Episode 3 History: The Pilgrimage of Grace
In Episode 3 of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, a rebellion in the north is on the attack, demanding, among other things, the return of Lady Mary to the line of succession…and the head of Thomas Cromwell. What was this rebellion—known as the Pilgrimage of Grace—why were they rebelling, and how did it end? We asked the production’s researcher, the author and Tudor historian Kirsten Claiden-Yardley, to explain the circumstances that led to a perilous period not just for Thomas Cromwell but for Henry VIII’s very reign.
The Dissolution of the Monasteries
In Episode 3 of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, rumors that Thomas Cromwell has either bewitched or killed the king have spread like wildfire in the north of England and reached as far as London, where Cromwell assembles men and weapons at Austin Friars. Claiden-Yardley provided the fascinating context behind the drama, explaining, “The Pilgrimage of Grace [1536-1537] was one of the really big rebellions of Henry VIII’s reign, and at the time it was probably one of the most dangerous moments he faced in terms of domestic opposition. We talk about it as one big rebellion, because that’s where it ended up, but it actually started with smaller rebellions that joined together.
“Throughout this Tudor period, a lot of religious change was going on, and the further away you were from London, the more religiously conservative people tended to be. It had to do with geography and spread of ideas—London had more connections with the continent and religious reformers abroad. They also tended to be more rural, poorer areas where populations were a lot more widespread, and for a lot of people, the monasteries were a source of charity, of healthcare, of education, and were a key part of the local economy. So at this time, with the first of the monasteries being dissolved, closing them down was just tearing apart the society, which is why it was really unpopular.
“There was also a lot of what they called “commissions” going on—basically the government doing investigations into the monasteries, but also some looking at parishes and parish priests as well—and the people who were running them were not very popular. When the monasteries were closed down, and the Crown was confiscating the valuable items and the lands, rumors soon started that it wasn’t just going to be the monasteries that they were coming for; they were coming next for the parish churches and everything at the parish churches down to the candlesticks—generally the types of things that local families paid for and donated to the church through their strong local connection to it.
“This unhappiness fed in with other complaints about having enough representation in parliament, and personal grudges against particular landowners. But the unifying thing was religious complaints and the rumors were the match that lit the tinderbox where all these little rebellions started up.”
The Pilgrimage of Grace
According to Claiden-Yardley, there were two phases to the Pilgrimage of Grace. “In Episode 3, when it first kicked off, they talked about it being in Louth, a little town in Lincolnshire, where a lot of commissions were going on. The Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, was sent to deal with it, and he was fairly effective in bringing the rebellion in Lincolnshire to an end, but in the meantime it had spread.
“In Lincolnshire, the rebels saw themselves as the king’s loyal subjects—in their perspective, it was just that he was getting bad advice about the religious stuff from men like Cromwell and Richard Rich. They swore an oath of loyalty to the king, and were keen to get more people to swear an oath to this effect. One such person was this respected Yorkshire lawyer called Robert Aske, who they stopped on his way back to his legal work at Westminster in London. So he went back into East Yorkshire, as others did, too, as word of all this was spreading, and he got involved in a rebellion there. At the same time, little rebellions were beginning to pop up all over Yorkshire. And what happened is that over time, the biggest ones all gathered in York, and Robert Aske ended up being their leader. They start using the name the Pilgrimage of Grace, and under Aske’s command, they headed south. On their way, they reached a place called Pontefract, which is basically a royal castle on the main route up through the north, and they managed to persuade the guy in charge of it, Lord Darcy, to switch to their side. A couple of the other people that they brought to their side were quite experienced military commanders, and soon they had this rebel army behaving like an actual army. There was a vanguard, there was a rear guard, there were scouts, marching in order, and we’re talking tens of thousands of men by the time they joined up and headed for Doncaster.
“At first, because everything always took longer, the Crown had started sending out messages saying, ‘Bring some men, we’ll need you.’ And then they were like, ‘Actually, it’s fine. The Duke of Suffolk has sorted it out. We don’t need you, go away.’ But then news arrived that actually, there was this whole new set of rebellions and so there was a lot of rushing going on in the south to react. And in the end, they finally admitted that they needed the Duke of Norfolk, who they’d been somewhat keeping out of it. The Duke of Norfolk, because of his family history, was quite familiar with the north of England, and whatever else you want to say about him, he was an experienced military leader.
“Norfolk joined up with the Earl of Shrewsbury, whose lands are up in the north, in South Yorkshire, and on arriving there, they basically said, ‘We can’t [fight]. We are going to have to negotiate.’ Because I think that Norfolk sensed that if they tried to fight, they might not have won—by the time they’d reacted and the royal forces were having to gather from all across south England to be brought together and funneled up the country, he just didn’t feel that they had the men. The rebellion wasn’t just a crowd of peasants—it comprised all levels of society and had this level of military organization on their side. Which is why it was one of the most dangerous moments.
“So they agreed to negotiate, and Norfolk made all these promises and they dispersed over the winter. It took the wind out of the rebel sails a little bit, because the people like Lord Darcy, the ones who were government officials anyway, like gentry gentlemen, they were not particularly radical, so they were prepared to negotiate, while also, within these thousands of men were some who were massively radical and saw this as being a sellout. A few of the leaders went south to meet with Henry, and they just lost their momentum by negotiating. Another rebellion was attempted at the start of 1537, and a lot of the people who wanted to negotiate were quite like, ‘No, we mustn’t rebel. We’ve got to keep to our side of this deal that we’ve got with Norfolk.’ So they actually tried to put down the attempts to restart the rebellion.
“So Henry is back, and the rebel momentum is lost. But he was pretty humiliated by the fact that he’d had to negotiate at all, so he used it as an excuse to say that actually, people like Aske had broken the terms of the truce, and were involved in rebellion after the truce. And therefore, they essentially were executed in the ends on that ground, rather than for the fact that they rebelled in 1536.”
