Sir Thomas Tempest, a Member of Parliament in 1536, was also based in County Durham and he was implicated, together with Robert Bowes, in the Pilgrimage of Grace. He had attended the Council of Pilgrims in York in November 1536. By late October, the Tempests and their faction had declared for the Pilgrimage at Halifax. Thomas’ brother, Nicholas, subsequently marched down the bank of the River Ribble to Whalley, with approximately 400 men and administered the Pilgrims’ Oath to the abbot and eight of the brethren. Nicholas was examined on 23 April 153758 and a memorandum written before the trial stated that he was instrumental in the first musters and a principal protagonist in the second insurrection. It was alleged that he had encouraged the resistance at Sawley Abbey and had given the monastery a fat ox and other things. Nicholas was found guilty of treason and executed in July 1537.59
Thomas Tempest was a trained lawyer and had been a member of the Council of the North since 1530.60 The fact that his kinsmen, Nicholas and Richard, were implicated in the Pilgrimage – Nicholas was condemned as a traitor and Sir Richard died in prison in August 153761 – did not impede his subsequent career. Indeed, by April 1537, Cromwell had recorded that Tempest was to be ‘remembered’ for his service,62 and June found Tempest reminding Cromwell that he had served the king from the beginning of his reign ‘in all his notable wars in these parts’, and requesting compensation.
As in the case of Ellerker and Bowes, Norfolk drew attention to Tempest’s service in July and asked Cromwell to be a good lord to them, in order to encourage their efficient service in the future. Tempest was rewarded with the lease of Synningthwaite Priory near York and the following year he purchased the freehold title of the property. Tempest was appointed as a Justice of the Peace for the West Riding of Yorkshire in November 1537 and was confirmed as member of the Council of the North, following a recommendation from the Duke of Norfolk, with a fee of 100 marks.63 He remained an active member of the council until his death in 1544 and his heir was his daughter, Anne. Tempest survived and prospered despite his initial involvement in the Pilgrimage and the punishment and disgrace of his relatives.
Another former Pilgrim who managed successfully to secure his rehabilitation was the lawyer William Stapleton. The Stapleton family of Wighill, near Tadcaster, were followers of the Earl of Northumberland and had a position of standing in the locality. William Stapleton’s long ‘Confession’ provides a detailed account of the rising at Beverley and the siege of Hull.64 William stated that he had been about to depart for London for the beginning of the law term when news of the Lincolnshire Rising prevented him. He said he was reluctant to leave his infirm brother, Christopher, amidst all the turmoil. Christopher, he said, was extremely scared, feeble and weak, and thus unable to escape nor offer resistance. According to William, both himself and Christopher were coerced into taking the oath and the people cried that ‘Master William Stapleton shall be our captain’.65 Stapleton maintained that, as the mob was so wild and dangerous, he believed his safest course of action was to accept the leadership. He continued in this role during the uprising and liaised with Aske.
Stapleton was present at the First Appointment at Doncaster in late October and had prevented his company from launching a spontaneous, surprise attack on the seemingly ill-defended and vulnerable town.66 He subsequently visited the depressed Earl of Northumberland, along with Robert Aske, at the start of November.67 The earl had fostered the resentment of his brothers, Ingram and Thomas, as well as his clientele by naming the king as his heir. Stapleton had cause to be fearful for the earl’s life, as he tells us in his confession that he had heard the commons call for his head to be cut off in order to replace him with Sir Thomas.68 Having said that, the Percy brothers had the sympathy of both Aske and Stapleton, as well as Stephen Hamerton and William Babthorpe.69
However, William was also the brother-in-law of Sir Thomas Wharton and it is most likely that this relationship saved him from the retribution of the Crown and facilitated his rehabilitation. Stapleton, then, appears to have been reprieved due to the influence of his patron, Wharton. In his confession Stapleton claimed that he had acted under duress but had preserved property and discipline among his host. He concluded the confession by stating that he was very sorry for his offences against the king, and had confessed all the details he could remember, before submitting to the king’s mercy.70 Stapleton was indeed fortunate that his explanation was accepted and he subsequently benefited from Wharton’s rapid rise. Indeed, Wharton may have secured Stapleton’s return as burgess for Carlisle to Parliament in 1539. We do know that he was definitely returned in 1542.71
His reinvention was not to last long. He was suffering from ill health in early 1544 and made his will on 30 March and was dead by 7 May. Astutely, he besought:
The holie churche to pray for me as God hathe appointed it aftre the manner as is sette forthe by the kinge’s Booke to Gode’s glory and my body to be buryed amonges Christian men in the churche or churche yarde where God shall call me to his marcy.72
Stapleton left one third of his goods to his son, who was still a minor, and the remainder to his wife, Margaret. He requested that his ‘cousin’, Wharton, and nephew, Robert Stapleton, care for them.
Stapleton’s rehabilitation appears to be due to his family’s connections and the appeals to the king’s grace, and was politically motivated. Having survived one scare, he was evidently not going to risk any behaviour that may have been perceived as dubious. Even when in ill health, he erred on the side of caution. His will demonstrates that he was hedging his bets so as not to alienate his family from the whims of the monarch of the day or jeopardise their position.
Two northern gentlemen by the name of Fairfax went on to prosper following the Pilgrimage of Grace – Sir William and Sir Nicholas. However, they behaved differently at the start of the insurrection. The Dodds have described Sir William as the ‘stingy farmer’ of Ferriby Priory, and said that he was quite unusual among the northern gentlemen in not joining.73 Riding through Wakefield around the 22 October, William was approached to take the oath but declined and rode off home. However, both he and his cousin Nicholas are recorded as being present at the Pilgrims’ Council at Pontefract which sat between 2 and 4 December 1536.
Sir William had advised Cromwell during Bigod’s rebellion in January 1537 that he was of the opinion that Darcy had not been steadfast during the Pilgrimage. In the same letter he stated that, where archbishops, bishops, abbots and spiritual persons had rule, the people ‘are most ready at a call’.74 In July, Fairfax had been entrusted with the responsibility of delivering the Earl of Northumberland’s goods to the king in compensation for a debt of £82. On 2 November, William was rewarded for his loyal service. Cromwell appointed him to the Council of the North with a fee of £20 and instructed Tunstall to allow him to come and go at his liberty.75
Sir Nicholas Fairfax, who had served a term as a Sheriff of Yorkshire by 1536, shared the command of a large group of rebels with Sir Thomas Percy during the Pilgrimage of Grace. However, by Christmas he was on his way to Court with a letter of recommendation from the Earl of Northumberland. He was obviously fortunate to make his peace with the king and subsequently was involved in the proceedings against Lords Darcy and Hussey. The Duke of Norfolk then recommended him for a pension of £20. Fairfax was returned to parliament for Scarborough in 1542 and Yorkshire in 1547 and 1563.
In 1554, Fairfax was the head of a household with thirty to forty servants and had an income of at least £1,000 per year.76 He was also appointed to the stewardship of the lands of St Mary’s Abbey some twenty years after the Pilgrimage, in the reign of Mary on 24 June 1557 ‘in consideration of his service’.77 This was his most lucrative office and his career is an example of a man who, initially enthused with the zeal of the Pilgrimage, managed to rehabilitate himself with comparative ease.
Sir William Babthorpe, based in the East Riding, was a trained lawyer and served on the Duke of Richmond’s Council in the North from 1525 until the duke’s
death in 1536. He was also one of the Earl of Northumberland’s councillors from 1533.78 Babthorpe was appointed one of the commissioners for surveying the lands and goods of the dissolved religious foundations in the East Riding in April 1536. However, in October he joined the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace.79 This decision most probably owed much to the influence of his kinsman, Robert Aske. Babthorpe’s name appeared on Aske’s proclamation dated 10 October 1536 and it was probably with his assistance that Wressle Castle became the rebels’ headquarters. He was with Darcy at Pontefract, and on the morning of Thursday 19 October he assembled with Darcy, Archbishop Lee, Robert Constable, Sir George Darcy and many others in the state chamber of the castle to hear Robert Aske make the case for the Pilgrimage of Grace. After Ellerker and Bowes returned from their meeting with the king in London, they met with the Pilgrims’ chief captains at Pontefract on Saturday 18 November. Babthorpe was present, alongside Lord Darcy, Sir Robert Constable and Robert Aske. The king had stated that he was to send the Duke of Norfolk to discuss their grievances further and Darcy was of the opinion that the king’s offer should be accepted. The other captains, Babthorpe included, felt that the matter should be put before the full Pilgrims’ Council which had been summoned for only a few days later – 21 November.80
On Tuesday 21 November, the Pilgrims’ Council assembled at York, including Babthorpe, but Darcy was not present. He had been excused because of the difficulty he had in travelling. At this meeting, Sir Robert Constable was against the proposal of a conference with Norfolk, but Darcy and Babthorpe were in favour and Babthorpe spoke on the side of peace.81 Babthorpe was also present at the council at Pontefract between 2 and 4 December 1536 and made a written contribution to the Pontefract Articles, which were read out to the whole assembly. In fact, Babthorpe’s opinions appear to have related primarily to heresy.82 His opinions on heresy appear to have been genuine and he was doctrinally orthodox, as is apparent in the behaviour of his heirs, which will be discussed in due course. William obviously retained Catholic loyalty but outwardly conformed as it was politically expedient to do so. After the formulation of the Pontefract Articles, William appears to have taken a back seat and when it became clear that the uprising had failed, he changed sides. In January 1537 he sought to prevent another uprising in the East Riding by ‘staying’ the commons.83
On 15 May he was appointed as one of the special commissioners given the task of processing the indictments against his former associates.84 His initial sympathies and actions did not do him long-term damage: he continued as a member of the Council of the North and was able to purchase a considerable amount of monastic property, including the manor of Flotmanby (which had previously belonged to Bridlington Priory) in Yorkshire in August 1543. He was also granted rents, lands and woods in Wistowe and Fenton, in Yorkshire, which had been part of Selby Monastery. In addition, Babthorpe was given the lordship and manor of Newhey, Yorkshire (previously in the possession of Drax Priory), with rents and lands of numerous tenants.
Thus, despite his Catholic sympathies, he had a vested interest in maintaining the Henrician status quo. Babthorpe clearly blossomed into a politically influential and important figure in the region. This is demonstrated by his election to the parliaments of 1547 and April 1554 as one of the Yorkshire knights of the shire. At the coronation of Edward VI in 1547 he was made a Knight of the Bath. William died on 27 February 1555 and his heir was his eldest surviving son, another William.85
Sir William Babthorpe’s opinions on heresy at the time of the Pontefract Articles must have been genuine, and although he quite obviously conformed for the remainder of his life, his religious sentiments were transmitted to his heirs. In fact, the Babthorpes became one of the leading Yorkshire recusant families in the subsequent reigns, culminating in the forfeiture of their property in the reign of James I (1612) and their decision to move abroad.
As a suspected recusant, Sir William junior (1529–81) was under a cloud. In a report compiled in 1564 on the Yorkshire Justices of the Peace, Sir William was described as a man who was not in favour of the Elizabethan religious settlement.86 However, when the Northern Rising broke out in 1569 Babthorpe demonstrated his loyalty to the Crown by joining the royal army under the Earl of Sussex. His loyalty to the Protestant Elizabeth overrode any sympathy he may have harboured for the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots.87
A man whose actions and subsequent reactions in some way mirror Babthorpe’s was Sir Christopher Danby. Danby was briefly involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace after he and his brother-in-law, Sir John Neville, 3rd Lord Latimer, were taken and sworn by the commons in mid-October 1536. Danby is mentioned as one of the captains who favoured a truce agreed at Doncaster at the end of October. However, he was still listed as among the knights present at Pontefract between 2 and 4 December. Danby managed to escape punishment for his disloyalty and even acted as foreman of one of the grand juries involved in the subsequent trials, including that of his cousin, Lord Darcy.88 After this episode he became heavily involved in public affairs, serving as a commissioner for musters and a Justice of the Peace. It is probably revealing that his only election to Parliament came in April 1554, in the reign of Mary I, as one of the Yorkshire Knights of the Shire, alongside Sir William Babthorpe.89
During Elizabeth’s reign, Danby’s Catholic sympathies caused suspicion in official circles. In a report on the Yorkshire Justices of the Peace which the Archbishop of York forwarded to the Privy Council in 1564, he and his son Thomas were described as men who were no favourers of the established religion. His younger son, Christopher, was described as being ‘one of the chief rebels for religion’ in 1569 and eventually fled abroad.
Sir Christopher Danby eventually died on 14 June 1571. His heir was his son, Sir Thomas (c. 1530–90). Like Sir William Babthorpe junior, Sir Thomas Danby must have taken the politically expedient decision to fight for the Crown against the northern rebels, putting aside his Catholic convictions and family connections with the Earl of Westmorland (he had married the daughter of the 4th Earl, Ralph Neville). However, during the early 1570s, Sir Thomas was faced with the attentions of the Council of the North with regard to his religious loyalties. In March 1573, he was ordered to receive Communion three times a year, and afterwards he seems to have conformed sufficiently to avoid further suspicion.90
Of the fourteen rebels studied in this chapter, five were executed for treason – Lord John Hussey, George Lumley, Sir John Bulmer, Nicholas Tempest and Sir Stephen Hamerton. They joined the high-profile victims Robert Aske, Lord Darcy, Sir Robert Constable, Sir Francis Bigod and John Hallam. In total, 178 people lost their lives due to their involvement in the Pilgrimage. However, nine of the perpetrators of the revolt – Sir Ralph Ellerker, Sir Robert Bowes, Sir Thomas Tempest, Sir William Babthorpe, Sir Christopher Danby, Lord Lumley, William Stapleton, William Fairfax and Nicholas Fairfax – managed to survive and even thrive. And, in the cases of Ellerker and Bowes especially, completely turn their careers around.
For the gentry in the region, social rank would inevitably continue to exist, but a man’s abilities could now potentially overcome barriers to advancement. As beneficiaries of the new order, they were anxious to legitimise their own rise and were anxious to maintain the privilege.91 It was not just rehabilitated gentry who benefited from new-found loyalty and service, nor was it the preserve of the some of the nobility. Edward Lee, Archbishop of York had been under suspicion due to his conduct during the Pilgrimage, especially at Pontefract. Proof that his loyalty was now above question came in the form of a significant grant of lands, manors, woods and priories in Yorkshire to the prelate in February 1543.92
It should be emphasised that the practicalities of governing the North required suitably qualified officials and the limited number available in the region was a question which the Crown had to consider. Professor Ellis has made a similar point with regard to the governance of Ireland in the wake of the Kildare Rebellion.93 Total retribution in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage, invo
lving a ‘complete purge of gentlemen rebels from the region’s government’, was out of the question as so many royal officials had participated in the uprisings. As Christine Newman has argued, the Crown needed to impose order in the region in the aftermath, so it is hardly surprising that many former rebels regained their positions in the administration. The rebellion of men like Robert Bowes made the Crown only too aware of the necessity of effective and centralised control of the North and this could only be achieved by the compliance of this northern elite.94 The former rebels who then collaborated with the regime separated themselves from their more radical neighbours and this, in turn, abetted the success of ‘heresy’ in England.95 It is interesting to note that four of the rehabilitated rebels were lawyers by profession – the type of gentry potentially useful in the government and administration of the North.
In all of the cases of rehabilitated Pilgrims discussed, it is evident that the restoration of loyalty and appeals to the king’s grace were politically motivated. Individuals such as William Babthorpe and Christopher Danby were rehabilitated, despite retaining Catholic sympathies. This must have been a source of inherent tension for themselves and their families. At the time, however, self-preservation was paramount and these men were evidently not of the stuff of which martyrs are made. They were, in reality, cautious and pragmatic. Conversely, King Henry could not possibly have foreseen that their descendants would retain papist sympathies – they could not have done so themselves with any certainty, given the state of religious flux they were living through.
Returning to the immediate aftermath of the Pilgrimage, it would probably be fair to say that the king satisfied his desire for retribution in a more restrained fashion than he would have liked, by the execution of the prominent ringleaders. However, the imperative was the successful governance of the North and the objective of fostering such conditions which would prevent an attempt at a further rising.
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