History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. III

The insurgents march to Doncaster.

They left him to nature and to death, which was waiting at his doors. The word went now through the army, “Every man to Doncaster.” There lay Shrewsbury and the Duke of Norfolk, with a small handful of disaffected men between themselves and London, to which they were going.

They marched from Pomfret in three divisions. Sir Thomas Percy, at the head of five thousand men, carried the banner of St. Cuthbert. In the second division, over ten thousand strong, were the musters of Holderness and the West Riding, with Aske himself and Lord Darcy. The rear was a magnificent body of twelve thousand horse, all in armour: the knights, esquires, and yeomen of Richmondshire and Durham.¹⁵²

In this order they came down to the Don, where their advanced posts were already stationed, and deployed along the banks from Ferrybridge¹⁵³ to Doncaster.

Disaffection in the royal army.

A deep river, heavily swollen, divided them from the royal army; but they were assured by spies that the water was the only obstacle which prevented the loyalists from deserting to them.¹⁵⁴

Expectation that the Duke of Norfolk would give way;

There were traitors in London who kept them informed of Henry’s movements, and even of the resolutions at the council board.¹⁵⁵ They knew that if they could dispose of the one small body in their front, no other force was as yet in the field which could oppose or even delay their march. They had even persuaded themselves that, on the mere display of their strength, the Duke of Norfolk must either retire or would himself come over to their side.

Which, however, is disappointed.

Norfolk, however, who had but reached Doncaster the morning of the same day, lay still, and as yet showed no sign of moving. If they intended to pass, they must force the bridge. Apparently they must fight a battle; and at this extremity they hesitated. Their professed intention was no more than an armed demonstration. They were ready to fight;¹⁵⁶ but in fighting they could no longer maintain the pretence that they were loyal subjects. They desired to free the king from plebeian advisers, and restore the influence of the nobles. It was embarrassing to commence with defeating an army led by four peers of the purest blood in England.¹⁵⁷

Oct. 25, 26. Eagerness of the clergy to advance.

For two days the armies lay watching each other.¹⁵⁸ Parties of clergy were busy up and down the rebel host, urging an advance, protesting that if they hesitated the cause was lost; but their overwhelming strength seems to have persuaded the leaders that their cause, so far from being lost, was won already, and that there was no need of violence.

On the 25th, Lancaster Herald came across to desire, in Norfolk’s name, that four of them would hold an interview with him, under a safe conduct, in Doncaster, and explain their objects. Aske replied by a counter offer, that eight or twelve principal persons on both sides should hold a conference on Doncaster bridge.

Council of war.

Aske advises negotiations.

Both proposals were rejected; the duke said that he should remain in his lines, and receive their attack whenever they dared to make it.¹⁵⁹ There was a pause. Aske called a council of war; and “the lords” – or perhaps Lord Darcy – knowing that in rebellions half measures are suicide, voted for an immediate onset. Aske himself was of a different opinion. Norfolk did not wholly refuse negotiation; one other attempt might at least be made to avoid bloodshed. “The duke,” he said, in his account of his conduct, “neither of those days had above six or eight thousand men, while we were nigh thirty thousand at the least; but we considered that if battle had been given, if the duke had obtained the victory, all the knights, esquires, and all others of those parts had been attainted, slain, and undone for the Scots and the enemies of the king; and, on the other part, if the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Rutland, the Earl of Huntingdon, the Lord Talbot, and others, had been slain, what great captains, councillors, noble blood, persons dread in foreign realms, and Catholic knights had wanted and been lost. What displeasure should this have been to the king’s public wealth, and what comfort to the antient enemies of the realm. It was considered also what honour the north parts had attained by the said duke; how he was beloved for his activity and fortune.”¹⁶⁰

Commissioners from the rebels are sent into Doncaster.

Conditions on which the rebels will treat.

If a battle was to be avoided nevertheless, no time was to be lost, for skirmishing parties were crossing the river backwards and forwards, and accident might at any moment bring on a general engagement. Aske had gained his point at the council; he signified his desire for a further parley, and on Thursday afternoon, after an exchange of hostages, Sir Thomas Hilton, Sir Ralph Ellerkar, Sir Robert Chaloner, and Sir Robert Bowes¹⁶¹ crossed to the royal camp to attempt, if possible, to induce the duke to agree to the open conference on the bridge.¹⁶² The conditions on which they would consent to admit even this first slight concession were already those of conquerors. A preliminary promise must be made by the duke that all persons who, in heart, word, or deed, had taken part in the insurrection, should have free pardon for life, lands, and goods; that neither in the pardon nor in the public records of the realm should they be described as traitors. The duke must explain further the extent of his powers to treat. If “the captain” was to be present on the bridge, he must state what hostages he was prepared to offer for the security of so great a person; and as Richard Cromwell was supposed to be with the king’s army, neither he nor any of his kin should be admitted among the delegates. If these terms were allowed, the conference should take place, and the objects of the insurrection might be explained in full for the duke to judge of them.¹⁶³

Conference on the bridge at Doncaster.

Hilton and his companions remained for the night in Doncaster. In the morning they returned with a favourable answer. After dinner the same four gentlemen, accompanied by Lords Latimer, Lumley, Darcy, Sir Robert Constable, and Sir John Bulmer, went down upon the bridge. They were met by an equal number of knights and noblemen from Norfolk’s army; Robert Aske remaining on the bank of the Don, “the whole host standing with him in perfect array.”¹⁶⁴ The conference lasted till the October day had closed in darkness. What destinies did not hang upon its issue? The insurgents it is likely might have forced the passage of the river; and although the river of time was running with too full a current for them or any man to have stayed its course, yet they might have stained its waters with streams of English blood; the sunrise of the Reformation might have been veiled in storms; and victory, when it came at last, have shone over gory battle-fields and mangled ruins.

Such was not the destiny appointed for England. The insurgents were deceived by their strength. They believed themselves irresistible, and like many others who have played at revolutions, dreamt that they could afford to be moderate.

Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Ralph Ellerkar carry the petition of the rebels to the king.

It was agreed that Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Ralph Ellerkar should carry the articles to the king; that the Duke of Norfolk should escort them in person, and intercede for their favourable hearing. Meanwhile, and till the king’s reply was known, there should be an armistice. The musters on both sides should be disbanded, – neither party should “innovate” upon the status in quo.

The loyalists and the rebels alike expected to gain by delay. Letters from all parts of the kingdom were daily pouring in to Aske, full of gratitude, admiration, and promises of help.¹⁶⁵ He had leisure to organize the vast force of which the command had been thrust upon him, to communicate with the Emperor or with the regent’s court at Brussels, and to establish a correspondence with the southern counties.

Both parties expect to gain by delay.

The Duke of Norfolk escaped an immediate danger agreeing in heart with the general objects of the rising, he trusted that the petition, supported by the formidable report which he would carry up with him, might bring the king to consent to a partial reaction; if not to be reconciled to the Pope, at least to sacrifice Cromwell and the heretical bishops.

The weight of the crisis now rested on Henry himself. Cromwell was powerless where his own person was the subject of contention. He had no friends, – or none whose connexion with him did not increase his danger, – while by his enemies he was hated as an incarnation of Satan. He left his cause in the king’s hands, to be supported or allowed to fall.

Advice of the Privy Council to the king.

Which he will not receive.

But the Tudor princes were invariably most calm when those around them were panic-stricken. From the moment that the real danger was known, the king’s own hand was on the helm – his own voice was heard dictating his orders. Lincolnshire had again become menacing, and Suffolk had written despairing letters; the king told him “not to be frightened at his shadow.”¹⁶⁶ The reactionary members of the council had suggested a call of parliament, and a proclamation that if any of the king’s subjects could prove the late measures of the government to be against the laws of God or the interests of the commonwealth, these measures should be undone. They had begged, further, that his Highness would invite all persons who had complaints against Cromwell and the bishops to come forward with their proofs, and would give a promise that if the charges could be substantiated, they should be proceeded against and punished.¹⁶⁷ At such a crisis the king refused either to call a parliament to embarrass his hands, or to invite his subjects to argue against his policy. “He dared rather to testify that there never were in any of his predecessors’ days so many wholesome, commodious, and beneficial acts made for the commonwealth: for those who were named subverters of God’s laws he did take and repute them to be just and true executors of God’s laws.” If any one could duly prove to the contrary, they should be duly punished. “But in case,” he said, “it be but a false and untrue report (as we verily think it is), then it were as meet, and standeth as well with justice, that they should have the self-same punishment which wrongfully hath objected this to them that they should have had if they deserved it.”¹⁶⁸

November 1.

On the 29th of October he was on the point of setting off from London; circulars had gone out to the mayors of the towns informing them of his purpose, and directing them to keep watch and ward night and day,¹⁶⁹ when Norfolk reached the court with the two messengers.

The insurgent emissaries are detained at the court.

The king writes private letters to the lords and gentlemen.

Henry received them graciously. Instead of sending them back with an immediate answer, he detained them for a fortnight, and in that interval gained them wholly over to himself. With their advice and assistance he sent private letters among the insurgent leaders. To Lord Latimer and the other nobles he represented the dishonour which they had brought upon themselves by serving under Aske; he implored both them and the many other honourable men who had been led away to return to their allegiance, “so as we may not,” he said, “be enforced to extend our princely power against you, but with honour, and without further inconvenience, may perform that clemency on which we have determined.”¹⁷⁰

Heralds are sent into the northern towns to combat the delusions to which the people have been exposed.

By infinite exertion he secured the services, from various parts of England, of fifty thousand reliable men who would join him on immediate notice; while into the insurgent counties he despatched heralds, with instructions to go to the large towns, to observe the disposition of the people, and, if it could be done with safety, to request the assistance of the mayor and bailiffs, “gently and with good words in his Grace’s name.” If the herald “used himself discreetly,” they would probably make little difficulty; in which case he should repair in his coat of arms, attended by the officers of the corporation, to the market cross, and explain to the people the untruth of the stories by which they had been stirred to rebellion. The poorest subject, the king said, had at all times access to his presence to declare his suits to him; if any among them had felt themselves aggrieved, why had they not first come to him as petitioners, and heard the truth from his own lips. “What folly was it then to adventure their bodies and souls, their lands, lives and goods, wives and children, upon a base false lie, set forth by false seditious persons, intending and desiring only a general spoil and a certain destruction of honest people, honest wives, and innocent children. What ruth and pity was it that Christian men, which were not only by God’s law bound to obey their prince, but also to provide nutriment and sustentation for their wives and children, should forget altogether, and put them in danger of fire and sword for the accomplishment of a certain mad and furious attempt.” They could not recall the past. Let them amend their faults by submission for the future. The king only desired their good. He had a force in reserve with which he could and would crush them if they drove him to it; he hoped that he might be able only to show them mercy and pardon.¹⁷¹ As to the suppression of the abbeys, the people should learn to compare their actual condition with the objects for which they were founded. Let them consider the three vows of religion – poverty, chastity, and obedience – and ask themselves how far these vows had been observed.¹⁷²

Continued irritation in the disturbed counties.

Aske’s measures of organization.

Posts are laid down.

Hull is fortified.

Rumour of the intended advance of Aske and Lord Darcy.

The heralds attempted their mission, and partially succeeded; but so hot a fever was not to be cooled on a sudden; and connected with the delay of the messengers, and with information of the measures which the king was procuring, their presence created, perhaps, more irritation and suspicion than their words accomplished good. The siege of Skipton continued; separate local insurrections were continually blazing; the monks everywhere were replaced in the abbeys; and Aske, who, though moderate, was a man of clear, keen decision, determined, since the king was slow in sending up his concessions, to anticipate them by calling a parliament and convocation of the northern notables, to sit at York.¹⁷³ “The king’s treasure,” which had fallen into his hands, gave him command of money; the religious houses contributed their plate; circulars were addressed to every parish and township, directing them to have their contingents ready at any moment to march; and, to insure a rapid transmission of orders, regular posts were established from Hull to Templehurst, from Templehurst to York, from York to Durham, from Durham to Newcastle. The roads were patrolled night and day; all unknown persons in town or village were examined and “ripped.”¹⁷⁴ The harbour at Hull was guarded with cannon, and the town held by a strong garrison under Sir Robert Constable, lest armed ships from Portsmouth might attempt to seize it. Constable himself, with whose name we have already become familiar, was now, after Robert Aske and Lord Darcy, the third great leader of the movement.¹⁷⁵ The weather had changed, an early winter had set in, and the rivers either fell or froze; the low marsh country again became passable, and rumours were abroad that Darcy intended to surprise Doncaster, and advance towards Nottingham; and that Aske and Constable would cross the Humber, and, passing through Lincolnshire, would cut off Suffolk, and join him at the same place.¹⁷⁶

Nov. 9. Reinforcements are sent to Lord Shrewsbury.

The king, feeling that the only safety was in boldness, replied by ordering Lord Shrewsbury to advance again to his old position. The danger must have been really great, as even Shrewsbury hesitated, and this time preferred to hold the line of the Trent.¹⁷⁷ But Henry would now hear nothing of retreat. His own musters were at last coming up in strength. The fortification of Hull, he said, was a breach of the engagement at Doncaster; and Vernon, one of the lords of the Welsh Marches, Sir Philip Draycote, and Sir Henry Sacheverell, going to Shrewsbury’s assistance, the line of the Don was again occupied. The head-quarters were at Rotherham, and a depôt of artillery and stores was established at Tickhill.¹⁷⁸

Projects to seize or murder Aske.

In Suffolk’s camp at Lincoln a suggestion was started whether Aske’s attack might not be anticipated, – whether, by a swift, silent enterprise, it might not be possible to seize and carry off both him and Sir R. Constable. Two volunteers were found who offered to make the experiment. One of them, Anthony Curtis, a cousin of Aske, “for private malice, said that if he might have licence, he would find sureties, and would either kill his kinsman or be killed himself.”¹⁷⁹ Another attempt for Aske’s destruction was made by the Duke of Norfolk, who had no objection to a coalition of noblemen against Cromwell, but disdained the dictation of an unknown upstart. He supposed that he might tempt Lord Darcy to an act of treachery, and sent a questionable proposal to him by the hands of a servant of Lord Hussey, a certain Percival Cresswell. The attempt failed; but Cresswell’s account of his mission is not a little curious.

November 10.

The Duke of Norfolk sends Percival Cresswell to Lord Darcy.

The anteroom at Templehurst.

The Duke of Norfolk desires Lord Darcy to betray Aske.

Darcy will not stain his coat for the best dukedom in France.

November 11.

He arrived at Templehurst on Friday, November the 10th, shortly before dinner. Lord Darcy was walking with Aske himself, who was his guest at the time, and a party of the commons in the castle garden. Cresswell gave him a letter from Norfolk, which was cautiously worded, in case it should fall into wrong hands, and said he was charged also with a private message. The danger of exciting suspicion was so great that Darcy had a difficulty in arranging a separate conversation. He took Cresswell into the castle, where he left him in an anteroom full of armed men. They gathered about him, and inquired whether Cromwell, “whom they called most vilipendiously,” was put out of the king’s council. He replied that the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Oxford, Lord Sussex, and Sir William Fitzwilliam were with the king. “God save the king!” they said; “as long as noblemen of the true blood rule about the king all will be well. But how of Cromwell? Is he put from the council or no?” Cresswell said that he was still on the council. “Then, whatsoever the Lord Darcy say to you,” they answered, “show the king and the lords that until our petitions are granted we will take no pardon till we have our will.” Darcy had by this time secured a private room and a few private moments. He called Cresswell in. “Now tell your message,” he said. “The Duke of Norfolk desires you,” announced the messenger, “to deliver up Aske, quick or dead, but if possible, alive; and you shall so show yourself a true subject, and the king will so regard you.”¹⁸⁰ Darcy replied like a nobleman. He had given his faith, he said, and he would not stain his coat.¹⁸¹ He wrote a few lines to Norfolk. “Alas, my Lord!” his letter said, “that you, being a man of so great honour, should advise or choose me to betray any living man, Frenchman, Scot, yea, or even Turk. To win for me or for mine heirs the best duke’s lands that be in France, I would not do it to no living person.”¹⁸² The next morning, after mass, he again called Cresswell to him, and bade him tell the king that he had never done better service either to him or to his father than he was doing at that moment, and if there was to be peace, he recommended that the answer to the petition should be returned instantly.

The king had written more than one answer; but in each draught which he had made there was a reservation attached to the promise of a general pardon, excluding in one instance ten persons, in another, six, from the benefit of it;¹⁸³ and they were withdrawn all of them in deference to the protests of the Duke of Norfolk. Ellerkar and Bowes were dismissed on the 14th of November, “with general instructions of comfort.”¹⁸⁴ Norfolk himself, with other commissioners, would return to the north at the end of the month with a final reply.

Rebel council at York.

Advice of Sir Robert Constable to make sure the northern counties.

The ill-humour of the insurgents was meanwhile increasing; division had begun to show itself; the people suspected the gentlemen, the gentlemen, feared the people, and noisy demonstrations showed Aske that a state of inaction was too dangerous to continue. On the return of Bowes and Ellerkar a hasty council was called at York. The question was put whether they should wait or not for the arrival of the commissioners. Especial exasperation had been caused by a letter of Cromwell to Sir Ralph Evers, in which it was said that, “unless the commons would be soon pacified, there should be such vengeance taken that the whole world should speak thereof.”¹⁸⁵ It was proposed to cut short further parley, and leave the cause to be decided by the sword. Darcy had already selected an agent to the court of Brussels, to beg that arms and ammunition might be sent at once to Hull.¹⁸⁶ Sir Robert Constable declared openly, “that if his advice might be taken, seeing he had broken one point in the tables with the king, he would yet break another, and have no meeting. He would have all the country made sure from Trent northward; he doubted not they would have joined with them all Lancashire and Cheshire, which would make them strong enough to defend themselves against all men; and then,” he said, “he would be content to condescend to the meeting.”¹⁸⁷

Had this advice been taken, the consequences might have been serious; but the fatal moderation of the leader prevailed over the more audacious but safer counsel. The terms offered by the government should be first discussed, but they should be discussed in security. The musters should reassemble in full force.¹⁸⁸ They had summoned a northern parliament and convocation. The two assemblies should sit at Pomfret and not at York, and should meet at the time of the conference.

November 26.

Aske again collects his army.

The king is reluctant to grant a general pardon.

Thus, on the 26th of November, as the king’s commissioners approached the borders of Yorkshire,¹⁸⁹ the news reached them that the beacons were again burning, and the force of the commons was again collecting. The conference, if conference there was to be, must be held with their hands on their sword-hilts. The black squadrons, with St. Cuthbert’s banner, would be swarming on the banks of the Don as before.¹⁹⁰ They had brought down extensive powers, but the king had refused absolutely to grant a complete pardon. Five or six of the worst offenders, he insisted, should be surrendered; and if the rebels were obstinate, Norfolk had been directed to protract the discussion, to win time by policy, that he might himself come to them; and in the meantime to consent to nothing, to promise nothing, and yet do and say nothing “which might give them warning and respite to fortify themselves.”¹⁹¹

The Duke of Norfolk returns to Doncaster,

And sends a messenger entreating the king to give way.

But the waters had fallen low; the ground was hard; the sharpest winter had set in which had been known for years. The force which Shrewsbury had with him could not now hold its position in the face of the vast numbers which were collecting. When the number of the rebels who had reassembled was known, Sir John Russell was sent back from Nottingham to tell the king that his conditions could not be insisted upon, and to entreat him not only to grant the full pardon, but to promise also to hold a parliament in person at York.

Council and convocation at Pomfret.

Nov. 27. Gallant conduct of the Archbishop of York.

The northern convocation pronounce against the Reformation.

Ignorant what the answer would be, Norfolk, with the other commissioners, went on to Doncaster, having prepared his way by a letter to Lord Darcy, to do away the effect of his late overtures.¹⁹² He arrived at the town on the 28th of November. On Monday the 27th, the northern notables, laity and clergy, had assembled at Pomfret. Thirty-four peers and knights, besides gentlemen and extemporized leaders of the commons, sate in the castle hall;¹⁹³ the Archbishop of York and his convocation, in Pomfret church. The discussions of the latter body were opened by the archbishop in a sermon, in which he dared to declare the meeting unlawful and the insurrection traitorous. He was swiftly silenced: a number of soldiers dragged him out of the pulpit, and threw him down upon the pavement. He was rescued and carried off by a party of his friends, or in a few more moments he would have been murdered.¹⁹⁴ The clergy, delivered from his control, drew up a list of articles, pronouncing successively against each step which had been taken in the Reformation;¹⁹⁵ and other articles simultaneously were drawn by the council in the hall. One by one, as the form of each was resolved upon, they were read aloud to the assembly, and were received with shouts of “Fiat! Fiat!”

Nov. 29. The deputation of 300 from Pomfret to Doncaster.

December 2.

Ten knights were then told off, and ten followers for every knight, to ride down to Doncaster and arrange the preliminaries of the meeting. They saw the duke on the day of his arrival; and on Wednesday the 29th, Lord Darcy, Robert Aske, and three hundred of the most eminent of their party, passed the bridge of the Don with a safe conduct into the town. Wearing their pilgrim’s badges, the five wounds of Christ crossed on their breasts, “they made obeisance on their knees before the duke and earls, and did humbly require to have the king’s most merciful and free pardon for any of their offences committed.” This done, they presented their resolutions, on which they had just determined at Pomfret, and the discussion opened. The duke’s hands were tied; he could undertake nothing. The debate continued till Saturday, “exceeding perplexed,” messengers hurrying to and fro between Doncaster and Pomfret. At length, on Saturday, Sir John Russell came with the king’s revised commission.

The king will grant the general pardon, but against his own judgment.

He warns Norfolk to make no concession beyond the letter of his commission.

Against his judgment Henry had yielded to the entreaties of the Privy Council. He foresaw that to allow a commotion of such a kind to pass wholly unpunished, was to acknowledge a virtual defeat, and must encourage conduct which would soon lead to a repetition of the same scenes. He refused to admit that Norfolk was justified in his despondency. Skipton still held out. Lord Clifford and Sir William Musgrave had gained possession of Carlisle, and were raising men there. Lord Derby was ready to move with the musters of Cheshire and Lancashire. Besides Shrewsbury’s forces, and the artillery at Tickhill, Suffolk had eight thousand men in high order at Lincoln. He “marvelled that Norfolk should write to him in such extreme and desperate sort, as though the world were turned upside down.” “We might think,” he said, “that either things be not so well looked on as they might be, when you can look but only to the one side; or else that ye be so perplexed with the brutes on the one part, that ye do omit to write the good of the other. We could be as well content to bestow some time in the reading of an honest remedy as of so many extreme and desperate mischiefs.” Nevertheless, he said, if the rebels would be contented with the two concessions which Norfolk had desired, – a free pardon and a parliament at York, – these, but only these, might be made. No further engagements of any kind should or might be entered into. If more were insisted on, the commissioners should protract the time as skilfully as they could, and send secret expresses to Lord Derby and the Duke of Suffolk, who would advance by forced marches to their support.¹⁹⁶ With this letter he sent a despatch to Suffolk, bidding him hold himself in readiness, and instructing him at the same time to use his influence in the West Riding to induce the people to return to their allegiance, and permitting him to make liberal offers and promises in the name of his government.¹⁹⁷

The limitation of the new commission was as clear as language could make it. If the Duke of Norfolk committed himself more deeply, it was against the king’s express commands, and in the face of repeated warnings.

Agreement of Doncaster.

On the day of Russell’s arrival an agreement was made and signed. The pardon and the parliament were directly promised. It appears, certainly, that further engagements were virtually entered upon, or that words were used, perhaps intentionally vague, which were interpreted by the insurgents through their hopes and wishes. They believed, perhaps they were led to believe, that their entire petition had been granted;¹⁹⁸ they had accomplished the object of their pilgrimage, and they were satisfied.

Aske throws off his badge.

As the conference closed, Aske again fell upon his knees, “and most humbly required the Duke of Norfolk and all the earls and lords of his part, to desire the lords of the north part to relinquish and refuse thenceforth to nominate him by the name of captain; and they promised: which done, the said Aske, in the presence of all the lords, pulled off his badge crossed with the five wounds, and in a semblable manner did all the lords there, and all others there present, saying all these words, ‘We will wear no badge nor figure but the badge of our sovereign Lord.’”¹⁹⁹ A fine scene … yet, as we sometimes witness with a sudden clearance after rain, leaving hanging vapours in the sky, indicating surely that the elements were still unrelieved.