February 2007

Parish History Episode 70- The Pilgrimage of Grace

King Henry VIII was now Head of the Church - a Church that was reputed to own a quarter of the land in the Kingdom. He needed a good part of that wealth for his own extravagances and for affairs of state. At first he was not sure of the best way of going about the confiscation of that wealth, but after the resignation and execution of More, the King, advised by his new Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, decided on the suppression of the smaller religious houses, whether of monks, nuns, canons or friars, which dotted the map of the Kingdom, and on the confiscation of their wealth. In 1536 a commission was set up to investigate the state of affairs in all such communities, and, on one pretext or another (immorality, heresy, unworthy behaviour, any accusation which could be used to slander them) all such houses were closed, always after a sort of investigation. Their land and assets were seized for the use of the King; but he kept little of it, most of the monastic lands being sold for cash, or given away to his cronies.

It was a bad process, but it was not uniquely bad. Other kings had done worse. For instance, over two centuries before, King Philippe IV of France had, in 1312, in collusion with Pope Clement V, not only suppressed the houses of the Templars, and confiscated their wealth, but had killed the occupants with revolting cruelty. At least King Henry did not behave like that. The monks in the houses which he dissolved were provided with pensions, and encouraged to take other occupations (as parish priests, for instance, if they were ordained), while the nuns were awarded dowries, to encourage men to marry them (but not all would or could marry). But such measures deeply disturbed the pious, and were soon to lead to serious disorder.

There were some, of course, who, being influenced by the writings of Erasmus and other “humanists”, and being aware of the changes taking place in Germany and Scandinavia, looked on the dissolution of the lesser monasteries with indifference, if not approval; while others flocked to the King’s Court, in the hope of obtaining a small abbey or two, or at least a small part of some monastic estate. But further away from London, in areas where monasteries had more prestige and more influence (not to mention wealth), people seem to have been outraged at the sight of abbeys being closed, their occupants dispersed, and their treasures confiscated. These feelings prevailed particularly in England’s two largest counties, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, which lay between one and two hundred miles North of London, between the River Welland and the River Tees.

North of the Tees, the sense of outrage was less. These were the lands where the Prince-Bishop’s writ had run, in Church and State; these were the lands where the Benedictine monks had striven to maintain a sort of monopoly of piety, and where other Orders had always faced great difficulty in establishing themselves. In consequence, there were not many minor monastic establishments in Northumbria.

At Durham itself, the absentee bishop, Cardinal Wolsey, had been replaced by Cuthbert Tunstall, a North-Countryman, and, incidentally, the great-uncle of Bernard Gilpin, still a student at Oxford. Even if he had wanted to stand up against the King’s programme of robbing the monasteries, Tunstall was perhaps in a more awkward position to do so than his predecessors would have been. After all, the King was now “Head of the Church”, and Tunstall, presumably, stood in the same relationship to his King as he had once done to the Pope.

Also Bishop Tunstall was probably not all that unsympathetic to the proposals to close numerous small monasteries. He was a man of great learning, and had been a friend and associate of More and Erasmus. But while no “hot gospeller” (a term which was then coming into use to refer to Lollard enthusiasts), he was probably more sympathetic to the demands for “reform” than were either of his friends. During his period in office as Bishop of London (1522-1530), he put such a brake on the Diocesan Courts that not a single Lollard was burned in London during those eight years - though he burned plenty of their books, including whole editions of Tyndale’s Bible, which he bought straight from the importer (they were printed abroad, in the Netherlands, vernacular Bibles being illegal in England), to the profit of merchants engaged in the book trade.

When Cromwell’s Commissioners crossed the Tees, to enter the far North of England, they found few small monasteries to “dissolve”. However, Tunstall did co-operate with them, and permitted them to close three small, but historically important houses, dependencies of the monastery at Durham. The Priory on Lindisfarne, once the home of Cuthbert, and those at Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, both at one time the home of Bede, were all closed, as was also the Benedictine nunnery at Lambley. At about the same time, the Cistercians also departed peacefully from Newminster.

The same fate befell Kepier Hospital, just outside Gilesgate, on this side of Durham. It had been founded, in the Twelfth Century as a leprosarium, but at this time it seems to have served as little except a roadside rest-house, half way between Durham and Finchale. The site was sold by the King, and bought by John Heath, a merchant of London, who will later be the benefactor who would finance Gilpin’s school at Houghton. That school would take the name of Kepier.

Thus, in the course of a few weeks during the summer of 1535, the monastic way of life, which had endured in Northumbria for well nigh a thousand years, and which had once diffused the light of religion, learning, culture and civility throughout the land, was almost totally swept away. For the moment, the great monasteries at Durham, Finchale and Tynemouth remained, together with some friaries and convents within the walled towns of Newcastle and Hartlepool. There were also four houses of Augustinian Canons, at Hexham, Ovingham, Brinkburn and Bamburgh, and some trouble would be experienced in eliminating them. The canons, it would appear, were a lot more popular than were the monks. The men of Hexham, it would soon appear, were even ready to rebel, in order to save their abbey.

Much greater disorder was arising to the South of Durham, in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Many people in those parts were horrified to see the monasteries dismantled. Also, some of the pensioned-off monks and friars were wandering around, stirring up dissent. So also were some monastic servants, who did not enjoy pensions, though one assumes that those who performed useful functions would be taken on by the new proprietors. The peasants had already been unsettled by earlier developments. The commissioners who had toured the country compelling all to take the Oath of Succession had been succeeded by others (or very likely by the same men, carrying different warrants in their purses) such as the commissioners investigating the state of the monasteries, and then, as will be related later, by those interviewing priests and churchwardens and ordering them to establish parish registers. All this was unparalleled interference by the King’s Court in the life of his subjects.

If the King had been seen to be a good and worthy man, maybe much of this interference might have been better borne : but the news that the peasant heard about the goings-on at Court seemed almost comically wicked. He and his good wife had first been made to swear to the legality of King Henry’s divorce of Queen Catherine, and his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Then, in 1536, he learned that Queen Anne was a traitress and an adultress, and guilty of incest too, and that she was on trial; and then came the news that she had been beheaded; and that the following day the King had married again, this time to Jane Seymour, one of Queen Anne’s maids- -of honour. There must have been many who suspected that the main reason for the Queen’s execution had been the King’s lust for her maid.

This was the background to the mass disorder, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, that now took place in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in the summer of 1536. In each county, large groups of disaffected peasants assembled, demanding that local monasteries be exempted from dissolution; they brandished crude weapons like pitchforks and pruning hooks, and displayed religious banners, portraying the Five Wounds of Christ, or the Five Sorrowful Mysteries; and they marched on the cathedral cities of York and Lincoln, storming the ill-defended gates of each city. In Yorkshire, it would appear, they took inspiration not only from Catholic piety, and their distaste for royal scandals, but also from ancient legends which seem to go back centuries to the time when the Dales were part of the Celtic Kingdom of Elmet. The “Pilgrims” talked of a prophecy made by a wise man of old called Merlin, obviously the Arthurian sage. Merlin was said to have foretold the reign of a King of Evil, by name Mouldwarp, who would be accursèd of God, and who would spoil the land, until the righteous drove him out. Now, they said, this had come to pass. “Mouldwarp be come”, they told one another knowingly.

After they had stormed the gates of York, and had sung their hymns in the Minster, they were cheered by the news of re·inforcements on their way from the further North. The men of Hexham had left that town, and had reached Chester-le-Street, where they were greeted with enthusiasm. Old Sir John Lumley, the Lord of the neighbouring castle, a hero of Flodden, wisely kept out of their way, but his headstrong young son, George Lumley, rode into Chester town, accompanied by his wife, and greeted the Pilgrims, to the cheers of the townsmen, peasants and pitmen.

He rode on with the Hexham men, and many who joined them in Chester, to Durham. The Pilgrims occupied the cathedral, but the Bishop had gone to Auckland. Some of the Pilgrims rode over there, presumably hoping to gain his support, but again found him gone. Bishop Tunstall had ridden North, to the Border, ostensibly to inspect the works of fortification that our good Rector Franklin was engaged in. Tunstall took up residence in Norham Castle, right on the Border. From there, if things went wrong, it would be an easy job to swim the Tweed, and to claim political asylum in Scotland.

But by this time, it was the Pilgrims who were finding that things were going wrong. An army commanded by Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk (son of the former Duke of Norfolk, who had commanded the English army at Flodden), was marching North from London, with orders to destroy them.

At Doncaster, Howard’s men met up with the Pilgrims. After a petty skirmish, the Pilgrims agreed to disband, accepting Howard’s assurances of clemency, and his promise to forward their grievances to the King. They accepted Howard’s word the more readily, as he was known to be out of sympathy with the recent changes in Church and State. Although he had signed the Oath of Succession (and had thereby, unlike More, kept his head), he detested the changes coming about in England, and even retained a private chaplain who had avoided signing any oaths, a man who regarded himself as still being within the Roman obedience, and every morning this priest said Mass for the Duke, who took Communion only from his own chaplain.

But Howard was well aware of what had happened to Thomas More and others who had stood firm on a point of principle, and it was not his wish to end his life on the headsman’s block. He found it safer to be loyal to the King, and to obey all orders that he received.

New orders soon arrived. King Henry wrote to him, “Before ye close up our said banner again, ye shall in any wise cause such dreadful execution to be done upon a good number of men in every town, village and hamlet that hath offended in this rebellion, as well by hanging them up in trees, as by the quartering of them, and by the setting up of their heads and quarters in every town, great and small, and in all such other places, so they may be a fearful spectacle to all other hereafter that would practice in any like manner”.

These orders were diligently obeyed by Howard. Disregarding his earlier promises of clemency, he arrested and condemned thousands of peasants, men and women alike, who had taken part in the Pilgrimage; those found guilty (in practice, all of them) were sentenced to death, and hung up on trees or makeshift gallows. Dozens were hung in Chester-le-Street market-place; none apparently at Houghton, for it seems that no men from Houghton had joined the “rebellion”.

A harsher fate awaited George Lumley and his wife Jane. They were taken to London, and there George Lumley was hung, drawn and quartered, in the manner which was then customary for aristocratic rebels, and his “quarters” were stuck up on pikes, over the gates of London town. Jane Lumley was burnt to death, like a witch, for King Henry, obviously a man of delicate sensibilities, deemed it improper for a lady to be quartered in front of the base multitude.

It seems that Merlin was right. Mouldwarp had indeed come.

[There is some confusion in the chronicles as to who Jane Lumley was. In 1536 there were three ladies of that name dwelling in Lumley Castle: Sir George’s wife, his daughter, and his daughter-in-law, all named Jane. I have assumed that it was his wife who suffered with him.]

Dick Toy

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