The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536
In October 1536, six months after the first monasteries had been suppressed, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire rose against the regime in what became the largest popular rebellion of Tudor England. At its height, around 30,000 men marched under the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ — far more than any force the king could put in the field. They called their movement a pilgrimage, not a rebellion. Within four months it was over. Robert Aske, who had reframed sedition as religious devotion, was hanging in chains at York. Cromwell’s programme survived its sternest test — but only because the Duke of Norfolk had been willing to lie.
Why the North Rose: A Tangle of Grievances
Religion was the most visible cause but not the only one. The dissolution of the smaller monasteries earlier in 1536 hit the north hardest, where monastic landholding was concentrated and the parish clergy thin. Local communities saw familiar abbeys threatened, gate-alms cut off, and unfamiliar ‘commissioners’ arriving to take inventories. Rumours spread that parish church plate, baptismal fonts and even weddings would soon be taxed.
Religion sat alongside fiscal grievances. The 1534 Subsidy Act extended taxation in peacetime — previously taxation had been linked to war — and the 1535 collection bit hardest in a year of poor harvests. The Statute of Uses (1536) threatened the gentry’s long-standing tax-avoidance arrangements over land. Agrarian grievances over enclosures and high rents added a third layer. Northern political grievances completed the mix: lords like Lord Darcy and the Percy family resented the rise of low-born advisers like Cromwell and the steady loss of the north’s influence at court.
The Pilgrimage of Grace combined religious grievances over the dissolution of the monasteries, fiscal anger at the 1534 Subsidy and 1536 Statute of Uses, agrarian protest against rents and enclosures, and northern political resentment of Cromwell and the loss of regional autonomy. Lincolnshire rose first in October 1536.
Lincolnshire Rises, October 1536
The trouble began at Louth in Lincolnshire on 1 October 1536. Royal commissioners arriving to inspect a church were chased from the town. By 4 October, several thousand commoners and parish priests had gathered at Caistor and Horncastle, then marched on Lincoln. They issued the Lincoln Articles, attacking the dissolution, the Statute of Uses, the Subsidy and the ‘low-born’ ministers around the king. Henry replied with a contemptuous proclamation that dismissed them as the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly in the whole realm. Lincolnshire’s gentry leaders quickly lost their nerve and dispersed the host by 14 October.
Robert Aske’s Pilgrimage, October–December 1536
As the Lincolnshire rising collapsed, a far larger movement broke out across Yorkshire. Its leader was Robert Aske, a Yorkshire lawyer who had been in London during the Lincolnshire trouble. Aske was a brilliant organiser. He gave the rising a new name — the Pilgrimage of Grace — reframing rebellion as religious devotion. He composed an oath of loyalty to king, commonwealth and church that allowed gentry and commoners to march together. By 16 October, York surrendered to him without a shot. By 21 October, Pontefract Castle — held by the elderly Lord Darcy — surrendered too. Hull fell next.
By the end of October, Aske commanded around 30,000 men — the largest force in England. From Pontefract he issued the more developed Pontefract Articles. Their demands were sweeping: restore the dissolved monasteries, repeal the Statute of Uses, dismiss Cromwell and Cranmer, condemn heresy, hold a free Parliament in the north, and recognise Princess Mary as legitimate. The articles showed how religion, fiscal grievance, faction politics and dynastic concern braided together.
Religion was the rallying banner, but the historians M.E. James and C.S.L. Davies have shown the rising drew on overlapping fiscal, agrarian and political grievances. The 1535 subsidy bit hard, harvests had failed in 1535, the Statute of Uses threatened the gentry’s land arrangements, and northern lords resented losing regional autonomy. Robert Aske re-framed sedition as ‘pilgrimage’ precisely because the motives were so mixed: a religious banner could unite groups whose individual grievances were not the same. Treating the rising as purely religious misses why it could mobilise 30,000 men so quickly.
Norfolk’s Negotiations at Doncaster
The Duke of Norfolk, sent north with a small royal force of around 8,000 men, knew he could not win a battle. On 27 October at Doncaster, he opened negotiations with the rebels under a flag of truce. He played for time, promising a pardon and a free Parliament in York to discuss the rebels’ grievances. Privately, both Norfolk and Henry knew the promises were tactical. Aske, a lawyer who took oaths seriously, persuaded the rebel host to disperse and travelled to London to meet Henry in person at Christmas 1536. He was reassured, given a velvet jacket, and sent home.
Bigod’s Rising and the Reckoning, 1537
The truce held only weeks. In January 1537, when promised concessions failed to appear, Sir Francis Bigod launched a smaller, badly organised rising in the East Riding. Aske and Lord Darcy publicly denounced it, but the rising gave Henry the legal cover he had been waiting for. The first pardon, he ruled, had been broken — by association if not by act. Norfolk returned north under martial law in February 1537 with orders to make examples. Around 216 people were executed, including Robert Aske, hanged in chains at Clifford’s Tower in York in July 1537. Lord Darcy was beheaded on Tower Hill, Sir Robert Constable hanged at Hull. Bodies were left in chains as warnings.
Norfolk negotiated a pardon at Doncaster in October 1536 to disperse the rebel host of around 30,000. After Bigod’s January 1537 rising broke the truce, Norfolk returned under martial law and oversaw around 216 executions, including Robert Aske, hanged in chains at York in July 1537.
Aftermath and Significance
In the short term, the regime survived. The dissolution of the larger monasteries went ahead in 1538–40, the Council of the North was reformed under royal control, and the gentry of the north absorbed monastic land like their southern counterparts. In the long term, the Pilgrimage taught Tudor governments that the north could not be governed casually. Henry never again travelled there in person. Cromwell’s reputation among the conservatives never recovered — the Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner now had a permanent grievance to rehearse.
M.E. James emphasised the role of social hierarchy — commoners, gentry and northern lords each had distinct reasons to march, but the ‘pilgrimage’ banner allowed a temporary alliance. C.S.L. Davies stressed the fiscal trigger: the 1535 subsidy collected during a bad harvest year was the immediate match. R.W. Hoyle’s 2001 study foregrounded Robert Aske as a serious political thinker whose ‘pilgrimage’ framing was a calculated political move, not naive piety. All three readings argue against a purely religious interpretation, while accepting that religion was the language in which the grievances were expressed.