The King’s displeasure with Suffolk and his council was merely his usual method of getting the greatest possible service out of his servants by mingling suspicion and threats with favour and fair promises. The guns and provisions which Suffolk sent to Hull must have fallen into the Pilgrims’ hands. As to the hollowness of the people and their sympathy with the Yorkshire rebels, that was only to be expected. Among the Pilgrims, on the contrary, prevailed a feeling of anger and contempt against Lincolnshire. After so much talk it seemed ridiculous that the earlier rising should be ignominiously ended and that without other agency than the threats of a blazon-coated herald and the blare of his trumpet; surely there had never been such a fall since the days of Jericho. And it made a very material difference in the chances of the rising. Lincolnshire in arms might easily have encouraged the other midland counties to rise. The royal forces might have been cut off from their base, surrounded and crushed. But with the example of Lincolnshire before them and a royal army in their midst the midlands would hardly venture to show their feelings unless a decisive victory was won. In fact the northern counties were obliged to depend on themselves alone; there was no longer the slightest hope of the movement spreading from shire to shire through all the land. Tremendous as this idea seems to be, it was certainly what the Pilgrims expected at first, and, what is more to the point, it was what the King feared. Strong and cunning as Henry was, even he might have failed if the men of Lincolnshire had stood by the men of the north.

On Friday, 20 October, Eland, Knolles and John Thorneton opened the gates of Hull to the captains of the Pilgrimage, the terms of the treaty being duly observed on both sides. A council was held at Hunsley Beacon, the two aldermen representing Hull. There was no longer any doubt about the dispersal of the Lincolnshire rebels and the advance of Suffolk to Lincoln. The council at Hunsley decided to draw up their articles and send them to the Duke by the hands of four captains, one from each company. But before they were fairly written out, a post rode in from Pontefract with word from Aske that the “Lord Steward was about to give him battle.” This message must have been despatched on the receipt of some false intelligence, for Shrewsbury was, as a matter of fact, in no position to encounter the Pilgrims; but it checked Stapleton’s more peaceful plans. He considered it impossible for any men from Hull to reach Pontefract in time to help Aske. But he ordered all his host to muster at Hunsley at seven o’clock next day to follow up Aske’s advance, and he quartered a garrison of two hundred Holderness men in Hull. Sir Ralph Ellerker kept the beacon for that night, though he was only to fire it in case of urgent need^[788]. The irony of events, so triumphant when news travelled slowly, decreed that the King should write thanking Sir Ralph Ellerker for his gallant defence of Hull on the day after it was occupied by the Pilgrims^[789].