The Road Not Taken

by Frank McLynn

  37. LP, XI, no. 750.

  38. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, pp. 559, 569.

  39. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 47–50, 195–9, 414.

  40. Reid, King’s Council, p. 126.

  41. G. R. Elton, ‘Politics and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, in G. R. Elton, Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government, 4 vols (1992), iii, pp. 183–215; G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509–1558 (1977), pp. 260–70; Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 190.

  42. James, ‘Obedience’.

  43. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, pp. 558–9, 562–3; Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, p. 341.

  44. M. Bush, ‘Enhancement and Importunate Change: An analysis of the Tax Complaints of October 1536’, Albion, 22 (1990), pp. 403–18.

  45. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 108.

  46. The king ‘probably thought that if things came to the worst it would be better to lose a doubtful supporter than send arms to a possible rebel’. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 144.

  47. Bush, ‘Up for the Commonweal’, p. 303; Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 43–47.

  48. J. C. Cox, ‘William Stapulton and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society, 10 (1903), pp. 82–98 (at pp. 82, 85).

  49. Ibid.

  50. Ibid., pp. 91–5.

  51. H. J. Allison, A History of the County of York (1974), iii, pp. 138–42; cf. also Stephen Tobin, The Cistercians: Monks and Monasteries in Europe, 1502–37 (1995).

  52. Cox, ‘William Stapulton’, pp. 95–8.

  53. A. Fletcher and D. MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions (1997), p. 132.

  54. LP, XI, no. 826.

  55. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 206.

  56. LP, XI, no. 705.

  57. For this aspect of the German rebellion see E. Belfort Bax, The Peasant War (1899), pp. 108, 137–42.

  58. Bush, Pilgrimage, p. 214.

  59. Ibid., pp. 98–100.

  60. LP, XI, no. 1086. See also Gairdner and Brodie, eds, Letters and Papers, Henry VIII January–May 1537, vol. 12, part one – hereinafter LP, XII, i – nos 783, 976, 899.

  61. R. W. Hoyle, ‘Thomas Master’s Narrative of the Pilgrimage of Grace’, Northern History, 21 (1985), pp. 53–79 (at p. 79); Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 417.

  62. For the connections between Hussey and Darcy see Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 301–3. On the entire issue of Darcy’s guilt, its extent, and the extenuating case that can be made for him see Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 68–70, 256–81 (esp. pp. 257, 260–6, 271–3), 416–17.

  63. LP, XII, i, nos 851, 891.

  64. Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 67–8; Cox, ‘William Stapulton’, Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, pp. 336–7.

  65. Cox, ‘William Stapulton’, p. 82. For Bowes himself see C. Newman, Robert Bowes and the Pilgrimage of Grace (Teesside, 1997).

  66. M. L. Bush, ‘Captain Poverty and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, Historical Research, 65 (1992), pp. 17–36 (at pp. 17–18); M. L. Bush, ‘The Richmondshire Uprising of October 1536 and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, Northern History, 39 (1993), pp. 88–95; Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 72–6.

  67. S. M. Harrison, The Pilgrimage of Grace in the Lake Counties, 1536–7 (1981), pp. 47–56; Bush, Pilgrimage, p. 12.

  68. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 370–2.

  69. The untenable notion of the Pilgrims as an aristocratic revolt manipulating the Commons to rise against an unpopular Thomas Cromwell is in G. R. Elton, ‘Politics and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, in B. Malament, ed., After the Reformation (Manchester, 1980), pp. 25–6. See also R. B. Smith, Land and Politics in the England of Henry VIII (Oxford, 1970), esp. Ch. 5. For the more convincing view that the Pilgrimage was always principally a popular revolt see Hoyle, ‘Master’s Narrative’, and Reid, King’s Council, pp. 136–9.

  70. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, pp. 336–7; Hoyle, ‘Master’s Narrative’, pp. 70–1; Bush, ‘Richmondshire uprising’.

  71. LP, XI, no. 927.

  72. R. W. Hoyle, ‘The First Earl of Cumberland: A Reputation Reassessed’, Northern History, 22 (1986), pp. 63–94; M. E. James, ‘The First Earl of Cumberland (1493–1542) and the Decline of Northern Feudalism’, Northern History, 1 (1966), pp. 63–94; Louis A. Knaffla, ‘Stanley, Edward, 3rd Earl of Derby (1509–72), Magnate’, ODNB (2004), pp. 175–7; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 215–16.

  73. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 238.

  74. W. A. J. Archbold, ‘Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Cumberland’, DNB (1898), 44, pp. 416–17; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 32–4.

  75. LP, XI, no. 714.

  76. Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 41, 205; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 192.

  77. LP, XII, i, no. 393; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 198–9.

  78. Bush, Pilgrimage, p. 376.

  79. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 294.

  80. Ibid., p. 413. And, for another opinion: ‘Central to the uprising, then, was an outraged, independent and self-conscious commons urgently demanding redress. Their presence influenced the behaviour of other aggrieved groups, clerical and aristocratic.’

  81. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 54.

  82 LP, XI, no. 826; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 228–30.

  83. Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 66–7. For the Ellerkers see B. English, The Great Landowners and East Yorkshire (NY, 1990), pp. 18–19.

  84. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, p. 39; Cox, ‘William Stapulton’, p. 94; Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 56–8; Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 437–9.

  85. Bateson, Pilgrimage of Grace’, pp. 554–5; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 239.

  86. LP, XI, no. 786.

  87. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 143.

  88. LP, XI, nos 615, 621, 768, 803.

  89. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 246.

  90. LP, XI, nos 758, 845–6.

  91. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 255.

  92. LP, XI, no. 846; Cox ‘Stapulton’, p. 337.

  93. Hoyle, ‘Master’s Narrative’, pp. 50–1, 70–1; LP, XI, nos 846, 909.

  94. LP, XI, nos 887, 909.

  95. Cox ‘Stapulton’, p. 554; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 253–4.

  96. Cox ‘Stapulton’, p. 559.

  97. Here one is irresistibly reminded of the words of Mao Tse-tung: ‘A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous.’ Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan.

  98. M. E. James, ‘English Politics and the Concept of Honour, 1485–1642’, in M. E. James, Society, Politics and Culture in Early Modern England (1986), pp. 380–415 (at pp. 350–4); Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 297; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 257.

  99. LP, XI, no. 909.

  100. LP, XI, nos 909, 1241.

  101. LP, XI, no. 864.

  102. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 294.

  103. Hoyle, ‘Master’s Narrative’, pp. 70–1; Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 390–1.

  104. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 297.

  105. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 262.

  106. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 151.

  107. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, p. 338; LP, XI, no. 1319.

  108. LP, XI, no. 186.

  109. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, p. 338; LP, XI, no. 405; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 260.

  110. LP, XI, no. 864.

  111. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, p. 338.

  112. LP, XI, nos 928, 1045.

  113. Bush, Pilgrimage, p. 394.

  114. D. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (1996), p. 178.

  115. LP, XI, nos 1174–6.

  116. LP, XI, nos 979, 1009.

  117. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 326–7.

  118. LP, XI, nos 1138, 1175.

  119. LP, XI, no. 1061.

  120. LP, XI, no. 780.

  121. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, p. 555.

  122. LP, XI, no. 957; Dodds, P
ilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 275–8.

  123. LP, XI, nos 1027, 1077, 1120.

  124. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 321–2.

  5 Treachery and Debacle

  1. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 51–3.

  2. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, p. 34.

  3. LP, XII, i, no. 1022.

  4. LP, XI, nos 1300, 1336; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 381.

  5. LP, XI, no. 1136.

  6. LP, XI, nos 1300, 1336; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 342–3.

  7. LP, XI, no. 1049.

  8. LP, XI, no. 1058.

  9. LP, XI, nos 1050, 1051, 1059, 1068, 1096, 1167.

  10. LP, XII, i, no. 1013; LP, XI, no. 995.

  11. LP, XI, nos 1045, 1007.

  12. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 293.

  13. LP, XI, no. 1046.

  14. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 322.

  15. LP, XI, no. 998; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 282.

  16. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 325, 340.

  17. LP, XI, nos 826, 955, 1044, 1064, 1170.

  18. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 340

  19. For these issues in general see Frank McLynn, Invasion: From the Armada to Hitler (1987).

  20. For Pole see Martin Haile, Life of Reginald Pole (NY, 1910).

  21. LP, XI, no. 1131.

  22. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 335–9.

  23. Ibid., pp. 310, 341; Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 185.

  24. LP, XI, nos 1115–16.

  25. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 312–13.

  26. LP, XI, no. 1032.

  27. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 302–20.

  28. LP, XI, no. 1120.

  29. For Norfolk’s advice see LP, XI, nos 884–6. Henry habitually reacted to this advice by accusing Norfolk of defeatism and of exaggerating Pilgrim numbers (LP, XI, no. 1271).

  30. LP, XI, nos 1139, 1175; Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, p. 339.

  31. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 312.

  32. Ibid., p. 326.

  33. LP, XI, no. 1170; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 379–80.

  34. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 166.

  35. Hoyle, ‘Master’s Narrative’, p. 74.

  36. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 326–8; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 311–18.

  37. LP, XI, no. 1170.

  38. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 341.

  39. LP, XI, nos 1226–8.

  40. LP, XI, nos 1209–10.

  41. For a full list of participants in the Pontefract conference see Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, p. 345.

  42. Ibid., pp. 48–53.

  43. It is worth remarking, parenthetically, that Aske’s apparently ingenious solution would have offered no answer to the conundrum of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon. Did this come under the heading of ‘temporal’ matters or the care of souls? The answer, depending on one’s premises, is: both.

  44. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 351–2.

  45. Ibid., pp. 357–8.

  46. Ibid., pp. 355–6.

  47. Ibid., pp. 359–60.

  48. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, pp. 559, 565, 570; cf. also LP, XI, no. 853.

  49. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 173.

  50. For gressoms see Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 54–5, 170–3, 202–4, 277, 297, 302, 309–11, 336–40.

  51. Ibid., pp. 311–14, 337:

  52. Ibid., pp. 314–20.

  53. ibid., pp. 170–3, 276–9, 297–8, 309–14, 322–4, 336–9, 408–9, 413–14.

  54. M. L. Bush, ‘Enhancement and Importunate Changes: An Analysis of the Tax Complaints of October 1536’, Albion, 22 (1990), pp. 403–18.

  55. Ibid., p. 406.

  56. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 101; Cox, ‘William Stapulton’, p. 82.

  57. Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 364–73.

  58. Ibid., p. 318.

  59. LP XI, nos 1196, 1237, 1242.

  60. LP, XI, no. 1226.

  61. LP, XI, no. 1237.

  62. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, pp. 340–1.

  63. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii. p. 12.

  64. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, p. 341; LP, XI, no. 1271.

  65. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, pp. 341–2.

  66. LP, XI, no. 1226; Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 366.

  67. Hoyle, ‘Master’s Narrative’, p. 75; Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 361.

  68. LP, XI, no. 1271.

  69. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 359–65.

  70. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, pp. 17–18.

  71. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 419.

  72. For some pointers in this area see Claire Cross, ‘Monasticism and Society in the Diocese of York, 1520–1540’, TRHS, 38 (1988), pp. 131–45; Christopher Haigh, The Last Days of the Lancashire Monasteries and the Pilgrimage of Grace, Chatham Society, 3rd series, 17 (1969); R. W. Hoyle, ‘The Origins of the Dissolution of the Monasteries’, Historical Journal, 38 (1995), pp. 275–305.

  73. For Cumberland see S. M. Harrison, The Pilgrimage of Grace in the Lake Counties, 1536–7 (1981).

  74. Bush, Pilgrimage, p. 129.

  75. Though this may have affected Henry’s attitude later. See Hutchinson, Thomas Cromwell.

  76. LP, XI, nos 1234, 1238, 1271; Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, p. 341.

  77. LP, XII, i, no. 131.

  78. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, p. 17.

  79. LP, XI, nos 1337, 1339, 1368.

  80. LP, XI, no. 1294.

  81. LP, XI, nos 1358, 1369.

  82. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, pp. 217–20.

  83. LP, XI, no. 1306.

  84. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 221.

  85. LP XI, nos 1337, 1365, 1380.

  86. LP, XI, nos 1410, 1459, 1481–2.

  87. For Scarborough see J. Binns, ‘Scarborough and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, Scarborough Archaeological and Historical Society, 33 (1997), pp. 23–39.

  88. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 404–5.

  89. M. L. Bush, ‘The problem of the Far North: A Study of the Crisis of 1537 and Its Consequences’, Northern History, 6 (1971), pp. 40–63.

  90. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, pp. 89–90.

  91. Ibid., ii, pp. 91–2.

  92. LP, XII, i, no. 578. For the Bigod family in general see Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, i, pp. 40–4.

  93. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, pp. 56–60.

  94. LP, XII, i, nos 145, 1087.

  95. LP, XII, i, no. 1087.

  96. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, p. 384.

  97. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, pp. 62–78.

  98. LP, XI, no. 1410.

  99. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, p. 53.

  100. Ibid., ii, p. 93.

  101. Ibid., ii, p. 97.

  102. Ibid., ii, pp. 99–100.

  103. Ibid., ii, p. 109.

  104. Ibid., ii, p. 111.

  105. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 278.

  106. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 399–404.

  107. For the Cliffords see Add. MSS. 48, 965.

  108. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, pp. 116–20, 133.

  109. K. J. Allison, ‘The Sixteenth Century: Political Affairs Before 1542’, in K. J. Allison, ed., A History of the County of York East Riding, vol. vi, The Borough and Liberties of Beverley (1989), pp. 70–3.

  110. The entire macabre story is told in D. M. Bownes, The Post-Pardon Revolts, December 1536–March 1537 (Manchester, 1995), and Michael Bush and David Bownes, The Defeat of the Pilgrimage of Grace: A Study of the Postpardon Revolts of December 1536 to March 1537 and Their Effect (Hull, 1999).

  111. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, p. 226.

  112. Hoyle, Pilgrimage, pp. 397–9.

  113. Ibid., pp. 410–11.

  114. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, pp. 186–95.

  115. Bateson, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, pp. 550–73; Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, pp. 207–25.

  116. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, p. 221.

  117. Ibid., ii, pp. 105, 216, 227
.

  118. Moorhouse, Pilgrimage of Grace, p. 308; cf. also P. Blickle, The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasant War from a New Perspective (1981).

  119. Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace, ii, pp. 278–89.

  120. Ibid., ii, pp. 289–99, 307–27.

  121. The whole story is told in Jesse Childs, Henry VIII’s Last Victim (2008).

  122. A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (1989), pp. 74–9.

  123. Bush, ‘Up for the Commonweal’, pp. 314–15.

  124. Bush, Pilgrimage, pp. 401–3.

  125. See the interesting synoptic treatment in A. Wood, The 1549 Rebellion and the Making of Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2007).

  126. R. B. Manning, ‘The Rebellion of 1549 in England’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 10 (1979), pp. 93–9.

  127. See S. Hindle, The State and Social Change c.1550–1640 (Basingstoke, 2000), pp. 44–8.

  128. D. MacCulloch, ‘Kett’s Rebellion in Context’, PP 84 (1981), pp. 36–59; J. D. Alsop, ‘Latimer, the “Commonwealth of Kett” and the 1549 Rebellion’, Historical Journal, 28 (1985), pp. 379–83.

  129. B. L. Beer, ‘The Commoyson in Norfolk, 1549: A Narrative of Popular Rebellion in Sixteenth-Century England’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1976), pp. 80–99.

  130. Wood, 1549 Rebellion, p. 71.

  131. Andrew Graham-Dixon, A History of British Art (1996), pp. 22–3.

  6 Cromwell and the Levellers

  1. Geoffrey Parker and Lesley M. Smith, eds, The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (1997).

  2. T. Ashton, ed., Crisis in Europe, 1560–1660 (1965).

  3. E. Hobsbawm, ‘The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’, PP 6 (1954), pp. 44–65: H. Trevor-Roper, ‘The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’, PP 16 (1959), pp. 31–64. See also the discussion by half a dozen other notables in PP 18 (1960), pp. 8–42.

  4. For this famous controversy see Christopher Hill, Puritanism and Revolution (1958); H. Trevor-Roper, The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century: Religion, the Reformation, Social Change and Other Essays (1967); H. Trevor-Roper, Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans: Seventeenth-Century Essays (1987). This was largely a debate between Marxists and non-Marxists, the former represented by Hill, Hobsbawm, R. H. Tawney and Laurence Stone, the latter by Trevor-Roper, G. R. Elton and J. H. Hexter. When the Marxists identified the gentry as the ascendant class, Trevor-Roper, with his love of paradox and pure disputation, asserted that the gentry were declining. Curiously, now that the dust has settled, historians have in effect returned to the very earliest interpretations: that the English Civil War was largely caused by a struggle between king and Parliament and the contingent mistakes of Charles I.