Tag Archives: Pilgrimage of Grace

Power and the People – the pilgrims’ badge

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The pilgrims of 1536 demonstrated that religion could be an alternative authority to the Crown. Rituals and symbolism were important throughout the rebellion. The image here shows monks and a bishop heading the procession of pilgrims- they carry a cross and a banner showing the five wounds of Christ which was the pilgrim badge. One of the things that this did was to create a sense of unity among the thousands of pilgrims who came from many layers of society with diverse social and economic backgrounds.

The Five Wounds of Christ depict the injuries Christ sustained during his crucifixion. They were a powerful reminder of the rebels’ catholic beliefs and their opposition to Henry VIII’s reform of the Church. The imagery was an easy way for ordinary people to understand what the protest was about – that the rebels objected to the break with Rome and the closure of the monasteries. Men who might not have rebelled against the king would protest because they believed that their spiritual life – and eternity – were being damaged by the Crown.

The rebels took an oath of allegiance to the Pilgrimage of Grace, took part in masses and mass processions and had churches return to the old way of conducting services. As well as showing their devotion to God, these were an act of defiance against the authority of the king.

Power and the People – The Pilgrimage of Grace Part Two

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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.

Power and the People – The Pilgrimage of Grace part i

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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.

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Jervaulx Abbey

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The abbey of St Mary at Jervaulx was a Cistercian foundation which had a reputation for its horse breeding and cheese making – it also got itself tangled up with the Pilgrimage of Grace during the Dissolution of the monasteries. Abbot Sedbergh was required to join the pilgrims having hidden for four days on Witten Fell before threats to his abbey and his brethren forced him into the pilgrimage. The fact that he was coerced was quietly ignored and he was hanged at Tyburn for treason in June 1537 – the monastery being forfeit under the rules of treason which Cromwell bent to suit his purposes for the occasion.

Jervaulx was not without its moments in former times as in 1279 the abbot was murdered by one of his monks. His successor Abbot Thomas was accused but was acquitted of the crime.

By the beginning of the thirteenth century the abbey was experiencing some financial difficulty and by 1535 Cromwell’s Valor Ecclesiasticus revealed that its income came to just over £234. Part of the Jervaulx’s glass was allegedly transferred to Bedale, the choir stalls made their way to Aysgarth parish church and the lead which was melted down buried and forgotten about was used to repair the York Minster after the disastrous fire of 1984. The building was surveyed as part of the dissolution process at the beginning of July 1537. The Duke of Norfolk who had assisted with the suppression following the Pilgrimage of Grace corresponded with Cromwell about the matter:

As James Rokebye and William Blytheman should be present with Mr. Pollerd at the survey of Jervaulx (three weeks hence) to instruct him in divers things, I beg you will see them despatched with speed. Sheriffhutton, 19 June. (‘Henry VIII: June 1537, 11-20’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 12 Part 2, June-December 1537, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1891), pp. 25-42. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol12/no2/pp25-42 [accessed 23 April 2022].)

An earlier correspondence sent by Norfolk to Cromwell on the 2 June revealed that not only was it part of the government’s strategy to remove the lead from the abbeys to prevent the monks moving back in but that Jervaulx was in debt – the commissioners needed to clear those debts:

The house of Jervaulx was much in debt, but the moveables will discharge that, and likewise at Bridlington, especially if plumbers be sent down to take the lead off the houses and cast it in sows. Sheriff Hutton, 2 June. (‘Henry VIII: June 1537, 1-5’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 12 Part 2, June-December 1537, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1891), pp. 1-13. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol12/no2/pp1-13 [accessed 23 April 2022].)

What they had not calculated was that the price of lead took a tumble because there was so much monastic lead and plumbing being sold on.

The Tudor taint – an heir problem

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LadyMargaretCliffordHistory tends to decree that the Tudors had problems with heirs.  In reality it must have felt to the heirs, on occasion, that they had problems with being Tudor.  Henry VIII decreed the order of inheritance beginning with his own children. Not only did he specify the order of inheritance in his will but he ensured that it was enshrined in law with the third Act of Succession of 1544.

In the event of Henry’s own children not having children or surviving to inherit, Henry being Henry  broke with the usual rules of inheritance by bypassing the children of his elder sister Margaret by nominating those of his younger sister Mary.  His will refers to her as the “French Queen,” a courtesy title that she kept after the death of King Louis XII of France and her subsequent second marriage to Charles Brandon who became Duke of Suffolk.  The crown was to go first to the heirs of Frances Brandon who became Lady Frances Grey the mother of Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey.  If that line failed the crown would pass, in theory, to the children of  Frances’ younger sister Eleanor  who had married Henry Clifford, the 2nd Earl of Cumberland.

There was undoubtedly a paucity of males at that point in proceedings.  Eleanor Clifford, born sometime between 1518 and 1521, had produced two sons: Charles and Henry as well as a daughter Margaret pictured at the start of this post.  Eleanor died in November 1547 having been married to Henry Clifford in 1535, so she never fully understood the poisoned chalice of her Tudor bloodline.  The pair lived in Brougham Castle although the 1st earl went on a bit of a building spree on the strength of having a royal daughter-in-law.  The year after her marriage Eleanor was the chief mourner at Katherine of Aragon’s funeral and found herself in the wrong part of the country during the Pilgrimage of Grace. A flight across the moors from Bolton Abbey to Skipton Castle saved her from  immediate capture but having arrived at Skipton she found herself besieged.  Her husband was in Carlisle dealing with the rebels in Cumberland.

Eleanor does not seem to have spent much time at court although Frances Grey is listed as being present at key occasions such as the baptism of Prince Edward and the arrival of Anne of Cleves.  It is perhaps not surprising both Charles and Henry died in their infancies and it would appear from surviving letters that Eleanor did not enjoy robust health.  In 1540 though she gave birth to Margaret.

After Eleanor’s death the 2nd Earl of Cumberland would eventually remarry and have sons but the Tudor inheritance would pass to Margaret Clifford.  This is evidenced by the fact that John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland initially suggested a marriage between his youngest son Guildford and Margaret.  Before contracts could be drawn up John Dudley arranged for his youngest son to marry Margaret’s cousin Lady Jane Grey and in order to ensure that the Tudor line and the Dudleys remained firmly intertwined Margaret was betrothed instead to Andrew Dudley, the duke’s younger brother, in June 1553.  Andrew would soon  find himself under arrest for his part in Dudley’s bid to bypass Henry VIII’s succession.

Fernando_StanleyMargaret was married instead to Lord Strange, the heir of the Earl of Derby – or in other words into the Stanley family.  She married Henry Stanley in 1555 under the watchful gaze of Queen Mary.  The pair had four sons but it wasn’t a particularly happy marriage and the pair eventually separated.  Of the four sons only two survived to adulthood. Ferdinando Stanley became the Earl of Derby followed by his brother  William in 1594.  Ferdinando (pictured left) had been earl for only a year and whilst William became the 6th earl as well as Baron Strange it was Ferdinando’s daughters who became co-heiresses to the estates.  Inevitably there was a messy court case.  I shall return to Ferdinando who may well have died because of his closeness to the throne and also the Stanley suspected adherence to Catholicism.

After the death of Mary Grey the last of her Grey cousins in 1578 Margaret  found herself as one of the potential heirs to the English throne.  In 1580 she wrote to Walsingham about the “heavy and long-continued displeasure” that she had found herself experiencing. When she died in 1596 she had spent several years under house arrest in Clerkenwell having been arrested on charges of using astrology to predict when Elizabeth I would die – a treasonous act (and one which got Eleanor Cobham into huge amounts of bother in the fifteenth century).  Even in death she was careful not to offend Elizabeth as her will testifies:

First, I bequeath my soul into the hands of Almighty God, my only Saviour and Redeemer, by whom I hope only to be saved and by no other ways nor means, and my body to be buried where it shall please the Queen’s Majesty to appoint, or otherwise at the discretion of mine executors.

 

The line of the French Queen’s youngest daughter was now carried on by Ferdinando’s three daughters; Anne, Frances and Elizabeth.  William had no children.  In 1596 Anne was created the legal heir presumptive to Elizabeth I bypassing William who was also suspected on account of his closeness to the throne and catholicism.

william stanley.jpgWilliam (pictured right) was specifically forbidden from joining the Earl of Essex on his campaign in Ireland as it was felt that he might take advantage of the opportunity to do a spot of networking.  William, it would’ve to be said, appears to have done nothing to deserve royal suspicion  – he was very much a member of the gentry concerning himself with his northern estates and keeping his head down – presumably he didn’t want to end up like his mother or brother.  He appears to have been a scholarly type and if you like your conspiracy theories he is one of the contenders for the real Shakespeare based on the fact that George Fenner, a Jesuit, reported that William rather than being interested in politics and matters of religion spent his time “penning common plays” in his house near Chester.

Elizabeth did eventually make him a knight of the garter and King James I made his relation a privy councillor.

The mystery of the disappearance of Henry Pole…in the Tower

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princes_in_the_tower_2When we think of children disappearing into the Tower and never being seen again we tend to think of Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York – a.k.a. The Princes in the Tower.  Henry Pole the Younger, the teenage son of Lord Montagu and grandson of Margaret of Salisbury was sent to the Tower in November 1538 – he was not charged, he was not executed…he simply failed to re-appear in public – and he doesn’t have the same cachet as the Princes in the Tower so tends to remain largely forgotten

margaret salisburyMargaret of Salisbury was the daughter of George Duke of Clarence and Isabel Neville.  She had been orphaned at five years old when George had an unfortunate accident in the Tower with a large barrel of Malmsey wine.  She and her younger brother Edward grew up under the rule of their uncles Edward IV and Richard III.  In 1485 when the Plantagenets lost the Crown on the field of battle at Bosworth Margaret found herself being handed into the wardship of Lady Margaret Beaufort, who in all fairness seems to have had a protective instinct for young women (perhaps not surprising given her own history).  So, Margaret of Salisbury was about fourteen when she was married off to a loyal Tudor supporter – Sir Richard Pole and sent off to the Welsh marches where she could be safely ignored.

 

Unfortunately for the long term survival of the Pole family, despite the fact that Margaret had been deliberately married to a man whose loyalty was to the Tudors and who was far below Margaret in social status – though as the daughter of an attainted traitor this was not such an issue Margaret remained close to the court. When Henry VIII became king it was he who returned to Margaret the title of Countess of Salisbury whilst her eldest son, Henry, became Lord Montagu.  It was probably just as well that Henry VIII had taken a shine to the family when Sir Richard died in 1504 the family had been so impoverished that they had to borrow money to pay for the funeral. There were five little Poles bearing Plantagenet blood in their veins – Henry, Reginald, Geoffrey and Arthur (who died of sweating sickness) as well as a daughter named Ursula who had thirteen children of her own.

 

katherine of aragon sil meMargaret’s loyalty was to Katherine of Aragon and to her daughter Princess Mary to whom she was governess and godmother. (Along with Margaret her sister-in-law Eleanor Pole was also a lady-in-waiting to Katherine. Eleanor was related through marriage to Lady Margaret Beaufort’s extended family.) Despite this and their conservative adherence to Catholicism (something they had in common with much of the old aristocracy – the Courtenay family were caught up with Elizabeth Barton the so-called Nun of Kent) they managed to walk on the tightrope of faith that Henry VIII strung up when he divorced Katherine and married Anne Boleyn.

 

Matters were not helped between the Tudor and Plantagenet cousins when Margaret’s son Reginald Pole – Henry VIII’s “pet” learned academic who had been educated at Henry’s expense wrote a book snappily entitled Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensionein 1536. It denounced both his marriage to Anne Boleyn and his religious policies – in short it did not have the content that Henry wanted. The Pole family in England wrote letters castigating Reginald, sure that they would be read before reaching their intended recipient. Pole wrote back to his mother telling her not to interfere with his conscience. Despite his high moral tone Pole started to have to look over his shoulder.  Men were sent to assassinate him on Thomas Cromwell’s orders. Requests were sent to have him bundled up and sent home to face the music.  It probably didn’t help that the Pope made him a cardinal at more or less the same time.

 

The Poles retreated from court and very sensibly kept their heads down – presumably quite liking the idea of keeping them.  It wouldn’t be enough to save them.  In 1538 the so-called Exeter Conspiracy was revealed when in August Margaret Pole’s youngest son Geoffrey was arrested and taken to the Tower.

 

Henry Pole, Lord Montagu was familiar with the process of being arrested for treason, after all he had been arrested for in connection to the 3rdDuke of Buckingham’s plot against the king in 1520. Stafford had been found guilty of treason based on evidence given by his servants – the evidence was hearsay rather than concrete proof of plotting but it was enough to get him executed in 1521. Henry Pole had been released and had demonstrated loyalty to Henry VIII in a variety of capacities.

 

In August 1538 however, he was not in the Tower he was wondering what his little brother Geoffrey was saying and what charges that he might face.  Margaret Pole wrote for permission to visit Geoffrey and to ask what he had done.  In October 1538 Geoffrey was finally questioned – a couple of months in the Tower kept in isolation was enough to make him say what Thomas Cromwell wanted to hear. In November the treason net stretched around the Pole family.  Henry VIII would have vengeance against Reginald and also surety that those pesky Plantagenets wouldn’t regain the throne. Geoffrey devastated that he had destroyed his own family rather than face further rather more active torture made two attempts on his own life.

 

Lord Montagu, his teenage son Henry, Montagu’s brother Sir Geoffrey, Montagu’s father-in-law Sir Edward Neville and his cousin Henry Courtenay, and Courtenay’s son were arrested on charges of conspiring to depose Henry VIII and replace him with Courtenay. Henry VIII’s proclamation about the plot identified that the plotters also conspired to validate their actions by marrying Princess Mary off either to either young Henry Pole or Edward Courtenay. It would have to be said that their Plantagenet blood made the need to justify their attempt on the throne with marriage to a Tudor somewhat unnecessary but it certainly gave Thomas Cromwell the opportunity to arrest as many scions of the Plantagenet bloodline as possible.

 

Margaret Pole was taken along to the Tower with her grandson having been rigorously questioned by William FitzWilliam, First Earl of Southampton without any notable success.  Margaret would be attainted in 1539 but the only evidence was a coat bearing the insignia of a pilgrim of the Pilgrimage of Grace – there was no suggestion that it belonged to her personally.  She would be messily executed in 1541 without trial.  The attainder meant there was no need for one.  Up until that time her existence in the Tower – complete with a furred gown can be traced in Henry VIII’s accounts along with that of her grandson.  A novel entitled The Courier’s Tale, by Peter Walker, about Michael Throckmorton of Coughton Court, Reginald Pole’s messenger and agent includes an after note about the historic traces that remain of Henry Pole in Cromwell’s documents – there is a suggestion that Henry Pole was simply forgotten and allowed to die.

Letters written by Reginald Pole in Italy and also the testimony of Sir Geoffrey Pole sent Montagu and Courtenay senior to their deaths. Edward Courtenay remained in the Tower until Mary Tudor became queen in 1553 and then became caught up in Wyatt’s Rebellion the following – Mary politely suggested that he might like to travel more widely.

Henry Pole the younger simply disappeared without trace. It is of course possible that he died of natural causes but given the circumstances it is all to believable that he was simply bumped off in time-honoured fashion.

Bernard, G.W. The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church

Pierce, Hazel. Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership

 

Westminster Hall

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Westminster-Hall-1764

It’s all looking very festive around here – and dangerous.  The road hasn’t been gritted so it currently looks and feels just like an ice rink.  On the plus side I have finished some writing today.  On the minus side not only am I not going out for a Christmas meal tonight but I shalln’t be following Buckingham’s rebellion tomorrow or killing off the Princes in the Tower – nor for that matter shall I be allowing either one of them to turn into a conspiracy theory.  All of which is very irritating and I can only extend my apologies to any of my students who may be reading this.

Halls – right at the start of December I mentioned the fact that halls were where their owners dispensed justice.  And of course, there’s a hall with a rather long pedigree that has done exactly that over the last nine hundred years or so.  Westminster Hall was built in 1097 by William Rufus – it was the largest hall in Europe at the time, or so Historians think.  Richard II had the hall rebuilt because it was looking somewhat battered by the time he came to the throne. The medieval hammer beam roof was one of his modifications. The hall gradually evolved into the administrative seat for the kingdom. It was here that Henry II crowned his eldest son Henry in Westminster Hall in June 1170.  There was a second coronation in Winchester.

 

It is as a law court though that Westminster Hall echoes down the pages of history. William Wallace was tried here and by the time of the Tudors the hall is knee deep in well-known names from the duke of Buckingham tried for treason in 1522 based on his Plantagenet blood and probably having irritated Cardinal Wolsey. Sir Thomas More was tried here in 1535, so were Anne Boleyn and her alleged lovers the following year. Protector Somerset had judgement passed down here and so did the father of Lady Jane Grey for his part in Wyatt’s Rebellion. Jesuits faced english law here during the reign of Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex was tried in Westminster Hall following his rebellion. A few years later Guy Fawkes stood in his place.  Later Charles I was tried for crimes against his own people and following the Restoration the regicides were also tried here.

The only man who successful escaped the headsman or the noose following a trial for treason during Henry VIII’s reign was also tried at Westminster Hall.  Lord Dacre of the North was found innocent in July 1535. His accusers were described as “mean and provoked Scottish men” – Sir Ralph Fiennes and his co-accuser a man named William Musgrave were not particularly Scottish but there’s nothing like being damned by association.  Dacre’s wife tried to intercede on her husband’s behalf but was told by the monarch to button it until after her husband’s trial.  Apparently Dacre refuted his accusers in a “manly”  and “witty” sort of way for seven hours before being declared innocent.

William Dacre (a.k.a. Baron Greystoke) was married to the earl of Shrewsbury’s daughter and held down a number of responsible border posts such as Deputy Warden of the West March.  This led to a falling out with the earl of Cumberland (Clifford family) who was given a role in 1525 that Dacre believed to be his by right of blood.  Unsurprisingly there was some border high jinks resulting in Cumberland only being able to rule with Dacre at his side. To make matters worse when Dacre did get his hands on the job his counterpart in the East March was given a pay rise whilst he was given the old rate. Its easy to see that hostilities and resentments were not particularly veiled.  Unfortunately for Dacre he did what Border Wardens do – i.e. talk to the Scots. This was in 1534.  He was accused of treason because this conversation took place during a time of hostility. He was hauled off to London where he was put on trial for treason. The chief witness against him was his former servant – William Musgrave.

Dacre was acquitted but as with all things Tudor there is a sting in the tale.  Henry VIII fined him none-the-less. It is perhaps surprising therefore that in 1536 Dacre demonstrated his loyalty to Henry VIII throughout the Pilgrimage of Grace.  His feud with the Musgrave family was not so easily settled and it is known to have continued into the 1550s.

 William Cobbett, David Jardine (1809) Cobbett’s complete collection of state trials and proceedings for high treason and other crimes and misdemeanors from the earliest period to the present time  accessed from https://archive.org/details/acompletecollec03cobbgoog

http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/westminsterhall/architecture/early-history/

http://www.intriguing-history.com/westminster-hall/

 

Eleanor Brandon, Countess of Cumberland…

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eleanor brandon.jpgIt is sometimes easy to forget that Henry VIII had more than one English niece who featured in his will.  Henry’s sister, Mary Tudor, married Charles Brandon who was elevated to Duke of Suffolk.  They had two children who survived childhood, Frances and Eleanor. I’ve posted about Eleanor before.  Double click here to open the post in a new window. This post is by way of a precursor to a post about Lady Margaret Stanley (no, not Henry VII’s mother better known to history as Margaret Beaufort but her great-granddaughter born Lady Margaret Clifford.)

Frances Brandon, the elder of the two girls, married Henry Grey and bore three children who survived to adulthood: Lady Jane Grey, Lady Catherine Grey and Lady Mary Grey.  All three of her daughters were blighted by their Tudor blood and claim to the throne. Lady Jane Grey or Dudley as she was by then was executed by her cousin Queen Mary whilst Catherine and Mary became in turn “heir presumptive”; each married for love and each in turn was imprisoned by their other cousin Elizabeth I, one starved to death and neither was allowed to see her husband again.  The treatment of the Grey girls was not Elizabeth’s finest hour.  Lady Mary died on the 20 May 1578.

The role of heir presumptive was then passed to Lady Margaret Stanley, Countess of Derby.  Her claim came through her mother – Eleanor Brandon.  Needless to say Lady Margaret soon found herself under house arrest just as her two cousins had done.  She didn’t make the mistake of marrying for love – she and her husband were long married by then and estranged.  No, Lady Margaret was something of an alchemist and a follower of astrology – she had apparently wanted to know what the chances of Cousin Lizzie popping her clogs might have been.

So back to Eleanor Brandon – she was born some time between 1518 and 1521 meaning that when she died in 1547 she was at most twenty-eight.  Henry VIII was a guest when Eleanor married her husband in 1535.  Henry Clifford, the First Earl of Cumberland and Eleanor’s father-in-law  was determined to make his home fit for a princess and promptly extended Skipton Castle, adding an octagonal tower and long gallery to make it more pleasant. The Cliffords had sold off some of their estates to pay for the rebuilding work and also to pay for the wedding. It comes as something of a surprise to discover that the young couple spent much of their early married life at Brougham Castle.

Eleanor turns up the following year in the capacity of chief mourner at Katherine of Aragon’s funeral in Peterborough Cathedral. Interestingly Frances Brandon didn’t fill the roll – perhaps it was because Frances was pregnant at the time.That same year Eleanor was rescued from the Pilgrims of the Pilgrimage of Grace by Christopher Aske and taken to safety rather than being turned into a hostage for Lord Clifford’s co-operation. She ended up holed up in Skipton Castle. Eleanor appears to have suffered from ill health for quite some time after this but by 1546 she is listed in the household of Queen Katherine Parr – who had experienced her own difficulties at the time of the Pilgrimage of Grace as Lady Latimer.

Henry VIII died at the beginning of 1547, his niece died at the end of autumn the same year – in November (or possibly September depending on which source you read).  Henry Clifford, by now the second earl, went into a bit of a decline, burying his wife in Skipton Church where he’d buried his two infant sons. Ann Clifford, in her family history went on to explain:

…he fell into an extream sickness, of which he was at length laid out for a dead man, upon a table, & covered with a hearse of velvet; but some of his men that were then very carefull about him perceiveing some little signs of life in him, did apply hot cordials inwardly & outwardly unto him, which brought him to life again, & so, after he was laid into his bed again, he was fain for 4 or 5 weeks after to such the milk out of a woman’s breast and only to live on that food; and after to drink asses milk, and live on that 3 or 4 months longer.

Henry Clifford recovered and married for a second time.  He also had the common good sense not to get tangled up in the plots of the Duke of Northumberland who initially tried to arrange a marriage between his own son Guildford Dudley and Lady Margaret Clifford, Eleanor’s only surviving child.

Eleanor’s father, Charles, married three times.  Eleanor’s mother Mary Tudor was his second wife. He’d previously married secretly in 1508 and had two daughters. Eleanor mentions on of her elder half sisters in the only letter that survives from her:

“Dear heart,
After my most hearty commendations, this shall be to certify you that since your departure from me I have been very sick and at this present my water is very red, whereby I suppose I have the jaundice and the ague both, for I have none abide [no appetite for] meat and I have such pains in my side and towards my back as I had at Brougham, where it began with me first. Wherefore I desire you to help me to a physician and that this bearer my bring him with him, for now in the beginning I trust I may have good remedy, and the longer it is delayed, the worse it will be. Also my sister Powys is come to me and very desirous to see you, which I trust shall be the sooner at this time, and thus Jesus send us both health.

Certainly the letter confirms Eleanor’s ill health and the reference to sister Powys is to Anne Brandon who was married to Lord Grey of Powys.

Sir Thomas Wentworth

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NPG 1851; Thomas Wentworth, 1st Baron Wentworth by Unknown Anglo-Netherlandish artistDecember 2 1542

Cromwell, for the time being on this blog is no longer with us, and in Henry’s world had had an unfortunate experience with an axe on 28 July 1540. Henry’s letters and papers show how things changed after the demise of his second great administrator – the Privy Council became an important administrative machine once more. The minutes are terse to put it mildly.

 

“Meeting at Hampton Court, 2 Dec. Present : Canterbury, Russell, Winchester, Westminster, Gage, Browne, Wingfield, Wriothesley. Business :Letter written to Sir Thos. Wentworth and Sir Hen. Savell to receive Scottish prisoners from the lord President.” Canterbury is, of course, Thomas Cranmer and Winchester is Stephen Gardener.

 

Sir Thomas Wentworth, Sixth Lord Despenser (not sure how the family got that title – I’m adding it to my list of ‘need to find out’) and First Baron Wentworth  of Wentworth West Bretton in Yorkshire (although he was originally from Suffolk – the Suffolk property having been acquired by the Yorkshire Wentworths as part of a marital transaction) is the chap behind today’s metaphorical advent door. He and Jane Seymour, Henry’s third queen, were cousins. Margery Wentworth, his aunt, was Jane’s mother. Thomas’s son, inventively also named Thomas, would thrive under the rule of Edward VI and his Seymour relations.

 

But back to Sir Thomas – his own mother Anne Tyrell was the daughter of Sir James. For fans of historical whodunits, yes, that is the Sir James Tyrell suspected of the murder of the princes in the Tower – demonstrating yet again that the Tudor world was a small world. One of Sir Thomas’s sons-in-law was Sir Martin Frobisher the famous Elizabethan explorer.

 

Wentworth’s climb up the career ladder began with service in the household of the duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon – who was of course married to the king’s sister – Princess Mary. It would appear, according to Brandon’s biographer that Wentworth was first recruited to Suffolk’s service in 1513 – meaning that young Wentworth was only about twelve at the time but he grew to become one of Suffolk’s most senior officers having been knighted by Brandon along with his cousin Edward Seymour in 1523. He would go on to serve as Edward VI’s Lord Chancellor as denoted by the white staff of office in his hand.  The National Portrait Gallery notes suggest that this was added to the portrait after it had originally been painted.

 

Wentworth also became associated with the duke of Norfolk- so not so much a new man even though he was only raised to the peerage in 1529 (he succeeded his father to the Despenser title and the manor of Nettlestead upon his death in 1528) so much as an old one drawing on powerful connections to improve his ranking in the Tudor world of ‘Top Trumps’.

 

Despite his northern affiliations he remained loyal to Henry VIII during the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace turning up to support the king with one hundred men in tow. He had already nailed his colours to the mast when he became one of the signatories of a letter asking Pope Clement VII to permit a divorce between Henry and Katherine of Aragon.  He went on to be a noted reformer although interestingly he does not appear to have benefitted from the sale of the monasteries. According to Franklin-Harkrider, Miles Coverdale praised Wentworth for his godliness. This hadn’t stopped him being part of the jury that had condemned Anne Boleyn.

 

His loyalty was rewarded. He was at Edward VI’s christening; was part of the party that welcomed Anne of Cleeves and Henry even deigned to visit him at his home at Nettlestead in Suffolk that same year – with Catherine Howard.

 

But back to letter dated 2nd December 1542. There were apparently two hundred noble Scottish prisoners and approximately eight hundred from the massed ranks of Scottish hoi polloi in English hands following the Battle of Solway Moss  which took place on the 24 November 1542. The most important of the Scottish prisoners were escorted to London by Wentworth and Saville where they arrived on the 19th of December suitably adorned with the cross of St Andrew. They were committed to the Tower for safekeeping until the 21st of December when they were paraded before the Lord Chancellor who chastised them on behalf of the king for their naughtiness in arriving with an armed force on England’s borders. Having been duly slapped around the back of the legs they were not returned to the Tower’s naughty step but having given their parole sent off to spend the festive season with assorted members of the nobility including the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk.

 

 Franklin-Harkrider, Melissa. (2008) Women, Reform and Community in Early Modern England: Katherine Willoughby, duchess of Suffolk and Lincolnshire’s Godly Aristocracy, 1519-1580 (Studies in Modern British Religious History). Martlesham: Boydell Press

Gunn, Steven. (2015) Charles Brandon: Henry VIII’s Closest Friend . Stroud: Amberley Publishing

Keith, Robert (1735) History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland accessed from https://archive.org/details/historyofaffairs03keit (03 December 2016).
‘Henry VIII: December 1542, 1-10’, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 17, 1542, ed. James Gairdner and R H Brodie (London, 1900), pp. 643-655. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol17/pp643-655 [accessed 17 October 2016].

 

Monastic fragments- the Jervaulx Screen

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IMG_8232.jpgThe Cistercian monks at Jervaulx Abbey in Wensley Dale were renowned for their horse breeding. Their skill brought great wealth which was a tad tricky for a group of people who’d taken vows of poverty.

Jervaulx’s last abbot, Adam Sedbar, was a sensible man.  He did not wish to rebel against Henry VIII.  When news reached him that the so-called pilgrims of the Pilgrimage of Grace were heading in his direction in 1536 he fled the abbey and went into hiding on Witton Fell. He only came out of hiding when the pilgrims threatened to destroy the abbey – somewhat contrary to their avowed intention of restoring them. Sedbar eventually made his way to Castle Bolton and Lord Scrope where he took no further part in events.

Despite his best attempts to remain uninvolved it was too good an opportunity for Cromwell to miss. Sedbar was implicated in the Pilgrimage and found himself in the Tower of London on treason charges. His name can still be found carved into the masonry of his prison.  The main witness against him was Ninian Staveley, one of his own monks, who was up to his neck in rebellion.  He informed on his abbot in an attempt to save his own life. The abbey and the abbot were both erased in 1537; the abbey and its estates being passed to the crown through the attainder passed against Sedbar.

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img_8224These days Jervaulx is a picturesque ruin but there is one other remarkable survival to see in St Andrew’s Church, Aysgarth.  The rood screen, so the handy guide in the church tells me, is from the Ripon School of Carving.  In fact when I looked closer I recognised the elephant on the Jervaulx screen as an old friend from Ripon Cathedral. The screen, renovated by those pesky Victorians, is beautiful but it does rather question the Cistercian rule of austerity.  The screen must have been even more spectacular when it was first installed. There’s a frieze of foliage and animals running the length of the screen – that’s where the elephant can be found- as well as a dragon, a fox, a boar, an antelope, an eagle and a lion.  The message is clear if you’re a medieval church goer.  You’re being reminded of all those sins out there waiting to trip you up.  Apparently the antelope is a warning against drink and lustfulness on account of the fact that his horns are entangled in the foliage around him. Oddly enough I wouldn’t have known that unless I’d read it in the handy guide – clearly the medieval mind was much more switched on to visual symbolism.

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IMG_8237.JPGSymbolism was the least of Aysgarth’s worries. As Tudor England became more Protestant it became more dangerous for the parishioners to keep the Jervaulx screen and the original loft and statues which accompanied it.  In 1567 several churchwardens were required to do penance  for having hidden old papist relics.  The screen inevitably was badly damaged in the ensuing centuries.  It was once part of a much larger edifice.  The statues that belonged with it were burned.

 

But how did the screen get to Aysgarth?  The right to present the living of the church and take an income or advowson to give it it’s correct name belonged to Jervaulx up until the suppression of the monasteries.  One theory is that the monks seeing which way the wind was blowing transported the choir screen to the church in an attempt to save something of their abbey.  Perhaps the screen was the most beautiful thing they had in their monastery and they wished to preserve it – but that is speculation.  In the second version of the story the parishioners of Aysgarth purchased the screen upon Jervaulx’s suppression.  Either way a thing of great beauty from the days of  England’s monasteries survives tucked away in the Yorkshire dales.

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As for the rest of the monks, well their reputations as breeders of horses saw them provided with employment in Middleham Castle as well as in receipt of their monastic pensions.