Two separate but similar incidents show that the Pilgrimage of Grace was "a rising of the commons". These events marked the start of local rebellions in the East Riding of Yorkshire and the northwest county of Cumbria. They were triggers of small revolts that grew into one large protest against religious change.
Rebel John Hallom testified that "in bidding the beads" on the Sunday before St Wilfrid's Day (observed 12 October), the priest at Walton Church (near Beverley) did not mention the feast day. Hallom asked the priest why he left it out "for it was wont to be a holyday here". The priest replied by informing the parishioners that it and other feasts "were put down by the king's authority". After mass the whole parish "was in a rumour and said that they would have their holydays bid and kept as before". From that point on, according to Hallom, "no man could keep his servants at the plow".
[Letters and Papers, vol X, no 201]
The rebel vicar of Brough told that while "bidding the beads on the Sunday before St Luke's Day" (observed 18 October), the priest of Kirkby Stephen failed to mention the feast day. His omission angered the parishioners so much "that they were near to killing Him", but he "took a sacring bell and rang it, and bade the said St Luke's as holyday". The next day "the commons of Kirkby Stephens summoned the county to muster on Sandeforthe Moor". [L & P, XII, 687]
Bidding of the beads refers to that part of the service where a priest enjoins the congregation in prayers for dead souls in purgatory, and announces upcoming holydays. (The poor left small sums to the church to ensure that they would be included in the bede-rolls, their names read out and prayed for each week or on the anniversary of their deaths). Forbidding the bidding of the beads angered ordinary peasants and labourers because it denied them their customary days off.
The origins of this complaint trace back to Henry VIII's Reformation Parliament. The Supplication of the Commons Against the Ordinaries, drafted by Thomas Cromwell in 1529 but not passed until 1532, contained a list of grievances against the clergy. It included criticism of a church calendar with too many holy days that allowed workers a lot of idle time ― holy days "kept with small devotion".
The First Royal Injunctions of Henry VIII, drafted by Cromwell and sometimes called Cromwell's Injunctions, were sent out in 1536. These instructions sought uniformity in the Church of England and insisted on clergy playing their part. Item 3. ordered "dean, parsons, vicars, and others having the cure of souls" to "declare unto all such that be under their cure...the abrogation of certain superfluous holy-days...and persuade their parishioners to keep and observe the same inviolably". Most parishioners remained unpersuaded.
From a modern perspective it is important to distinguish between "the Commons", members of the lower house of parliament and generally employers, and "the commons", who were the majority of the population and overwhelmingly employees.
Part of the problem was the scale of days gained (Commons) or days lost (commons). The Proclamation Restricting the Number of Holydays drew a line around all the saints' days that fell during harvest time or during the Westminster law terms. This "decimated the ritual year", outlawing 3 in July, 4 in August, 3 in September, and at least 13 from the law terms. This was a sacrifice too far for the class of poor people, who actually looked forward to days "upon the which many great, abominable, and execrable vices, idle and wanton sports, be used and exercised" (to use the language of the Supplication against the Ordinaries).
Trigger-points notwithstanding, it is clear that the Pilgrimage of Grace was very much a religious rebellion. The Yorkshire revolt was inspired by the Lincolnshire rising. Pilgrims administered "the oath" in words virtually identical and their list of demands incorporated the same set grievances. Both outbreaks were risings of the commons with deep-seated religious causes.
One of the few differences was that Yorkshire did not only want the king to halt the suppression of the monasteries. They wanted the full restoration of monasteries already suppressed as well.
On 12 October 1536, the commons restored Sawley Abbey, one of the first religious houses to be closed under the Suppression of Lesser Monasteries Act. The reoccupation of Sawley possibly preceded the Pilgrims' "chief-captain", Robert Aske, nailing an order to the Minster door in the City of York. This was "an order for religious houses suppressed because the commons would needs put them in...that all houses might know how to use themselves". [L & P, XII, 6]
Aske's order was careful to respect the interest of all parties: "First that the prior and convent should re-enter their suppressed monasteries and view by indenture of their goods left, keeping the one part and delivering the other to the King's farmer [the person granted the abbey's land when it was dissolved], from whom they should have necessary food and clothing pending our petition to the King, and so do divine service as the King's beadmen or women". [L & P, XII, 6]
The order ignores one of the main reasons for closures, that many of these monasteries were financially weak. They had net annual income less than £200. That was the case with Sawley Abbey. It was near destitute and relied on support from local gentry. The first item of business for the abbot was to write and ask for assistance. He needed corn and tithe of "laithes" from Tadcaster and the return of "church goods, inventory of the abbey &c." removed by Lord Darcy, the King's farmer. [L & P, XI, 784 & 785]
Meanwhile, the Lincolnshire rising had collapsed and Henry VIII sent a letter to the Earl of Derby, redirecting his armed forces towards the rebels active in the Craven area, on the border between Lancashire and Yorkshire. The King's attention was specially drawn to the "outrages" of the monks of Sawley. Derby's instructions were to suppress the rebels, then to capture and execute the abbot and his companions.
Mixed up in the Sawley saga were "the traitors at Whalley". At the end of October, rebel Nicholas Tempest came to Whalley with 400 men. For more than two hours the abbey refused him entry, opening the gates only after Tempest threatened to burn its buildings down. Abbot Paslew was "sore stopped and afflicted" but he and his 8 monks were sworn to the cause of the commons.
With Whalley being occupied by the Pilgrims, the Earl of Derby was denied its use as a base from which to assault Sawley. This angered the earl. After the dispersal of the Pilgrims in Craven, Abbot Paslew of Whalley, alongside Abbot William Trafford of Sawley, was tried and executed at Lancaster on 10 March 1537. To reinforce the message, a Whalley monk called William Haydock was taken back to the abbey's gate to be killed and his corpse displayed.
In Aske's opinion, closure of the monasteries was at the heart of the Pilgrimage of Grace. His York Articles began with this issue, lamenting the loss of "so many houses", by which "the service of God is not well performed and the people unrelieved". In a letter to the besieged Keeper of Pontefract Castle, he described how the commons were "gnawn in their conscience with spreading of heresies, suppression of houses of religion, and other matters touching the common weal". Finally, in his "examination" in the Tower of London and facing the prospect of a traitor's death at Tyburn, Aske still believed that "the suppression of the abbeys was the greatest cause of the insurrection". [L & P XII 6 & XI 705]
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REFERENCES:
K Altazin, 2011, 'The northern clergy and the Pilgrimage of Grace', Louisiana State University Doctoral Dissertations (Digital Commons)
'The Abbey of Sawley', Victoria County History: Yorkshire, Vol 3, pp156-159
'The Abbey of Whalley', Victoria County History: Lancashire, vol 2, pp 131-139
Letters & Papers: Foreign and Domestic in the Rein of Henry VIII, volumes X, XI, XII
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