Between the nobles of the Court and the husbandmen in the fields stood that great and influential class “the gentlemen.” On it the Tudor government in the main depended. The gentlemen had no more sympathy with the out-of-date dynastic dreams of the White Rose party than with the economic grievances of the commons, but they had their own grudges against the government. They were hard-worked, and gained little thanks, as Henry went on the truly royal principle that it was honour enough to be allowed to serve him. They were worried by clumsy legislation, such as the Statute of Uses; they were angry at the interference with the House of Commons; and their better nature was outraged by the suppression of the monasteries founded by their ancestors, of which they were themselves the pupils and patrons. But the guiding principle of the country gentlemen was their devotion to landed property. They hated rebellion, because, sooner or later, it was followed by confiscation of property. They feared a rising of the lower classes because it endangered their property, even when it was not originally directed against themselves. The German peasants in 1524–5 had risen against the monasteries and the Church; but out of that movement had developed a bloody civil war between the rich and the poor. If fear of loss deterred the English gentlemen from opposing the government, no less did hope of gain. When they realised that the dissolution of the monasteries meant a general scramble for more property, most of them forgot their religious scruples; but this realisation did not come all at once.
So much can safely be said, but there is very little evidence as to the discontent among the gentlemen. It is possible to discover the attitude of the discontented nobles from the letters of Chapuys, which often give us a delightful feeling of eavesdropping across four centuries. Nor is there any doubt as to the feelings of the commons—scores of informers bear witness to their disaffection. But there is no key to the confidence of the gentlemen. They were more cautious than the labourers, less easily watched than the nobles. Their private opinions were known only to their friends, who would not, of course, inform against them. In the few cases (all after the rising) when gentleman did inform against gentleman, there was generally a feud of some standing between them. We are reduced to arguing backward, as Henry did. The gentlemen, especially in Yorkshire, were the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace. We cannot really accept their own subsequent explanation that they acted against their will in fear of their own tenants. There is abundant evidence that risings of the commons alone were very easily put down.
In this chapter we attempt to sketch the histories of half-a-dozen northern families of gentle or noble blood, in order to give some idea of the state of the north at the time and to outline the lives and antecedents of the leaders of the rebellion.
Local government in Henry VIII’s reign depended to a great extent on the peers. Each nobleman was responsible for the behaviour of his own district or “country” as it was called; under his supervision the gentlemen kept order, each on his own lands. The lord’s private friendships, feuds and marriages had a widespread influence on the lives of all whom he ruled. North of Trent the gentlemen naturally grouped themselves into three clans round the three great houses of Clifford, Percy, and Neville, the heads of which were respectively the earls of Cumberland, Northumberland, and Westmorland. It is necessary to know something of genealogy in order to understand the history of a period when marriages were arranged to suit family politics rather than the inclination of the parties, and consequently a man was born to an hereditary friendship with one family, a feud with another, and perhaps depended on a third for all hope of advancement.
All the noblemen of the northern counties took part in the strenuous task of governing the Borders. The border counties, Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland and the Bishopric of Durham, formed a district totally different from the rest of England. Scotland was a troublesome neighbour, and the men of these counties were a hardy race, famed for their soldier-like qualities and especially for their skill as scouts and skirmishers. Then again these counties were exempted from taxation on account of the Scots’ ravages and their own special burdens of defence. Finally a state of lawlessness frequently prevailed, which in peaceful times never even threatened the south. The Wardens of the Marches were usually noblemen such as Lord Darcy, Lord Dacre, and the Earl of Northumberland. The power entrusted to them was regarded with much suspicion by the King, while it was quite insufficient to maintain order. As early as 1522 a secret council, under the presidency of a royal lieutenant, was organised on the Borders. In 1525 it was re-organised and placed under the presidency of Henry’s natural son the Duke of Richmond[108]. The powers of the Council naturally roused much opposition in the north. Among Lord Darcy’s papers there is a draft of a petition complaining of its authority. The petitioners protested their loyalty, and declared their willingness to prove it against any insinuations. Seeing that they were so loyal, and that the country was quiet, with no rufflings as in the days of King Henry and King Edward, “but both the titles and all lovings to God (joined) in your Grace,” the petitioners begged they might be left under the ordinary jurisdiction of the Westminster Courts, which extended all over the kingdom except in the county palatine of Durham, instead of being at the mercy of the members of the Council, who might call any man before them on the slightest pretext. They complained that so long as things went well the Council alone was praised, and if affairs went badly, wheresoever the fault might be, the whole blame was laid on the gentlemen. Moreover, the petition continued, the Council was composed of spiritual men, who were not fit to judge murders and felonies, suppress sedition, or see to the defence of the realm, “and as great clerks report, there is no manner of state within this your realm that hath more need of reformation, nor to be put under good government, than the spiritual men.” If this were true, it was not meet that they should rule under the commission they now possessed “for surely they and other spiritual men be sore moved against all temporal men.” The petition ends with protestations of loyalty, after which Darcy wrote in a note that the like commission had been tried by “my Lady the King’s grandam,” and proved greatly to the King’s disadvantage in stopping the lawful processes at Westminster Hall. From this petition it appears that Darcy, and probably other northern gentlemen, was ready to make use of the King’s anti-clerical policy for his own ends, arguing, perhaps, that though he was as loyal a son of the Church as any man, yet priests ought not to meddle in secular matters[109]. This draft was drawn up in the year 1529, before any of the acts aimed at the clergy had been passed, and before Darcy himself had chosen his side in the struggle between King and Pope. It was probably never presented.
Some such body as the Council of the North was absolutely necessary if any approach to law and order was to be maintained on the Borders. In proof of this it is only necessary to describe one case out of a dozen. Humphry Lisle, whose father Sir William Lisle of Felton, had led a brief but crowded career as a freebooter in 1527–8, was run down and condemned to death with his father and most of their band in 1528, when he was only thirteen. He subsequently confessed that he had assisted in an attack on Newcastle gaol, by which nine persons were liberated; that he had taken part in four cattle raids, the burning and spoiling of five farms and villages, and four highway robberies; that he had helped to capture a number of prisoners to be held to ransom, and had been present at the murder of a priest[110]. His life was spared by the Earl of Northumberland, who had captured and hanged his father, but Humphry was sent to the Tower. In 1532 he was back on the Borders and a knight, but almost immediately afterwards he was outlawed and fled to Scotland[111].
Careers of this sort being rather the rule than the exception on the Borders, the office of Warden of the Marches called for a strong man. But one could seldom be found, and the quarrels of the northern nobles among themselves embroiled matters still further. The divisions of the house of Percy, for instance, caused infinite trouble. The fifth Earl of Northumberland, surnamed the Magnificent, died in 1527, leaving numerous large debts. He had three sons by his wife Katherine, daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Spencer[112]. The heir, Henry, born about 1503, was feeble in body and, like all such men in that hurrying age, was constantly the creature of those in power. From his earliest years he was either led or bullied, first by his father and Cardinal Wolsey, in whose household he was educated, later by Cromwell and Cromwell’s dependent, Sir Reynold Carnaby. When Henry Percy was a page in the Cardinal’s service the incident occurred by which he is best known, his poor little love affair with Anne Boleyn. He seems to have offered to marry her; but the King had already shown the maid of honour favour. The Earl of Northumberland forbade his son to foster so dangerous a passion and hastened on his marriage with the Lady Mary Talbot, daughter to the Earl of Shrewsbury[113].
In 1527 Henry Percy became Earl of Northumberland, and on the fall of Cardinal Wolsey he was freed from the man who had exercised most influence over him. It is characteristic of Cromwell’s methods that he worked the Earl as he wished by means of the young nobleman’s own favourite, Sir Reynold Carnaby[114]. While this man retained his position the King could rely on Northumberland, who was reputed to be one of the most loyal of the peers. He was at one time in secret communication with Chapuys, but this was probably a mere freak. Darcy described him as “very light and hasty” and not to be trusted[115]. His loyalty seems to have sprung from abject fear of Henry, and he probably would have been glad enough of the King’s overthrow, though he would rather die than venture to assist in it.
The Percy estates were rich, though burdened with debt, and the castles were very strong. With them in his hands the King could keep the north in subjection and even hope to abate the confusion on the Borders. But if they were used against him by some capable commander, such as the Earl’s brother, Sir Thomas Percy, the results were sure to be serious; if foreign help were sent to the rebels, perhaps fatal. Cromwell, with Sir Reynold Carnaby to forward his plans, saw the chance of enriching the crown by the whole of the Percy lands. The Earl’s life was uncertain; his marriage turned out unhappily and there was no prospect of an heir; he was on bad terms with his brother Sir Thomas, and Carnaby took care that he should not forget the quarrel[116]. It was not surprising that the brothers should disagree, for Sir Thomas had all the conspicuous vices and virtues of his race, which were completely absent in the invalid Earl. An instance of their constant disputes occurred in 1532, when the Earl appointed Lord Ogle Deputy Warden of the Marches. Ogle was allied to Carnaby, and Sir Thomas together with his younger brother, Sir Ingram Percy, refused to recognise his authority and forbade their tenants to do so. Sir Thomas issued proclamations declaring that he was the true Warden, and Lord Ogle postponed his first Warden’s court for fear that the brothers would break it up[117].
Sir Thomas on his side complained that the Earl had not given him the lands left to him in his father’s will until he was on the eve of marriage[118]. His wife was Eleanor, daughter and co-heiress to Harbottle of Beamish; by her he had two sons, Thomas and Henry, and a daughter. Their home was generally at Prudhoe Castle on the Tyne[119].
It does not appear that the breach between the brothers was irreparable until about 1535, in which year the King gave the childless Earl licence to appoint any one of the Percy name and blood heir to all his lands[120]. But when Sir Thomas, his natural successor, was proposed, the King raised objections[121]. The result was that in February 1535 the Earl made the King his sole heir, and an Act of Parliament was passed “concerning the assurance of the possessions of the Earl of Northumberland to the King’s Highness and his heirs[122].” Nothing could have made the Earl more unpopular, and it was probably this alienation of the family property rather than his personal extravagance and inherited debts that earned him his surname “the Unthrifty.”[123] Sir Thomas was provided for in the Act, but he could hardly be grateful for a pension when he felt himself heir by right to an earldom and the broadest lands in the north[124]. No appeal was possible when the King gained by his loss. A petition which he sent to Cromwell in July 1535 shows his helplessness. In this he related how the lands at Corbridge so tardily allowed him, which he “with great labour” had defended from the Scots, had now been granted by his brother to Sir Reynold Carnaby. Sir Thomas naturally refused to give them up, and went to remonstrate with his brother in person. But he was not allowed even to see the Earl and was rudely turned from his house. He concluded by begging that Carnaby might be removed from the Earl’s service, as he was the cause of his master’s quarrels with his wife, brothers and nearest relatives[125]. Cromwell was not likely to remove Carnaby from the place where he had been of so much use; and it was Cromwell and Carnaby whom Sir Thomas secretly denounced as the authors of his wrongs when he, with Sir Ingram, swore to be revenged on the Earl’s favourite as “the destruction of all our blood.”
Perhaps the most curious part of the whole matter is the Earl’s hatred of his brother. The reason may lie in some long-forgotten offence, but as far as can be known there were wrongs on both sides in their early quarrels. Sir Thomas was the more deeply injured when his brother set aside his claim and that of his young sons to inherit his lands; yet he seems to have felt a kind of personal loyalty to the Earl as head of his house, while the Earl constantly refused even to speak with his brother. Easily swayed in most matters, he had all a weak man’s unreasoning obstinacy when driven to desperation. To modern eyes he seems a pathetically frail figure; but it was an age of strong men, and he inspired more curses than pity then. Sir Thomas Percy was the darling of the people, always sympathetic to the disinherited; he was the favourite of his mother, the dowager countess, to whom he was much attached[126]; it was to him rather than to the Earl that the helpless appealed in times of trouble[127]. Like his father, the Magnificent Earl, he delighted in gorgeous array and warlike adventures[128]; he was fearless and honest as Hotspur himself. But he was as lawless as the Border thieves who were often his followers and allies. Feuds were still pursued with great earnestness in the north, but his methods were rather out of date. On the first opportunity he followed the rude old plan of spoiling his enemy’s goods, laying waste his lands, and chasing him into his fastnesses with blood-curdling threats.
Whatever may be thought of the Percys’ habits, they were no worse than those of the Cliffords, the staunch supporters of the government. Henry Clifford, first Earl of Cumberland, was the son of Henry Lord Clifford, the “Shepherd Lord,” by his wife Anne, daughter of Sir John St John of Bletsoe. The future Earl was born in 1493, and brought up with the sons of Henry VII. He married first Margaret, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and second another Margaret, daughter of the fifth Earl of Northumberland, the Magnificent Earl; his second wife was the mother of his children. In disposition the Earl of Cumberland resembled his grandfather “the Butcher”—the Black Clifford of “Henry VI”—rather than his father, “the Shepherd.” In his youth he was extravagant, and supplied his need of money by robbery and violence[129]. After he succeeded his father, he followed the same course of action. Several cases were brought against his unruly servants in the Court of Star Chamber[130]. The Earl himself was too great a man to be touched, and the local courts were powerless to supply any remedy for his aggressions. He was a hard landlord and well hated in his own county, but he enjoyed the King’s favour without interruption, and his son Henry, Lord Clifford, was permitted to marry Eleanor the daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and Mary Tudor, the King’s sister, a somewhat dangerous honour[131].
In 1534 the Earl of Cumberland accused Lord Dacre of high treason, having seized his goods long before the trial. This was merely the last move in a feud of some standing. Dacre was tried, but acquitted[132]. He was the only nobleman acquitted on a charge of high treason during Henry VIII’s reign; but he was heavily fined, which was presumably all that the government wanted. It was, however, rather shortsighted policy, for something between shame and suspicion prevented the King from employing Dacre again. The Earl of Cumberland succeeded him in his office of Warden of the Western Marches, but he was hampered in the execution of his office both by his personal unpopularity and by the embittered feud with the Dacres and their allies among the Cumberland gentlemen. The Cliffords were the most powerful family on the western borders after the disgrace of the Dacres. The Earl’s brother, Sir Thomas Clifford, was deputy captain of Berwick-upon-Tweed[133]; the Earl’s illegitimate son Thomas Clifford held the same office in Carlisle[134]. If the younger Percys were in league with the mosstroopers of North Tynedale, so were the Cliffords with the broken men of Esk and Line[135]. The thieves of the Borders were used for or against the King simply as the noblemen who bought their services pleased. It is necessary to bear this in mind in order to understand the position not only of the King but also of his opponents.
Southward from the Borders lay the county of Durham, always spoken of as “the Bishopric.” For centuries it had enjoyed the privileges of a county palatine within which the Bishop reigned supreme. But in 1535 all such extraordinary jurisdictions were abolished, and Durham was reduced in many respects to the rank of an ordinary shire[136]. Bishop Tunstall was not a man who could in any circumstances have opposed such a King as Henry VIII. He was timid, gentle and studious, and wins our affection by the quiet persistence with which he refused to burn heretics. To their shame be it said, his moderation irritated alike the Protestants and the Romanists. He seems to have taken the change in his estate with perfect equanimity, but the abolition of the ancient palatinate was resented by the people of Durham, who had been used to pride themselves on their position as “haliwerfolk,” the people of the holy man, St Cuthbert[137].
The Hiltons and the Lumleys were the principal families in Durham, and their influence extended to the town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which, lying on the north bank of the Tyne, was a county in itself. In the south of Durham the chief gentlemen were Conyers of Hornby and Bowes of Streatlam near Barnard Castle on the Tees.
The Bowes family had acquired their estates by marriage with an heiress of the house of Balliol early in the fourteenth century. After the fall of Warwick the Kingmaker they became the chief family in the neighbourhood. Old Sir Ralph Bowes, living in 1508, was sheriff of Durham for twenty years. He married Margaret daughter of Sir Richard Conyers; we are concerned with two of their large family, Richard the fourth son who married Elizabeth daughter and co-heiress of Roger Aske of Aske; and Robert, the third son, who married Alice daughter of Sir James Metcalfe[138]. In 1511 Robert Bowes was mentioned as a suitable bridegroom for Elizabeth Aske, aged seven, if his brother Richard should die[139]. Failing the income to be derived from marriage with an heiress, Robert became a lawyer[140], and no doubt made the acquaintance of Robert Aske, William Stapleton, Thomas Moigne, and the other young lawyers who played an important part in the rebellion. They were carrying on the tradition of those lawyers of an earlier age, concerning whom it is written:
“We see at Westminster a cluster of men which deserves more attention than it receives from our unsympathetic, because legally uneducated historians. No, the clergy were not the only learned men in England, the only cultivated men, the only men of ideas. Vigorous intellectual effort was to be found outside the monasteries and universities. These lawyers are worldly men, not men of the sterile caste,—they marry and found families, some of which become as noble as any in the land; but they are in their way learned, cultivated men, linguists, logicians, tenacious disputants, true lovers of the nice case and the moot point. They are gregarious, clubable men, grouping themselves in hospices, which become schools of law, multiplying manuscripts, arguing, learning and teaching, the great mediators between life and logic, a reasoning, reasonable element in the English nation.”[141]
The attitude of these men—intelligent, well-educated, unlikely subjects for wild hopes and popular enthusiasms—is one of the most striking features of the rebellion. Robert Bowes, though probably one of the youngest, was not the least brilliant, while, unlike the others, he came through safely and even with credit. Norfolk said of him, “Bowes has no equal in the north both for law and war.”[142] His appointment on the Council of the North after the rising was the beginning of a long career in the government service, during which he justified the Duke’s estimate.
In the North Riding of Yorkshire the influence of the three northern Earls was about equal.
Wilton, near the mouth of the Tees, was the seat of the Bulmers, who were allied to all the neighbouring great families, the Hiltons, the Evers, the Tempests. Sir William Bulmer of Wilton married Margery daughter of Sir John Conyers, by whom he had three sons, John, Ralph and William[143]. He was present at the battle of Flodden, where he distinguished himself by attacking and routing with a much inferior force the Scots troops under Lord Hume[144]. In November 1519 he was summoned before the Court of Star Chamber on a charge of rioting, together with Sir William Conyers and others[145]. The King presided in person at the trial, and was very much enraged because it appeared from the evidence that Sir William Bulmer “being the King’s servant sworn, refused the King’s service and became servant to the Duke of Buckingham.” Henry exclaimed “that he would none of his servants should hang on another man’s sleeve, and that he was as well able to maintain him as the Duke of Buckingham; and what might be thought by his departing, and what might be supposed by the Duke’s retaining him, he would not then declare.... The knight kneeled still on his knees crying the King’s mercy, and never a nobleman there durst intreat for him, the King was so highly displeased with him.”[146] Buckingham was as angry as the King. He saw that he himself was in danger of imprisonment, and he was afterwards accused of having sworn to stab the King to the heart if the order was given to commit him to the Tower[147]. Sir William, however, was pardoned[148], and in the following year his son, Sir John Bulmer, served under the Earl of Surrey, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, in Ireland[149].
On October 6, 1531, Sir William Bulmer made his will, a long, elaborate document, full of tragic irony considering the later history of the family. The gold chain weighing 100 pounds which was to be an heirloom for the children of his eldest son must have disappeared into the King’s coffers when that son was attainted; the chantry of St Ellen where four poor bedesmen and one woman were to pray for ever for the founder’s soul can only have stood a few years. The supervisors of the will were “my especial good lord, my lord of Westmorland, my lord Conyers, and my son Sir Thomas Tempest.”[150] Westmorland had married the Duke of Buckingham’s daughter[151], and the Bulmers may have transferred their allegiance to the Earl on the Duke’s execution. Sir William made his three sons, who were all knighted by this time, his executors, but at the end of the will he added another clause: “Also, as I have named my son, Sir John Bulmer, to have been one of my executors, I will that he be none of them, but he to suffer his two brothers lovingly to occupy and minister all and every my goods favourably without any interruption of him and he to have for his so doing and suffering £300 and my chain and household stuff at Wilton, which before I have bequeathed him; and in like manner he to suffer his brothers to have melling at my chantry at Wilton, and to see the priests and bede men there to have that they should have, and all other my servants, according as I have bequeathed them.”[152]
Sir John Bulmer, the heir, married Anne daughter of Sir Ralph Bigod, and their eldest son Ralph married before 1530 Anne daughter of Sir Thomas Tempest[153]. On 11 June 1532 it was stated that Sir John was forty years old and upwards[154]. Some examples have already been given of the marriage customs which prevailed at that time. In the case of heirs and heiresses, the contract was often drawn up while the parties concerned were still in their cradles, and the marriage was consummated as early as possible, before the young people acquired sufficient independence to upset the arrangements of their guardians. Much of the domestic unhappiness of the time may be traced to these child marriages, concluded without any regard for the character and feelings of the parties. It may be inferred that Sir John Bulmer’s was such a one, as five of his six children were married before 1530[155], when he was not much above forty years old. His conduct requires the excuse of this bad custom. His father’s position in the service of the Duke of Buckingham must have brought Sir John into contact with a girl named Margaret, who is frequently described as the illegitimate daughter of Buckingham himself[156]. But her son in 1584 stated that she was the illegitimate daughter of Henry Stafford[157]; if he could have glozed over the stain on her birth by the rank of her father he would probably have done so, and it is safer to conclude that Henry Stafford was some relative of the Duke. Margaret herself was “a very fair creature and a beautiful,” as even her enemies were forced to confess[158]. She was married to William Cheyne of London, but Sir John Bulmer bought her from her husband and made her his mistress[159]. Two daughters were the offspring of this connection, but about 1536 Lady Bulmer and William Cheyne[160] seem both to have been dead and Sir John married Margaret. In January 1536–7 was born their son John[161], afterwards John Bulmer of Pinchinthorpe, who declared in 1584 that he was born in lawful matrimony[162]. The marriage was recognised by Sir John’s relatives[163], which may indicate the low state of morality in the north, or the power of Margaret’s charms, or the existence of extenuating circumstances.
Sir Ralph Bulmer, one of Sir John’s brothers, married Anne, daughter and co-heir of Roger Aske of Aske[164], and was thus brother-in-law to Richard Bowes.
The other brother, Sir William Bulmer, was, like Sir John, unfortunate in his matrimonial experience. His wife Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of William Elmedon of Elmedon, Durham, was married to him in 1505, when she was eleven years old and he probably not much older[165]. The marriage turned out unhappily; Sir William squandered his own estates and involved his wife’s by his extravagance, and the couple usually lived apart[166]. It will be shown hereafter how the lady revenged herself on her husband.
The Bigods of Settrington, though their seat near Malton was between thirty and forty miles south of Wilton, were none the less neighbours of the Bulmers, for they had both lands and influence on the north coast of Yorkshire, especially about Whitby. This family might well seem to be under a curse. Two Bigods, father and son, fell at Towton Field in 1461[167]; the son, Sir John Bigod, had married Elizabeth daughter of Henry Lord Scrope of Bolton, and left a son, Ralph Bigod, who was thrice married. His family seem to have been the children of his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Sir Robert Constable of Flamborough[168] and aunt of Lord Darcy’s friend Sir Robert Constable. One of these children, Elizabeth, married Sir John Aske, of Aughton and was the grandmother of Robert Aske[169]—another, Anne, married Sir John Bulmer[170].
Sir Ralph Bigod’s eldest son, Sir John Bigod, married Joan, daughter of Sir James Strangeways[171]. He was probably killed at the battle of Flodden in 1513[172], and his eldest son died with him in the war against Scotland[173]. He left three children; Elizabeth, who was afterwards the wife of Sir Stephen Hamerton[174], Francis, and Ralph.
Two years after Flodden old Sir Ralph Bigod died; his will was proved 7 April 1515. He made several charitable and religious bequests, and left a yearly rent of £5 to his younger grandson Ralph[175], who died unmarried in 1551[176]; but there is no mention of Francis who, at the age of seven, was heir to his manor of Seton and all his lands in various parts of Yorkshire[177]. The executors of the will were Agnes, Sir Ralph’s third wife, Sir Ralph Evers, and Thomas and William Constable of Settrington. The supervisor was Lord Darcy.
In 1529 Francis Bigod came of age and had livery of his lands; shortly afterwards he was knighted[178]. Before his coming of age he had been in the service of Cardinal Wolsey, and when, on coming into his estates, he found himself in financial difficulties, he applied to his fellow-servant, Thomas Cromwell, for assistance[179].
Sir Francis Bigod married Katherine, daughter of William, first Lord Conyers, and in 1530 they had one daughter, Dorothy[180]. Their home was at Mulgrave Castle in Blackmore, on the coast about three miles north of Whitby. Sir Francis was made the Steward of Whitby Strand by the Earl of Northumberland[181], and in the execution of this office he must soon have come into conflict with the Abbot of Whitby, John Hexham or Topcliffe, who began his career as a Canon of Hexham and became Abbot of Whitby in 1527[182]. Some account of the Abbot’s doings may not be out of place; they are not only interesting in themselves but also give a most spirited picture of the more turbulent phases of life in a little seaport town, and of the feuds and intrigues which agitated a great monastery.
The first story is gathered from a fragment of a Star Chamber case; it is undated, and the Abbot of Whitby may have been one of John Hexham’s predecessors. This Abbot lodged a complaint against certain poor mariners and artificers of the town of Whitby for making a riot. Only the townsfolk’s side of the case remains. It had been the custom “tyme out of mans remembrance” in Whitby and all the other haven towns thereabouts, for the fishermen and mariners to keep the feasts of Midsummer Even, St Peter’s Even, and St Thomas’ Even with the following rites. “All maryners and masters of ships accompanied with other yong peple have used to have carried before them on a staff half a tarbarell brennyng and the maryners to follow two and two having such weapons in their hands as they pleased to bring, and to sing through the streets to resort to every bonefire and there to drink and make merry with songs and other honest pastimes.”
But one St Peter’s Even (31 July) as they went singing through the streets “entending no harm nor displeasure to the said Abbot” and “being in good peace of our sovereign lord the King,” about twenty of the Abbot’s servants set upon the merrymakers and “did shamefully and cruelly beat and hurt” divers of them. They thought this must be by the Abbot’s command, though, as they declared, he had no cause to use them so. When they complained to him, he assured them he knew nothing of the matter, which was not of his will, and asked them all to come up to the Abbey on St Thomas’ Even (20 December) “and there he would give to them half a barrel of beer to drink and make good cheer.” But when on the appointed evening they came singing through the town and began to go up the “great hill having a very narrow way towards the said Abbey,” the Abbot’s servants from the top of the hill “riotously cast down a great number of great stones as much as they could lift” upon the mariners. They “entreated in good and gentle manner the said servants of the Abbot to keep the King’s peace and cease their strokes,” and seeing they were not welcome, they turned back to a friend’s house, to help him with his bonfire and brood upon the lost half-barrel of beer. Here their enemies attacked them again. The cautious mariners admitted that some of the Abbot’s servants might have been hurt in the second fray. Some of the mariners themselves certainly were injured. The defence ends with the usual protestation that the defendants had done nothing wrong, and in any case had a pardon for it[183].
In 1528 it was the Abbot of Whitby, John Hexham, who had to defend himself in the Star Chamber. He was accused of being in league with William and John Loder, two French pirates, who on 10 July 1528 seized a Dantzig vessel, the “Jesus,” Hans Ganth master, while she lay in the Humber, took her to Whitby, and there sold her to the Abbot, John Conyers, Gregory Conyers, John Ledam and John Pecock, who bought her “perfectly knowing the same ship and goods to be the proper goods of your suppliant,” and who refused to give her up when claimed by her rightful owners[184]. The Abbot’s defence is lost, and he may have been able to clear himself, but the circumstances look awkward. Gregory Conyers, of whom more will be heard, was the servant and close ally of the Abbot. It is uncertain how he was related to the great family of Conyers to which Sir Francis Bigod’s wife belonged, but there is no doubt about the deadly feud which he waged with Sir Francis until he hunted his enemy to death. In 1536 the Abbot of Whitby accused Sir Francis of a great riot committed against the convent of Whitby, and in revenge Bigod and his servants quarrelled with Gregory Conyers and other servants of the Abbot at Whitby Fair on 25 August, St Hilda’s Day, and would have killed him had not some of the other gentlemen interfered[185]. The Abbot begged that Conyers and Bigod might be reconciled, but naturally no formal reconciliation had any effect. As in the matter of the piracy we do not know the Abbot’s defence, so in this case we do not know Bigod’s, but it is certain that Sir Francis was in debt to the Abbot, which would probably aggravate the young knight still further, whatever the original rights and wrongs may have been.
In 1535 Sir Francis Bigod by persuasion or threats induced Abbot Hexham to resign his office to his young kinsman, William Newton, a monk of Whitby. This did not at all suit Gregory Conyers or the other monks, and they insisted that he must withdraw his resignation. Both sides appealed to Cromwell, to whom Bigod wrote on 7 January 1535–6 that “the monks watch him (the Abbot) like crows about a carrion, and will not suffer the monk (Newton) or me to speak with him alone.”[186] Cromwell, as usual, was ready to settle the matter in favour of the highest bidder, who in this case seems to have been the Abbot[187]. Sir Francis was examined in Hilary term and warned to trouble the monks no more. Nevertheless on 19 June 1536 the Abbot wrote to Cromwell to ask that Bigod might not occupy the office of under-steward, or, if he must surrender it to him, that the condition might be made “that he make no use of it to revenge himself on us, as we hear he intends.... If Sir Francis occupy that office, and James Conyers the bailiwick, the two being so maliciously bent against us, we shall be brought into continual trouble. The bailly is a very uncharitable and angry man, and so aged that he is almost past reason.”[188]
Bigod was better educated than most men of his age. He had spent some time at Oxford, and although he did not take a degree he was something of a scholar. He had leanings towards the reformers; his first book was an attack on the monasteries, and he corresponded with Bale, Latimer, and other advanced thinkers[189]. In June 1535 he was employed in taking down to the northern bishops the King’s letters of admonition for the declaration of his title as Supreme Head of the Church of England[190], and he reported the pains that he took to see that the statute was “preached sincerely” and understood by the people. At the same time he informed Cromwell of the suspicion he entertained concerning the loyalty of the monks of Mountgrace Priory, and he procured the arrest of a “traitorous monk” at Jervaux, who saw visions of St Anne[191]. This man was executed at the next York Assizes, for which it is hard to forgive Sir Francis, as the evidence against the monk was very slight[192].
In 1536 Bigod wrote to Cromwell about two priests and a man named Anthony Heron, whom he had caused to be imprisoned at York for their Popish opinions. The letter incidentally reveals the horrible state of York prison; Sir Francis observes that as Anthony Heron was walking in the yard in the open air, he was able to speak longer with him than with the priests who were within. He showed some humanity, however, by giving alms to his prisoners, and he tried to obtain their release as soon as he was convinced that they repented of their errors[193]. Later in the year he wrote a very curious letter to Cromwell, which throws much light on his character. He begged that he might be given a licence to preach, or, if that was impossible, that he might become a priest, in order to utter the truth to the ignorant people of the north[194]. Yet he was now a married man with children!
Sir Francis Bigod appeared to have been in every way a convinced supporter of Cromwell’s policy; by birth, by interest, by conviction he was not merely inclined to acquiesce passively, but to promote actively “the innovations.” How did such a man come to die a traitor’s death? Froude curtly dismisses him as a fool and a pedant, but such a summary judgment does not dispose of a peculiar character. It may be more just to look upon Sir Francis as a portent of a rising power,—in short, as the first of the Puritans. He hated the Church of Rome, but he hated equally the Erastianism of Henry and Cromwell; what he sought was the Presbytery, and had he been gifted with genius, he might have been the forerunner of Calvin and Knox. Religious liberty was as intolerable to his exact, legal mind, as it was to most of his contemporaries; he must have church, priesthood, dogma, all down in black and white, and all distinct from the state. When it came to choosing between church and state, any church, even a thoroughly bad one, seemed to him better than a purely state religion. Born out of his time, with no power to mould the time to his needs, his baffling figure shows half-seen among the more strenuous leaders of revolt, perplexing others because he was himself perplexed.
Passing southward down the coast from Whitby, we find that the next great family was that of Evers. Young Sir Ralph Evers was the keeper of the King’s castle of Scarborough. Later the family was raised to the baronage, but at this time they were not so influential as their neighbours, the Constables of Flamborough.
Sir Marmaduke Constable, surnamed the Little, was the head of this house from 1488 to 1518. He served under two kings in France, and won fame on the Scots Marches. His wife was Joyse, daughter of Sir Humphry Stafford of Grafton; by her he had four sons, Robert, Marmaduke, William, and John, and two daughters, Agnes and Eleanor[195]. Agnes’ second husband was Sir William Percy, the Earl of Northumberland’s uncle.
Robert, Little Sir Marmaduke’s son and heir, was born about 1478. He seems to have spent a wild youth before he succeeded to his estates. The minster of Beverley was held in great veneration, having been founded by the local saint, St John of Beverley. It enjoyed many privileges, and the neighbouring gentlemen were quite in the habit of having feuds about their places in the procession on St John’s Day (25 October)[196]. One of these privileges was “granted ... unto the church of Beverley by Our Holy Father the Pope of old time and since many times confirmed, that whosoever doth infringe or break or interrupt any liberties of the church of Beverley he is on so doing accurst without any further sentence of any judge.” This was no mere nominal power, but had been executed on “divers transgressors.” An unknown accuser addressed Sir Robert Constable thus: “You yourself in times past, violating and breaking the said liberties by your hunting there, and knowing yourself to have fallen into the sentence of excommunication for so doing, did resort to the Archbishop of York then being, to be absolved thereof, and so as you have reported were also absolved.”[197] But more serious charges can also be brought against him. Froude says, “he was a bad, violent man. In earlier years he had carried off a ward in Chancery, Anne Grysanis, while still a child, and attempted to marry her by force to one of his retainers.”[198]
Whatever his early shortcomings, Robert Constable was ready to fight for the King on the first opportunity. In 1497, when the Cornishmen rose and marched on London, he was with the royal army, and so distinguished himself at Blackheath that he was knighted on the field of battle. He married Jane, daughter of Sir William Ingleby[199]. In 1511 he sailed with Lord Darcy’s expedition to Spain[200].
At Flodden Field Sir Marmaduke Constable appeared surrounded by his “seemly sons.”[201] Accounts of the battle give no details of their part of the fighting, but two of Sir Robert’s brothers, Marmaduke and William, and William Percy, who fought beside them with the tenants of the Earl of Northumberland, were all knighted by the Earl of Surrey after the day was won[202].
Sir Robert Constable was Knight of the Body to Henry VIII[203], and he was in attendance on the King at a gorgeous banquet at Greenwich in 1517[204]. But the following year Sir Marmaduke the Little died, and his son Robert succeeded to his lands and position. Sir Marmaduke’s tombstone is still to be seen in Flamborough church, the inscription is an irregular ballad on the vanity of earthly honours, telling of his battles and prowess, with the refrain: