices of Great Yarmouth, (London: Nicholas & Son, 1826), p. 17
