Reformation Studies 9781472599070, 9780907628040

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SEDITION AND CONSPIRACY IN YORKSHIRE DURING THE LATER YEARS OF HENRY VIII. I t has been too commonly assumed that a period of quiet in northern history succeeded the collapse of the Pilgrimage of Grace. The great upheaval was inevitably followed by lesser repercussions : a rising which had come so near success, and to the failure of which deception had so largely contributed, could not but leave hopes of ultimate retribution. The virtues of resolute conciliar government had not yet come to temper the fears aroused by the royal policy, to abolish seignorial liberties and to slacken the grip of the old families upon the popular mind. In Yorkshire, that central region of unrest, widespread discontent and antagonism simmered continuously after the revolt, culminated in the West Riding Plot of 1541, and subsided temporarily after the King's visit in the late summer of that year. A survey of Yorkshire reaction throughout the last decade of Henry VIII's reign must be based upon the Domestic State Papers, and from these we first select a few cases illustrating the position during the two years immediately following the Pilgrimage. Dr. Dakyn, rector of Kirkby Ravensworth and vicar-general of the York diocese, was examined by the Privy Council about March 1537 and claimed that since the revolt he had exhorted the people of Richmond to accept the royal supremacy only at the risk of his 1ife.l A month or two later the Duke of Norfolk found it necessary to attend in person the suppression of Bridlington and Jervaulx, because, as he explained to the King, the neighbouring country was populous and the houses greatly beloved by the p e ~ p l e . ~ Cases of verbal treason continued fairly numerous. On 2 December 1637 parishioners of Muston made grave charges before the President and Council in the North against their vicar, John Dobson. For a year and a quarter he had not prayed for the King. Only on 25 November, and as a result of remonstrances, L. 6. P.,xii (l),786 (14). Ibid., 1172 (I),1192. He had, from Doncaster in February, reported the continuance of sedition, but thought he could trust the nobles and substantial yeomen (Ibid., 318). a

SOME POPULAR REACTIONS TO THE EDWARDIAN REFORMATION IN YORKSHIRE. At no stage of the Reformation were there wanting in Yorkshire manifestations of that conservative outlook which viewed with apprehension the proceedings of the reformers in both church and state. The Edwardian Reformation, with its new liturgy, its dissolution of chantries, religious gilds, free chapels and other foundations, its later confiscation of church goods, inevitably provoked unrest in a society for which the institutions of the church had by no means relapsed into general discredit. The social and ecclesiastical effects of these reforming measures present broad fields for investigation, but our present purpose is to trace the evidences of popular reaction to such measures. Except in the case of the Yorkshire rising of 1549, to which we shall accord special attention, our concern will be with effects rather than with causes. In passing from the previous reign to that of Edward VI we find source-problems become more acute. No guide remotely comparable with the Lettcrs alzd Pa*ers of Henry V I l I is to hand; the domestic state papers are indeed not merely ill-calendared but very scanty. Nevertheless, scraps of evidence from a variety of other sources prove more numerous than might at first sight be assumed, and the resultant mosaic seems not without pattern or meaning. The state of opinion in Yorkshire at the very outset of the reign is indicated in the correspondence betwceri Lord President Holgate and the Privy Council, preserved in the Rodleian Library.' In its letter of ?!t January, 1547, announcing the death of Henry VIII, the Privy Council, doubtless recalling the old troubles in the Nort!~, urges Holgate to " give such order and direction in all places within the limits of your commission as all things may continue in quiet and tranquillity, and have such a regard abroad as if any seditious persons would attempt any business, the same may hc straight met withal at the first.""^^ the following 26 May the Council writes somewhat more definitely : " These shall be to signify Bodleian Tanner JISS. xc, fos. jxissi+n. Several items are ~ x i n t c ~inl I