Such were the complaints which arose among the country folk as a result of the suppression of the monasteries. And just at the moment that this intensely unpopular measure began to be carried out in earnest, and largely as a result of it, the veil which had hitherto prevented the people from recognizing the true author of the hated innovations was torn away, and a pretext was offered for a revolt, which had it been directed against the King, would have been no better than treason. The people fastened on Cromwell as the author of all their troubles; and the thought that a man whom they knew to be low-born, of no better or more noble origin than themselves, had been able to cause them such misery, was enough to kindle a smouldering fire of discontent into a brilliant blaze. A crusade against Cromwell, they argued, could not be regarded as a revolt against the royal authority. They had no complaint against the King, or even against any of the nobles, but they were determined to rid themselves at one blow of the plebeian minister whom they thoroughly detested and whom they had no cause to respect: with the destruction of Cromwell and his agents, they were certain that the good old days would return. The last verse of their war-song contained a frank avowal of their object:

The reasons why the rising against the authority of Cromwell, known to posterity by the suggestive name of the Pilgrimage of Grace, was organized, and set afoot in the northern counties, are not far to seek. In the first place devotion to the Old Faith, and to the cause of Queen Katherine, was far stronger in the north than in the south of England. A comparison of the ‘comperta’ of the northern and southern monasteries, or of the details of the different visitations, will easily convince the reader of this discrepancy. In the south occur constant complaints by the monks that their superiors failed to observe the canons of religious asceticism; and on the other hand, whenever an abbot refused to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy, his subordinates were always sure to report him to head quarters, in the hope of gaining favour with the King or Cromwell[438]. The letters of Dr. Legh from the south of England contain frequent reports of ‘towardness’ among the inmates, and willingness to adopt the New Faith[439]. In the north one finds none of this. The reports concerning the monasteries there are of a very different sort: immorality and unnatural crimes are the principal charges against the inmates[440]. There is scarcely a record of apostasy; scarcely a case of mutual accusation among the monks. The abbots and their subordinates almost invariably supported each other, and their loyalty to the Old Faith and their hatred of those who tried to disestablish it, gave the Commissioners a far harder task in the north than in the south. There is also reason to think that Cromwell’s spy system operated less perfectly there, partly owing to this spirit of conservatism and love of the old usages permeating every sort and condition of life, and partly owing to the great spaces of wild, uninhabited land.

This is only the religious side. But there were other almost equally valid reasons for the localization of the revolt in the north. The south was thickly populated, and to a certain extent commercial; the north sparsely populated, and for the most part pastoral and agricultural. Cromwell had done everything that he could to facilitate trade, and his efforts in this direction had been rewarded by comparative popularity in the commercial counties. The discontent in the agricultural north, however, was most pronounced. The Statute of Uses had not been in all cases correctly interpreted. It was said that the King made such laws that when a man died his wife and children had to go a-begging[441]. Lastly, the proximity of the Scottish Borders, which were in a continual state of disorder, offered great encouragement for undertaking a rebellion in the north. Cromwell was constantly occupied with the suppression of minor disturbances there[442], owing to the very lax administration of the Courts and Wardens of the three Marches, while across the Tweed an attitude of more or less active hostility to the English government was always maintained. There was every probability that a revolt in the northern counties of the realm would receive substantial aid from Scotland.

But though the Pilgrimage of Grace was locally restricted to the northern counties, it embraced all classes, animated by the most varied interests[443]. The objects of the insurgents were secular and religious, their mottoes conservative and progressive. On their banners were borne the emblems of the five wounds of Christ, a chalice and a host, a plough, and a horn. The first of these symbols indicated that the insurrection had been undertaken for the defence of the faith; the second was to remind the commons of the spoils of the Church. The plough was to encourage the husbandmen, and ‘the horn was in token of Horncastle’: for the banner ‘was brought among the rebels by the commons of Horncastle[444].’ The watchwords of the rebels were of the very most diverse nature. Some of them cried out for the restoration of the suppressed monasteries; others for the renewal of guarantees against exorbitant taxation, for remedies for the agrarian discontent, or for legal permission to leave land by will to daughters and younger sons. All of them united in demanding the destruction of Cromwell, whom the people regarded as the cause of all their woes[445]. The leaders and participants in the revolt were not of any one rank or station in life; the popular and aristocratic elements were almost equally mixed. It is no wonder that a rising, supported by men of such various classes, which aimed at the extirpation of abuses of so many different sorts, and which yet was united by the feeling that all these abuses were due to one man alone, was regarded as ‘the daungerest insurrection that haith ben seen[446].’

On September 29, 1536, when the Commissioners for the suppression of the monasteries came to Hexham in Northumberland, they were rudely surprised by finding the house there fortified, and prepared to defend itself to the last. The Commissioners left the town and reported the affair to the King, who ordered them to assemble all the forces they could muster, and if the monastery did not yield, to treat the monks like arrant traitors[447]. But scarcely was this danger past when news came that the Commissioners for levying the lay subsidy, the collection of which was superintended by Cromwell, had met with a similar experience at Caistor in Lincolnshire. It seems they had feared some disturbance at their arrival, and had invited several country gentlemen to join them in case of any danger. A large force had meantime assembled to resist the payment of the subsidy. The country gentlemen were pursued, taken, and forced to write to Lord Hussey at Sleaford, to summon him to join the rebel commons, unless he wished to be treated as an enemy, and also to send to the King to seek a general pardon[448]. Hussey promptly reported the state of affairs to Cromwell, and though he put a bold face on the matter in presence of the rebels, it is evident that he was seriously alarmed[449]. The King meantime himself received the letter the captured gentlemen had been forced to send him, caused the bearers of it to reveal the names of the ringleaders, and wrote to the Commissioners for levying the subsidy, expressing his distress at the ‘vnnatural vnkyndness’ of his subjects, and marvelling ‘that he that is worth xx li sholde rebell for the payment of x s[450].’ But this sort of letter of mild surprise, with which Henry had sometimes successfully warded off pressing danger, did not prove to be sufficient in this case. He was relieved from any apprehension on his own account; the rebels had expressly denied any desire to be disloyal to the King: they only wished that the Church of England should have its old privileges, ‘without any exaction,’ that the suppressed houses of religion be restored, and that they should not be taxed, except for defence of the realm in time of war. Again and again did they repeat their demands for the surrender or banishment of Cromwell, Audley, Cranmer, Riche, and others of the Privy Council. That the King did not throw over his ministers in their hour of need, surely shows that Henry was committed to them and to their policy, and believed in it.

The situation was certainly alarming. It was very fortunate that at the time of the outbreak the position of the King was otherwise so strong, and England’s foreign affairs in such good condition, that every effort could be centred on the suppression of the revolt. The insurgents evidently meant business. Sir Christopher Ascugh, gentleman usher to the King, wrote to Cromwell, October 6, ‘The rebels ar in nombre of men of armys well harnesyd x or xii m spars and bows; & xxx m other sum harnesyd and sum not harnesyd ... and all the contrey Rysys holly as they goo before them.... Mellessent your seruaunt they have hanged & Baytyd Bellowe to deth wyth Dogges wyth a bull skyn vpon his bake wyth many Regorous wordes agaynst your lordeshepp[451].’ Letters were sent to the principal men in the county, asking them to use all their efforts to check the revolt, and the King later declared his intention to take the field himself[452]. Cromwell’s nephew Richard[453] got all the arrows and implements of war out of the Tower, and dispatched a number of men to Lincolnshire, among them sixty or eighty masons and carpenters, who were at work on his uncle’s house. Cromwell himself was in great fear. The Imperial ambassador informs us[454] that the whole blame for the insurrection was laid on him. Norfolk was recalled to the Court, whence he had been banished at Cromwell’s suggestion, and the Duke arrived at London, happy as he had never been before in the thought that the first step towards the ruin of his rival had been taken. But in this he was doomed to disappointment, for Cromwell retained his ascendancy; the King, according to Chapuys, had been very reluctant to send for the Duke, and when the latter was dispatched again to raise men and prevent the spreading of the revolt, he was overtaken by a most ‘discomfortable’ message from the Court, ordering him to send his son in his place while he himself remained at home[455]. Cromwell had not only succeeded in getting him away from the Court, but had also prevented his having a hand in the suppression of the rebellion. The Lord Privy Seal himself was content with maintaining his position at the King’s side. It would have been sheer madness for him to have marched against the rebels in person. If the Lincolnshire men could have murdered him, they probably would have been induced to return quietly to their homes. Nor did Cromwell even dare to give orders at arm’s length, or in any way to undertake the management of the royal forces. He kept himself consistently in the background; almost all our information concerning the rebellion is contained in the correspondence of the King with Norfolk and Suffolk. The few letters which Cromwell did write in connexion with the Pilgrimage of Grace are quite unimportant[456]. They consist for the most part of messages of profuse and almost hysterical thanks to the leaders of the King’s party for their loyal service. It was not until the revolt had been thoroughly suppressed that Cromwell ventured again to assume the general direction of public affairs.

Meantime the Duke of Suffolk and the Earl of Shrewsbury had been sent against the rebels, who were waiting in Lincolnshire for the King’s answer to their first letter. Richard Cromwell had found great difficulty in conveying to the scene the arms and artillery he had got out of the Tower, because the people were at first unwilling to furnish the requisite number of horses, owing to sympathy with the insurgents, if one may believe the report of Chapuys’ nephew[457]. Finally, however, he succeeded in overtaking the Duke of Suffolk, who was marching with an army against the rebels from the south, at Stamford on October 10. The Earl of Shrewsbury, according to the King’s orders, was advancing at the same time from Nottingham. Caught between two armies supplied with the ordnance which the insurgents so much dreaded, the Lincolnshire men, further frightened by a proclamation from the Earl of Shrewsbury transmitted to them by one Thomas Miller, Lancaster Herald, began to lose heart and finally consented to surrender, on condition that they should receive assurance of merciful treatment. The King was pleased, ordered the rebels to deliver up their arms, and commanded Shrewsbury and Suffolk to examine the country gentlemen who had aided them, and report to him[458]. He further wrote an answer to the insurgents, calling them the ‘rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beestelie of the hole realme[459],’ expatiating on the trouble he had given himself in their defence, and assuring them that they had no grounds to complain of any of the new measures, either secular or religious. He was just thinking that the worst part of the danger was over, when suddenly news came from Lord Darcy, who was the chief person in the north, that all Yorkshire had risen in a similar way[460].

The news of this outbreak was even more disquieting than that of the first. Besides being much further from London, where the King’s armies could only reach them with great difficulty, the Yorkshire rebels were nearer the lawless and hostile Scottish borders. They had from the very first been in sympathy with their neighbours in the south, and had communicated with them by means of beacons burned on the banks of the Humber[461]. The same motives had prompted them to rise in arms. They elected as captain a young barrister named Aske, who issued a proclamation for all men to assemble on Skipworth Moor, and take oath to be faithful to the King’s issue and noble blood, to preserve the Church from spoil, and be true to the commonwealth—a clever euphemism for demanding the death of Cromwell and his adherents. The Yorkshiremen had gone about their revolt with far more method and system than the Lincolnshire rebels. The latter had been easily conquered, mainly because they lacked a head; but the Yorkshiremen promised to give far more trouble. They made musters by scrolls and bills nailed to the door of every church in the county, and proclaimed that any one who refused to take their oaths and rise with them should be put to death, whether he was lord or peasant. It was even rumoured that they intended to send an embassy to Flanders, to ask for aid in money and armed men, and to petition the Pope for absolution for all offences committed in the course of their holy pilgrimage[462].

The King replied at once to Darcy’s letter, commanding him to arrest all seditious persons, and promising so to treat the originators of the revolt in Lincolnshire that all York should soon learn that they had got their deserts[463]. Darcy wrote to the Lord Mayor of York, warning him to be prepared to resist the insurgents, while he himself proceeded to Pomfret Castle to hold it against the rebels, and there awaited further instructions from the King[464]. He succeeded in maintaining his position at Pomfret for only ten days however, for on October 20 he surrendered the town to the rebel army under the leadership of Aske, and together with the Archbishop of York, who had sought refuge there, swore to take part with the insurgents[465]. At his trial in the following year he pleaded that he was unable to hold out any longer because the provisions had run short, and further stated that he had been compelled to side with the rebels under pain of death. He also alleged as an excuse for his conduct that he thought that if he got in touch with the insurgents, he could the more easily induce them to lay down their arms. How loyal he really was to the King must remain a matter of conjecture, but there is strong reason to think that he had much sympathy with the revolt[466].

For a time the rebels seemed to carry all before them. Shrewsbury had been ordered to go to Yorkshire and engage the insurgents there, now that Lincolnshire was regarded as safe. Meantime Thomas Miller, Lancaster Herald, who had been so successful in obtaining the submission of the Lincolnshire men, was sent by the King from Scrooby, on October 21, to read a royal proclamation to the rebels at Pomfret, upbraiding them for their conduct, but promising them pardon on condition that they should immediately disperse. When he arrived at his destination the town had been surrendered. Aske, although he treated the royal envoy with all due respect, entirely refused to let him read his proclamation in public, and sent him away with two crowns and his errand unaccomplished[467].

Meantime the Duke of Norfolk, who two weeks before had returned sadly to Kenninghall with all his hopes of regaining the royal favour blighted, had been hurried to and fro in the south of England by a continued stream of conflicting orders from Cromwell and the King, until he finally heard of the disturbances in Yorkshire from Shrewsbury[468]. He immediately turned his steps with a small company of men towards Doncaster, in the hope of regaining the King’s favour by a prompt suppression of the new outbreak. So anxious was he to recommend himself to Henry, that he spent £1,500 of his own in paying the wages of the King’s soldiers; and when this was not sufficient, and Henry refused to advance any money, he asked for a loan to meet the expenses, and took the responsibility for its payment upon himself[469]. Norfolk’s whole proceeding in this crisis was eminently characteristic. He never hesitated to spend money or to tell lies, if he thought that by so doing there was any possibility of gaining the royal favour. He assured the King that, in treating with rebels, he would pay no respect to what others might call his ‘honour distayned,’ for he considered it perfectly permissible to break promises in order to serve the Crown[470]. Henry, it would seem, did not take Norfolk’s treacherous proposals to sacrifice his own honour in the royal service in as good part as the Duke had hoped, and wrote back hinting that if Norfolk made promises to the rebels that he could not keep, he must make them on his own responsibility, and take great care that the King’s name remained unsullied.

When the Duke arrived in the rebel country he issued a proclamation to the insurgents, commanding them in proud and haughty terms to submit, and promising to be an intercessor for them with the King. This was on October 27. But the very next day he wrote to Henry that he had been forced to declare to the insurgents the royal pardon, in order to ‘sparple’ them, and get them to return to their homes[471]. It is evident that in the meantime a meeting must have taken place between the Duke and the rebels, in which the latter succeeded in convincing their enemy that they, and not he, were in the position to dictate terms. A general truce was arranged, and Lord Darcy was ordered to cease to molest the insurgents[472]. The dread with which Norfolk awaited his first interview with the King is vividly described in the letter in which he announced to the Council his prospective return to the Court. ‘I come,’ wrote the Duke, ‘with my hert nere bresten ... inforced to appoynt with the rebelles ... and fearing how his maieste shall take the dispeachyng of our bande[473].’

Norfolk finally arrived at Windsor with two emissaries from the insurgents, who were to report their grievances and receive the King’s answer. Henry was just composing his reply when news came that Aske had attempted to stir up the rebels in the other northern counties. Norfolk wrote to Darcy that the King suspected him of treachery in delivering up Pomfret to Aske, and advised him to do his best to ‘extinct the ill bruit,’ by taking the rebel leader dead or alive[474]. Meantime the King detained Ellerker and Bowes, the two rebel envoys, as hostages, while Darcy attempted to allay any fears of a third outbreak. The King in fact was so seriously alarmed at the danger in the north, that he dreaded that his letter to the Lincolnshire men in early October might not prove sufficient to prevent their joining a new revolt, if such occurred. So seeing their ‘maner, implieng a great repentance,’ and contrasting it with the rebellious attitude of the Yorkshiremen, he sent them on the 14th of November a full pardon[475]. Meantime the report of the probability of a fresh insurrection passed by, and Ellerker and Bowes returned with the King’s answer, with which Henry had taken much trouble, and had endeavoured to disguise the fact that he was really suing for peace, by promising to pardon those who were truly penitent. A conference for discussion of terms was arranged to assemble at Doncaster on the 5th of December, in which Lords Scrope, Latimer, Lumley, Darcy, and others were to represent the rebels, and Norfolk, Suffolk, Shrewsbury, Rutland, and their subordinates the King[476].

Henry laid his plans carefully in preparation for this meeting. He instructed Shrewsbury to do his utmost to prevail upon Aske and Darcy to betray the rebels, upon promise of a free pardon for themselves. He also ordered the Duke of Suffolk to hold himself in readiness with a large force in case of another outbreak[477]. There was probably far less danger that the truce would be broken by the rebels than by the King; but the former certainly had no intention of returning to their homes without at least an assurance of a general amnesty. Henry soon realized that they were in earnest, and reluctantly instructed Suffolk, in a second letter, to yield to their demands for a free pardon and a Parliament as a last resort, if all other expedients to induce them to disperse should fail[478]. The conference at Doncaster lasted four days, but in the end the rebels were successful in gaining their wishes, and the desired pardon was proclaimed on the 9th of December[479]. Henry had never before been forced to acknowledge such a complete check at the hands of his subjects, and the sensations of the proud King must have been as disagreeable as they were novel. Still it was impossible for him to give vent to his rage until he had once more obtained the upper hand.

So he wrote to Aske requesting an interview with him in London. The tone of the letter is noteworthy. Though evidently beaten, Henry spoke as if he were master of the situation, and began by stating that he had learned that Aske was sorry for his offences in the late rebellion. The King also did his utmost to stop any rumours on the Continent which might give the impression that the rebels had come off victorious. He instructed Cromwell to write a full account of the revolt to Gardiner and Wallop at the French Court, ordering them to tell all people that though at first the insurgents ‘made peticion to haue obteyned certain articles, ... in thende they went from all and remytted all to the kinges highnes pleasure only in moost humble and reuerent sorte desiring their pardon, with the greatest repentance that could be deuised[480].’ But Henry was a little premature with his boasts that peace had been concluded on terms so favourable to himself. Aske indeed came up to London, had what certainly appeared to be a most successful interview with the King, and returned to the North, January 5, 1537, to confirm the royal pardon, and to promise that all reasonable petitions should be heard by Parliament[481]. But the other rebels did not seem by any means as sure of Henry’s good faith. Aske wrote to the King a letter containing six ‘marvilus congectures’ of the people, among which were the dread with which they regarded the fortifying of strongholds, and their distrust that Cromwell and his adherents were as high in favour as ever[482]. Henry of course paid no attention to these complaints, with the result that many of the insurgents, who ‘saw plainly,’ as the Court historian writes, ‘that the King did constantly follow the reformation of the abominable Church ... incontinently renewed the old practice of rebelling again[483].’ A plan was evolved by Sir Francis Bigod and a certain John Hallam, to attack and take both Hull and Scarborough: the whole country was ready to rise again, and they anticipated an easy victory[484]. But the success of this last outbreak was very short-lived. The attempt which Hallam made against Hull failed, owing to the fact that the plot had been reported to the mayor there, and Hallam himself was captured[485]. At Scarborough Bigod was scarcely more fortunate. He had succeeded in calling out the people of the East Riding, and had harangued them; ‘Ye are deceaued by a colour of a pardon,’ he said, ‘for it is called a pardon that ye haue, and it is none But a proclamacion.’ The commons responded to his words with a great shout, and he marched off with a large following to repair his comrade’s disaster at Hull, leaving the son of Lord Lumley with a handful of men to attack Scarborough[486]. But Lumley deserted his post, abandoning the command to two subordinates, who attempted to lay siege to the castle of Scarborough in the absence of its keeper, Sir Ralph Evers; the latter, however, soon returned, and they gave up the enterprise, only to be captured and imprisoned. Bigod’s second attempt on Hull had meantime also failed, and Bigod himself fled[487].

Meantime the Duke of Norfolk had returned into the north, no longer as a peace commissioner, but as a messenger of death and destruction[488]. Now that the tide of affairs had turned and the rebels were weakened, the King thought it at last safe to inflict the long-deferred punishment on the leaders of the revolt. It is true that Norfolk was accompanied by a few persons, who together with certain gentlemen in the north were to compose a council to aid him in carrying out a general pacification: this arrangement, however, was obviously temporary, and it was soon to be replaced by a more stable form of government. The true mission of the Duke was to do ‘dreadful execution.’ Before a permanent reorganization of the north could be attempted, it was absolutely essential that the chief rebels should be dealt with in such a way as would deter others from attempting a fresh insurrection. The situation demanded severity, and there can be no doubt that the inclination of the King tallied closely with the dictates of political expediency. Norfolk justified to the full the confidence that Henry reposed in his ruthlessness. He reported that he thought that so great a number had never before been put to death at one time, and confessed that had he proceeded by jury, not one in five would have suffered[489]. All the rebel leaders were taken and sent up to London, and by the end of July, 1537, Aske, Darcy, Hussey, Bigod, and many others had been condemned to death as traitors. Darcy at his mock trial had dared to tell Cromwell: ‘It is thow that art the verey originall and chif causer of all thies rebellyon and myschif ... and dust ernestly travell to bring vs to owr end and to strik of our heddes and I trust that ... thought thow woldest procure all the nobell mens heddes within the Realme to be striken of, yet shall ther one hedde remayn that shall strike of thy hede[490].’ But the Lord Privy Seal was still in too secure a position to be harmed by any such words as these. He seemed in higher favour than ever. If Norfolk had entertained the notion that he had begun to supplant his rival in the royal favour, when the King chose him rather than Cromwell to carry out the ‘dreadful execution,’ he was again doomed to disappointment. The reason why the King had not been willing to employ his favourite instrument of destruction in this case, lay for the most part in the fact that he needed his aid in a far more important task, to which Norfolk’s proceedings were merely a necessary preliminary. For the moment had now arrived for the long-contemplated reform of the government of the north, a matter in which the Duke vainly attempted to give advice. His proffered counsel was consistently rejected: in dealing with this problem the King preferred to consult Cromwell.

The Border Counties of England had never been governed like the rest of the kingdom[491]. The institution of the three Scottish Marches, which at first included the greater part of Northumberland and Cumberland, took its rise as early as the middle of the thirteenth century. Each of these three Marches was placed in charge of a Warden, who, aided by a special court, exercised general authority, judicial, military, and administrative, according to his commission. There appears also at a very early date a kind of informal conference or Council of the Marches, composed of the ordinary March authorities, sitting in conjunction with local magnates. When the war with Scotland broke out at the end of the thirteenth century, the King attempted through the Privy Council to increase his personal influence in the north. He did not disturb the existing organization however. By special commissions he strengthened the power of the Wardens, and later gave the government of the Marches a definite head in an officer called the Lieutenant of the North, who represented the King’s interest, and derived his authority from the Crown and Council and not from Parliament. The Border Counties were thus placed under a special jurisdiction and outside the ordinary administration of the kingdom. The tendency of the Privy Council to mingle in the affairs of the north increased during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and (as a result of the strained relations between England and Scotland in the early part of the reign of Henry VIII.) reached its culmination under Wolsey. The Lieutenant’s control had meantime been extended southward into Yorkshire.

It may perhaps seem strange that the Tudors, with their special genius for centralization and conciliar government, had not yet succeeded in rendering the condition of the north more satisfactory, when its administration lay so completely in their own hands. But the ever-threatening danger of a raid from the Scots, coupled with the bitter feuds of the local baronage, tended so far to disorganize the region that the problem of the north had remained unsolved. The attempt of Wolsey to reform the government of the Border Counties had consisted in a thorough rehabilitation of the old Council of the Marches. He replaced the ill-defined, loosely-constructed body which had hitherto done service by a secret, permanent organization, composed principally of northern gentlemen, but still entirely dependent on the Privy Council. His reluctance to grant the local organ a sufficient degree of autonomy was the cause of the failure of his plan. The renovated Council of the Marches was forced to confess itself incompetent to deal with even the simplest problems which presented themselves for solution, and the old unsatisfactory state of affairs continued with little change, until after the Pilgrimage of Grace.

The problem of the reorganization of the north was now vigorously attacked by Henry and Cromwell during the absence of Norfolk. The question which presented itself after the suppression of the revolt was whether it would be better to create an entirely new form of government for the north, or to reconstruct, readapt, and strengthen the old. The principle of control by a permanent local council, first definitely established by Wolsey, was essentially characteristic of the Tudor policy, and Henry and Cromwell saw no reason to depart from it. It had been one of the chief sources of the strength of their rule, that though they never shrank from any change, however radical, which the demands of a royal despotism in Church and State rendered necessary, they carefully avoided any gratuitous innovations which they knew would be unwelcome to the people at large. An entirely fresh organization of the north would have been exceedingly unpopular, especially in that most conservative portion of England: it was far less obnoxious, and equally effective, to infuse new life into the old rÉgime, by granting the Council of the Marches a sufficient degree of independence, and above all by changing its composition. The problem was in many respects similar to that with which Cromwell had been confronted in connexion with the election of bishops. No radical innovation was needed in either case; the status quo, when fortified by official sanction, was perfectly satisfactory, save for a few trifling readaptations. It was on this basis accordingly, that Henry and Cromwell resolved to reconstruct the government of the Border Counties. The old forms were retained though under different names. The jurisdiction of the Council of the North (merely a new version of the old Council of the Marches) was extended so as to include the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, York, and Durham. It was given wider competence in general administration, and its judicial authority in certain cases was so strengthened as to exclude that of the ordinary courts in the districts in which it exercised its functions[492].

Far more interesting for our purpose than the jurisdiction of the newly-organized Council, is its composition, especially as revealing the identity of its originator. It seems that the new body was largely composed of men of low birth, a certain indication that Cromwell’s was the guiding hand in its organization[493]. The ‘base-born knave’ at whose feet England lay had succeeded in proving to the King, that he and others of humble origin had as much power and willingness to serve the Crown as any nobleman in the land. Moreover the personal character of many of the members of the new Council was not above reproach, and though this fact does not seem to have disturbed the King, a bitter protest was evoked from Cromwell’s rival, the Duke of Norfolk, who, from his isolated position in the north, had watched with increasing impatience the success of the Lord Privy Seal in maintaining his influence at Court, and in organizing a body obviously intended to supplant the temporary council composed in the previous January. Norfolk’s anxiety to recommend himself to the King had alone induced him to take upon himself the task of punishing the revolt; now that he discovered that with all his subserviency Cromwell had again stepped into the place which he had coveted for himself, his enthusiasm for executing rebels gave place to petitions to be permitted to return to Court. But Cromwell was strong enough to keep him in the north till September, and the Duke was forced to content himself with writing letters to the King and Council, to complain of the new arrangements for the government of the Borders which had been made in his absence[494]. He and Cromwell came into collision here, just as they had done before over Irish affairs: each had his own idea as to the best method of government in both cases, and the antagonism of the two men was the sharper in that each knew that his favour with the King depended on the success of his plan of administration. The Duke from the very first was convinced that ‘the wylde peple of all the Marches wolde not be kept in order vnles one of good estimacion and nobilitie have the ordering therof,’ while Cromwell and the Council asserted that the King had already been ill served on the Borders ‘by the reason of controversy & variaunce depending between the great men that ly upon the same’; but, they continued, ‘if it shal please his Majesty to appoynt the meanest man ... to rule & govern in that place; is not his Graces aucthoritie sufficient to cause al men to serve his Grace under him without respect of the very estate of the personage?[495]’ The dispute on this point began in early February, when Norfolk wrote to protest against certain names in a list of officers for the north which the Privy Council had sent him. ‘More arraunt theves and murderers be not in no Realme,’ asserted the Duke, ‘then they haue of Long tyme been and yet ar ... and the same shall not only cause Light persounes to saye and beleve that the Kinges Highnes is fayne to Hire with Fees the moost malefactors in order to syt in rest, but also not to Loke vppon theire most detestable offences[496].’ An animated correspondence on this topic continued for several months, the dispute finally centering about the Presidency of the new Council and the Wardenships of the three Marches; Norfolk insisted that only noblemen were fitted to hold these offices[497]. In May the discussion was finally closed by the King, who had steadily supported the position adopted by Cromwell and the Council. Henry now took the matter into his own hands, and sent a peremptory letter to the Duke. ‘We doo accept in good parte,’ wrote the King, ‘the declaracion of your opinion for the Marches. Neuertheles we doubt not but you woll both conforme your owne mynde to fynde out the good order whiche we haue therin determyned and cause other by your good meane to perceyve the same. For surely we woll not be bounde of a necessitie to be serued there with lordes, But we wolbe serued with such men what degre soeuer they be of as we shall appointe to the same[498].’ The Presidency of the Council was finally conferred on Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham. The death of the Earl of Northumberland in June, 1537, served as a convenient pretext for the suppression of the Lord Wardenship of the East and Middle Marches, which that nobleman had previously enjoyed; and the Earl of Cumberland, who had hitherto held a similar office on the West Marches, was not permitted long to retain it. Three Deputy Wardens, Sir William Evers, Sir John Witherington, and Sir Thomas Wharton, were appointed in their places by the King and Cromwell[499]; the three March Courts were revived, and exercised concurrent jurisdiction with the new Council[500], which was also composed as Henry and his minister had originally planned it[499]. In every point the advice of Cromwell had been taken in preference to that of Norfolk, and when the Duke finally obtained leave to return to Court in September, it must have been with the feeling that he had again suffered defeat at the hands of his plebeian rival. The rebellion, which eleven months before had threatened to hurl Cromwell from his place, had been completely quelled, and the country had been again reduced to internal quiet. The danger while it lasted had indeed been pressing, but so firmly had Cromwell been established as the King’s chief minister by the events of the years 1530 to 1536, that the storm passed over him and left him scathless. The failure of the Pilgrimage of Grace and the process of reconstruction which followed it, bore witness to the thoroughness with which he had carried out his main aim in internal government, and to the security of the position to which he had elevated himself by his temporary success in establishing a royal despotism.