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The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-1537, and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538, Volume 1 (of 2) cover

The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-1537, and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538, Volume 1 (of 2)

Chapter 14: NOTES TO CHAPTER VI
By Madeleine Hope Dodds
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About This Book

The authors examine a major northern rising against royal policy, tracing its political background, local grievances, organization, outbreaks in Lincolnshire and the East Riding, mass movements, musters and negotiated truces, and the royal councils' military and diplomatic responses. They reconstruct events from contemporary documents, provide transcriptions, maps, and detailed chapter-by-chapter narrative, and analyze plots, affinities, rumours, and the movement's extent and failure. Appendices and corrections clarify sources and variant spellings. The account balances chronological narrative with documentary evidence to explain how regional disaffection coalesced into widespread insurrection and how negotiations and force ultimately determined its outcome.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VI

Note A. The attitude of the Lincolnshire gentlemen bears a strong resemblance to that of the German nobles who were compelled to join the peasants in 1525. “Princes, lords and ecclesiastical dignitaries were being compelled far and wide to save their lives, after their property was probably already confiscated, by swearing allegiance to the Christian League or Brotherhood of the peasants and by countersigning the Twelve Articles and other demands of their refractory villeins and serfs.”[700]

The peasants captured Gotz von Berlichingen of the Iron Hand and compelled him to become their leader[701]. “Had Gotz been sincere in taking up the cause of the rebellion, there is no doubt that, experienced warrior as he was, he would have been a valuable acquisition. Even as it was some of his suggestions respecting the maintenance of discipline were in the right direction, but the fact remained that he was acting under compulsion in a cause with which he had no sympathy and his one concern was to get rid of his responsibility at the first possible moment, if not actually to betray his trust.”[702]

Note B. Moigne’s statement refutes Williams’ scoffing remarks about the Lincolnshire gentlemen, for it shows that Moigne at least was a very able man. Spirited as it is, there is an air of special pleading about it,—the facts are given, but a particular construction is put upon them. It would be very interesting to compare this with some other narrative of the same events, but no other remains. Examinations of the other Lincolnshire gentlemen seem to have been taken, but are not preserved, and perhaps very little inquiry was made into the affair of the Chapter House, as it reflected too much credit on the loyalty of the gentlemen to be acceptable to the King. The only other reference to it is in an accusation brought against James Atkinson, a tailor, the man who cried out that they ought to kill some of the justices.

Note C. Although Henry exaggerated the number of his forces and the speed with which they had been collected, it is too much to say, with Tierney and Gasquet, that “no such army ever existed.” The main facts that the King had levied and sent north one body of troops and was busy levying another were perfectly correct.

Note D. Another allusion to Captain Cobbler’s robe occurs in a letter of Wriothesley’s to Cromwell, written on Monday (23 Oct.), in which, speaking of the Lincolnshire prisoners, he says, “I perceive, also, his highness would have that traitor in the motley coat well examined, for he (the King) took that part also very well; yet we have no further news.”[703] The leaders of the German peasants wore gorgeous clothes—“a red hat and mantle,” “purple mantles and scarlet birettas with ostrich plumes,”[704]—but the English commons, except in this case, did not affect such finery.