their ranks, as they would answer it at the day of judgment, as they would bear the pulling down of their houses, and the loss of their goods and of their lives. They restored the monks and nuns to their houses, as they went along. The cities of York, Hull, and Pontefract had opened their gates, and taken the prescribed oaths. The Archbishop of York, the Lords Darcy, Lumley, Latimer, and Novill, with a vast number of knights and gentlemen, gathered to their standard, either by free will or compulsion, and the army presented a most formidable aspect. But, in reality, there were already disunion and controversy in the host. The money of the Duke of Suffolk was doing its work, and Wriothesley soon wrote that they were falling to talking amongst themselves, and, if that went on, a pair of Light heels would soon be worth five pair of hands to them. The Earl of Cumberland repulsed them from his castle of Skipton; Sir Ralph Evers defended Scarborough against them; Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, the Earls of Huntingdon, Derby, and Rutland, took the field against them; and they only managed to take Pomfret Castle, because the Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York, lying there, were supposed to be secretly in league with them, and only wanted a show of force, which they might plead in case of failure.
The passages of the Trent at Nottingham and Newark were secured against them, and when they moved upon Doncaster they were encountered by the united forces of the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had thrown up a strong battery in front of the town. The rebel army, nevertheless, determined to attack them in the morning; but, during the night, such heavy rains fell that the river was impassable, and Norfolk, who had received a fresh remittance of £10,000, took the opportunity to attempt to negotiate matters with them. He was instructed by the king to go artfully to work with them, offering to all the nobility and gentry who had joined them a free pardon, if they would quit the enterprise. With this purpose he sent a herald to Aske, who received him sitting in a chair of state, with the Archbishop of York on one hand, and Lord Darcy on the other. Aske presented a memorial, consisting of complaints similar to those in the petition of the men of Lincolnshire, and a number of others going still further. It demanded that the heresies of Wickliffe, Huss, Luther, Melanchthon, and others should be rooted out of the Church; that all heretical books should be destroyed; the supremacy of the Church should be restored to the Pope, who should enjoy the consecration of bishops, the tenths, and the first-fruits as formerly; that the Princess Mary should be declared legitimate, and all statutes to the contrary should be annulled; that the pains and penalties which had been decreed against such as kept hand-guns and cross-bows should be repealed, except as to their being used in the king's parks and forests against his deer; that the statute for treason in words spoken should be annulled, and the common law be restored as it was in the commencement of the king's reign; and that Parliament should be reinvested with its ancient privileges, and the election of the knights of shires and the members of boroughs should be reformed.
This was a most surprising attack upon all Henry's innovations, civil and ecclesiastical, and contained a most just but unavailing protest against his tyranny. It was decided that the insurgents should send this memorial to the king by Sir Ralph Elckers and Mr. Bowes, that the Duke of Norfolk should himself go up to second the petition, and that there should be a cessation of hostilities till the return of the messengers.
Nothing could be more advantageous to the Royal cause, or more fatal to that of the people, than this arrangement. The royalist troops had now plenty of pay and good quarters, whilst the insurgents were suffering the extremities of cold and hunger. Great numbers of them deserted; still more obtained leave of absence till they should be recalled. The people had great confidence in the mediation of the Duke of Norfolk, knowing that in all matters of faith he was wholly with them; and probably he thought it would be better to let the insurgents thus disperse, and so spare them, than to come to slaughter them. Be this as it may, the duke, on arriving in London, found Henry had summoned the nobility to meet him in arms at Northampton; but he convinced him that it was unnecessary, and that, by a little management, the insurgents would soon disperse of themselves.
But, of all men, Henry was the most unmanageable person. He wrote a reply to the memorial again, with his own hand, repeating all his assertions as to the justice and necessity of suppressing the monasteries; and as to the government of the Church, he told them bluntly it was no business of theirs; and as to the laws, he bade them remember that blind men were no judges of colours. That it was manifest that the laws never were so wholesome, commodious, and beneficial. It was a gross absurdity, he said, for them to tell him that he did not know what was good for the realm better than they, or even than himself when he first came to the throne, seeing he had been so long king. The men of his council, he said, were good men, just and true, and admirable administrators both of God's laws and his own. Some of them, it was true, were not of noble birth; neither had those been that his father left him, who, for the most part, were scarcely well-born gentlemen, of small estate, and the rest lawyers and priests. He would not concede an iota of their demands, but would freely pardon their rebellion on their delivering up to him six of their ringleaders, whom he named, and four whom he would proceed to name.
On hearing this answer the insurgents were greatly enraged, and summoned their forces back again; and Norfolk found that he had not an army strong enough to contend with them. He therefore once more tried to negotiate, and made them great promises, which Henry again refusing to fulfil, the insurgents became desperate, and compelled the Royal army to retreat to the south of the Don and the Trent. The Court became then really alarmed, lest the rebels should cross the Trent and advance upon the south, and Norfolk was empowered to offer a general pardon, without exceptions; and the weather operating with the Royal clemency, the bulk of the insurgents returned home. The king wrote gracious letters to "his trusty and well-loved" Captain Aske, Lord Darcy, and others, inviting them to come to London that he might converse with them; but these leaders were not to be taken by so shallow an artifice. Aske proffered
