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.