The Pilgrimage of Grace
Background & Summary
The Pilgrimage of Grace has been described as “the rebellion that shook Henry VIIIs throne”, and both contemporary and modern commentators agree that for a few short weeks in late 1536 the all-powerful, flamboyant, but increasingly desperate, King Henry was in real danger of ignominious defeat, and perhaps even of being swept from power.
A revolt against Henry’s political, social and religious policies sprang up in East Yorkshire and spread like wildfire to the rest of the north of England. They were fighting against increased taxation at a time of rising prices, the north-south divide, corrupt politicians and spin doctors, and, of course the dissolution of the monasteries and reformation. In addition rumours abounded that further taxation was imminent, including new taxes on bread, Christenings and burials, and that the smaller parish churches were next on Henry’s hit list.
1536 was also the tumultuous ‘Year of Three Queens’. In the first half of the year Catherine of Aragon died, Anne Boleyn miscarried on the day of her predecessor’s funeral and was executed a few months later, Henry himself survived a serious fall from his horse, and his quest to secure his succession saw him marry his third wife in as many years, Jane Seymour. Henry’s despair at the lack of a male heir deepened when his illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, who he had been gradually manoeuvring into the line of succession, died suddenly, aged 27. And while all this was going on in Henry’s personal life, the new policies and laws against the church and old traditions kept churning out.
The monasteries, particularly in the north, were valued institutions that provided many local functions such as being schools, libraries and hospitals, looking after the poor, and being the country’s biggest landowner and biggest employers. The sight of some of the early monasteries to close having the lead stripped off their roofs and melted down and their monks thrown out of their houses really brought things home to the average citizen.
Named ‘The Pilgrimage of Grace’ by its leader, Robert Aske, the rebellion united the commons, gentry, nobility and clergy like no other popular movement before or since, and the rebels carried all before them, capturing York, Hull and the royal stronghold of Pontefract, before facing up to Henry’s army at Doncaster.
The Pilgrims’ host had swelled to some 40,000 committed men, with more in reserve, and many of them were experienced and well-armed soldiers. Against them the royal forces numbered less than 10,000 and many were reluctant, poorly equipped conscripts, who Henry’s generals feared would swap sides and join the rebels if they came to blows.
Henry’s main man, the Duke of Norfolk, knew he had no chance, and with Henry’s agreement he accepted the Pilgrim demands and offered a truce, based on a royal pardon for all the rebels, the halting of the dissolution of the monasteries, and a Parliament to be held at York to resolve the northern grievances.
Aske and his deputies were honourable, straightforward men whose opposition was not to Henry as king, but to his policies and corrupt politicians. Nevertheless, some wanted to fight and then march on London, which would undoubtedly have seen many tens of thousands more throng to their cause along the way. Henry’s enemies, including the Kings of Spain and Scotland, also looked on with interest.
East Yorkshire’s Pilgrimage of Grace had its origins in a similar rebellion a few days earlier in Lincolnshire. But the Lincolnshire revolt, though it attracted 30,000 supporters, quickly died out, primarily due to a lack of leadership. The Pilgrimage of Grace was different as Aske, and East Yorkshire lawyer, was a charismatic captain who gathered around him a group of respected deputies and created a well led, disciplined and committed army.
So when Aske accepted Henry’s truce and offer of further negotiations as genuine, and told his men to stand down, they followed his orders. Most of the rebels went home, while their leaders waited at strategic bases for Henry to carry out his promises.
However, though the rebels were honourable, Henry was not. He was not used to challenges to his authority (it is estimated that Henry executed some 70,000 opponents during his reign), and he delayed and prevaricated, even inviting Aske to spend Christmas with him at Windsor Castle for further talks. Henry was expected to come to Yorkshire to confirm the pardon and call the Parliament, but as the weeks passed with nothing happening, a handful of fervent individuals became restless. Aske and his main lieutenant, Sir Robert Constable, ordered everyone to do nothing and stay patient, but when small, futile insurrections flared up at Beverley and Carlisle, it gave Henry the excuse he was looking for. The original leaders were rounded up, found guilty at show trials, and hung, beheaded and quartered, some in London and many in the north. Over 200 rebels – carefully chosen to include nobility, gentry, abbots, monks and commoners – were executed.
Local context, detail and aftermath
The East Riding was at the centre of the Pilgrimage of Grace, both in its inception and leadership. Many gentry and noble families had manors in both Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire, so the spread from one side of the Humber to the other followed a common pathway.
Though feudalism would soon be on the wane, the north was still firmly feudal in 1536, with society held together by the church and the reward of land in return for service. Traditional allegiance was as much to the local lord as the king, and a number of East Riding men had had military experience in Scotland or France in the Earl of Northumberland’s retinue.
The local nobility or gentry, particularly those in the key Tudor role of Justice of the Peace, would usually be the group who would suppress dissent or insurrection on behalf of the crown. But the Pilgrimage of Grace was different, though the early enthusiasm for revolt came from the commons, the middle and upper classes soon signed up - some threatened into joining, others more easily persuaded. All the northern nobility and gentry were also heavily intermarried, with the kin of Pilgrim captains Aske and Constable in particular related by marriage to so many leading Yorkshire families.
Organisation and a common cause were key to the rebellion, and Aske was a master of both. All the Pilgrims had to swear an oath which bound them together to their faith and their leaders. As the marched along the road from Beverley to York they recruited from villages along the way, with many more taking the oath at the stopover and muster points at Market Weighton, Shiptonthorpe, Pocklington and Kexby. And the main body was swelled as similar risings came together from the rest of the Riding – the Pilgrim hosts from Holderness, Yorkswold and the Marshlands all linking up.
It must have been an impressive sight as the 10,000 strong column marched on York, with monks and clergy at the front carry the cross, followed by the mounted gentry, nobility and yeomen, most well armed and in battle harness, with the feudal retainers and peasants marching behind them, some experienced archers and many armed with billhooks.
The rebellion changed the face of England, and particularly the East Riding. After the executions Henry pressed ahead with the dissolutions. Though some aspects of his religious reformation were toned down, he continued to implement his new policies against a background of fear and reward.
Monastic estates and possessions initially boosted the Henry’s coffers by doubling crown income; then the lands, along with those of the executed rebels, were soon leased and sold on to favoured nobility and gentry.
Estates that for centuries had belonged to the church and monasteries, and the implicated noble families, Percy, Constable and Bigod, all found new owners. The biggest beneficiary was Sir Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland, while several manors were given to the Earl of Lennox, and his secretary Thomas Bishop, a Scottish nobleman who Henry hoped would broker marriage between Prince Edward and Mary Queen of Scots.
Others were bought up or leased by local gentry and yeoman families, with Pocklington’s Thomas Dolman using his knowledge as a land agent to increase his estates with bits of land across the county. Even former rebels and relatives of the executed leaders were rewarded with state office or former monastic lands, with Robert Aske’s brother, John, amongst the locals who did well out of the handouts.
And after the revolt the Tudors made sure that the region was much more closely governed, with a more powerful Council for the North in permanent residence at York. When Henry finally came north in 1541 he went out of his way to visit all the key places of the Pilgrimage of Grace to make sure everyone was reminded who was boss.
Further change followed as the valued functions of the monasteries had to be replaced. Pocklington School was one of the early Tudor educational establishments, and a host of new grammar schools followed. For a period the poor and the sick were on their own, but they could not be ignored and hospitals and poor houses gradually followed. Much of this change was driven by wealthy individuals as monies and lands that had formerly gone to the monasteries was redirected to endow schools, colleges and hospitals.
However, while some changes were accepted or embraced, others were not. The main towns such as York, Hull and Beverley quite quickly adopted the national Protestant religion, but for decades the rural East Riding remained fiercely Catholic, even when it cost them their money, their land or even their heads. The county gentry families stuck to the ‘old faith’, sometimes by conforming in public and maintaining their traditional ways in private. It continued through the generations (some of the ‘Gunpowder Plotters’ of 1605 were descendants of leading Pilgrimage of Grace families) right up to the Civil War where they found themselves fighting as Royalists and Catholics.
The Pilgrimage of Grace ultimately failed because the rebel leadership stuck to its principles, avoided battle and trusted Henry. It also lacked a real focus as it was not really trying to replace Henry, and did not have an alternative candidate, rather its aim was to get him to change his mind and policies. Subsequently its significance was swept under the carpet (the early Tudors excelled at air-brushing history), while the new society as promoted by Henry and his successors quickly developed a vested interest to let sleeping dogs lie. Key figures at the times knew the threat it posed to Henry and his monarchy, but it has taken until recent times for history to realise the true importance of The Pilgrimage of Grace.
The Pocklington axis of The Pilgrimage of Grace Trail.
The following eclectic notes of some of the people and places of the local Pilgrimage of Grace have been collected by research within the Pocklington & District Local History Group. They do not give a full reflection of the story of the revolt but are a snapshot of how it affected every community in the area. It is top heavy with the names of lords of the manor, rather than villagers and townsfolk, as they are the ones recorded in the documentary evidence, either within the state papers or the archives of the leading landed families. However, comparative studies of the Pilgrim hosts against the 1535 and 1539 county muster returns (the state records of males over 16 who could be called on in time of war) demonstrate that just about every able bodied man in the Ridings joined the revolt, a real case of ‘all for one, and one for all’. It is this facet, that every man from every class in the county rose up in unified revolt, that makes the Pilgrimage of Grace unique.
South to North
Beverley – Beverley Westwood was the place of initial muster of rebels who swore in new followers on four consecutive days in early October 1536. Much of Beverley’s Black Brothers Friary was destroyed soon after the dissolution of the monasteries (recent archaeological excavations has shown that its stained glass windows were smashed in order to rip out the lead) but parts of it have survived. One of the early leaders of the rebellion was north Yorkshire gentleman, William Stapleton, who was staying at the Grey Brothers Friary in Beverley because his ill brother was being nursed there – monasteries also served as medieval hospitals. While Beverley played a leading role in getting the main Pilgrimage underway, it was even more involved in the ill-fated resurgence of the rebellion in early 1537. Disillusioned that none of Henry’s promises were been carried out, Sir Francis Bigod of Settrington, initially a supporter of the dissolution of the monasteries, and John Hallam, a local farmer from Cawkeld, tried to raise the commons again and take Beverley, Hull and Scarborough. Hallam was apprehended and executed at Hull, and though Bigod initially took Hull he was subsequently captured there and later beheaded.
Market Weighton – Market Weighton Hill was the place where Aske’s Host and Stapleton’s Host came together to create an army of 10,000 men on October 12 1536. It was here that Aske first named the revolt ‘The Pilgrimage of Grace’. One of the pieces of evidence used in the trial for treason of Sir Robert Constable was that he had overruled Nicholas Rudston when he had ordered the “bailey of Market Weighton” to raise muster of men to oppose Bigod’s rebellion at Beverley in January 1537. On the 400th anniversary of the pilgrimage in 1936 an open air mass was celebrated at St Williams College, Market Weighton, by 2,500 Catholics from all over Yorkshire.
Londesborough – Just to the north lies Londesborough. The north of England had shown increasing disquiet for a good couple of years before the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out. In 1535 William Thwaites, the vicar of Londesborough, prophesied that the King would be ousted from the thrown and forced to flee overseas, and predicted battles and conflict. He was arrested and sent to York for trial, where he was unexpectedly acquitted. The Aske family held land in Londesborough, but the owner of the manors of Londesborough and Market Weighton was their cousin, Henry Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, who remained loyal to the king and defended Skipton castle against the rebels.
Everingham – A few miles to the south lies Everingham, the seat of Sir Marmaduke Constable at the time of the Pilgrimage. The Constables demonstrate how the rebellion split a few notable families. The rebellion found favour with the vast majority of the East Riding’s population, from the common man through to the nobles. However, some gentry and nobles distanced themselves from the rebellion and Sir Marmaduke Constable of Everingham managed to avoid the movement and subsequently found considerable favour with Henry VIII (although his efforts to persuade the king to spare Aske’s life ultimately failed). At the time of the rebellion Marmaduke Constable had already benefitted from the lease of Drax Priory lands in July 1536. The Pilgrims wore and carried distinctive badges and banners depicting the five wounds of Christ, and an original badge, said to be the one worn by Sir Robert Constable, survived in the family at Everingham.
Harswell – The lord of the manor who lived in a moated manor house at Harswell in 1536 was George Hussey Esquire. He was the son of Howdenshire rebel captain, Sir William Hussey, nephew of the executed Sir John Hussey, and son in law of Sir Robert Constable.
Holme on Spalding Moor - Sir Marmaduke Constable’s elder brother, Sir Robert Constable, who lived at Flamborough and Holme-on-Spalding Moor, became one of the Pilgrims’ main leaders and was given command of Hull after the rebels captured it. He based himself at Holme after the rebellion, and though he encouraged the East Riding not to join the 1537 outbreak (he wrote a letter to be read out in the market places at Beverley, Hull, Bridlington and Pocklington “to stay the people”) he was tried for treason and executed at Beverley Gate, Hull. When Henry VIII visited Yorkshire in 1541 he appears to have deliberately emphasised his authority by staying at all the main places of the revolts, including Constable’s house at Holme and the Percy seats at Leconfield and Wressle. Just over a century later Holme Hall was the seat of Sir William Constable, one of the signatories of Charles Is death warrant.
Hayton – Nicholas Rudston was one of the rebellion’s main lieutenants, captain of the Holderness Host and Aske’s second in command. He was one of the leaders of the force that captured Hull on 19th October 1536 after a five day siege. His brother, Robert, was also one of the rebellion’s leaders. The Rudston family were lords of the manor of Hayton from the 12th to the 20th century. Nicholas Rudston saved his skin by informing on his colleagues, particularly Robert Constable, in 1537 and supporting the Duke of Norfolk as he investigated the rebellion. Nicholas Rudston actively intervened on the King’s side when Bigod’s insurrection broke out in early 1537 and he captured the two Warter monks who were subsequently executed at York. However, the Rudston family remained Catholic insurgents in the ensuring years, Nicholas Rudston’s daughter spent 14 years in Hull prison for recusancy, and two of his grandsons were the gunpowder plotters, the Wright brothers.
Pocklington – The Pilgrims camped on Pocklington common on their way to York, swearing in further recruits before resuming their march on York. Pocklington was given two places at one of the Pilgrims’ convocations which thrashed out their list of demands, local gentlemen Rudston and Wilberfosse (probably Nicholas Rudston and Robert Wilberfosse) being their representatives; and Pocklington market place was one of the key places where public proclamations and letters were read out during the rebellion. Pocklington School was already established (founded 1514) and many of the Catholic gentry and noble families involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace sent their sons to be educated there in the 16th and 17th centuries
Wilberfoss - There was small Benedictine priory at Wilberfoss (it had just a dozen nuns). It was not dissolved until 1539, but though none of the priory buildings remain it was adjoined to the current parish church. A detailed description of the priory survives, and it tells us that it consisted of typical Tudor buildings of timber, thatch and daub. The only tangible relic of the priory is a 13th century cross which is in Pocklington church, and which was recycled to be turned into the gravestone of the penultimate prioress of Wilberfoss in 1512. After the dissolution the Wilberfoss family (William Wilberforce of slavery fame was a descendent) built their manor house on the site. In addition to looking after the poor and the sick, the monasteries also provided some of the early schools, and Wilberfoss had a notable scholar – one of the Pilgrims’ main grievances was the influence of Thomas Cromwell, the King’s chief minister, and his granddaughter was at Wilberfoss to be educated in the 1530s.
Low Catton – Just back from the main road lies the village of Low Catton. The Percy family had a manor house and deer park here from the 14th to 16th century. In medieval times the Percy family had vast estates throughout Yorkshire, Cumbria, Durham and Northumberland, and were regarded as almost as powerful as the king in the north so were obvious targets for the rebels to recruit. The main Percy bases in East Yorkshire were Leconfield, Wressle, Pocklington and Catton, and Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, fled north from Wressle Castle when the rebellion broke out, saying Aske could use it as his headquarters. The failing Henry Percy (who a few years earlier had been engaged to Anne Boleyn) had been persuaded to leave his estates to Henry VIII and not his family, so it was no surprise when his brothers Thomas and Ingram became rebel leaders, and all the Percy manors and retainers joined the rebellion, bringing thousands of troops to the cause. The Pilgrimage of Grace decimated the Percy family as all three brother died within a few months of each other while still in their early 30s. Earl Henry succumbed to illness in January 1537, followed by Sir Thomas being executed at Tyburn in June in 1537. Sir Ingram had been imprisoned with his brother in the Tower of London and though he was released he never recovered from his treatment and died soon after. The Dowager Duchess, Lady Katherine Percy, had been firmly in support of the rebellion and was also arrested and imprisioned. When she was released in October 1537 she came to the seclusion of the Catton manor house. Her will in 1542 indicates she bought and lived on her recently purchased farm at Wilberfoss in her final years, before being buried alongside her husband, the 5th earl, at Beverley Minster, which she insisted on calling the “monasterie of Beverlay”.
Kexby – The Pilgrims secured Kexby bridge then held a rally on Kexby Moor to receive new recruits before moving on to take York. At the time of the Pilgrimage of Grace, Kexby was the home of the Ughtred family, who lived in the fortified manor house Kexby Old Hall. Lady Elizabeth Ughtred (married in Kexby in 1529) was the sister of Jane Seymour, who had become Henry VIII’s third wife in May 1536, ten days after Anne Boleyn’s execution. One of Henry VIIIs concessions to the pilgrims was to say Jane would be crowned Queen at York , but the northern coronation never happened as she died giving birth to the future Edward VI in 1537. Widowed Elizabeth Ughtred subsequently wrote a begging letter Thomas Cromwell, pleading poverty and requesting that she be granted confiscated monastic lands to help her plight. Cromwell considered her request, and instead arranged for Elizabeth to marry his son.
York – Taken without a fight on 16th October. The Pilgrims entered at 5 pm with Aske at the head of 5,000 men as he rode in triumph to York Minster where he posted an order restoring the monks and nuns to their religious houses. York had dozens of monasteries and monastic hospitals, large and small, at the time of the dissolution and Clementhorpe Nunnery and Holy Trinity Priory had been the first to be closed in summer 1536. Aske composed the ‘Oath of the Honourable Men’ in York before leaving the city on 20th October to lead his men south to confront the royal forces. The following day Sir Thomas Percy and the Abbot of St Mary’s rode through York with 10,000 men on their way to join Aske at Pontefract where negotiations averted a battle at Doncaster at the last minute. After fresh uprisings in the New Year broke the fragile peace, Aske was tried at Westminster for treason and he was sent back to York for execution. He was hanged from Clifford’s Tower on July 12th 1537.
West to East
Wressle – Wressle Castle is the only surviving castle/fortified house in East Yorkshire. The Earl of Northumberland quickly handed it over to the rebels and fled north, leaving his brothers to become rebel leaders. After the pilgrims were disbanded Wressle became the base of Robert Aske while he awaited Henry to confirm the terms of the truce.
Bubwith – Bubwith was a hotbed of Catholicism for centuries, and was one of the seats of the Vavasour family. Sir Peter Vavasour was a prominent rebel and his helmet and sword hang in Bubwith church. Vavasour was clearly a respected figure in the eyes of the crown as, before the truce was agreed, Henry’s generals wrote to him in November 1536 requesting him to use his influence to persuade Aske to come to terms with Henry.
Aughton – the family seat of Robert Aske. His father, Sir Robert Aske, was lord of the manor of Aughton. The external wall of church at Aughton bears the family arms and a cryptic carving in a mixture of medieval English, French and Latin which translates as "Christopher, second son of Sir Robert ought not to forget the year 1536". While Robert Aske led the revolt and his nephew, also Robert, enthusiastically supported him, his brothers, Christopher and John did not join in. Another member of the family was prior of York’s Augustinians priory, while female members of the family were nuns.
Ellerton - Ellerton Priory. The Aske family were patrons of the Gilbertine priory, which also had an attached hospital looking after 13 poor people – both the priory and the hospital were suppressed in 1538. A brass of an earlier member of the Aske family, formerly in the priory, is now in Aughton church. After the rebellion Robert Aske’s brother, John, profited from being granted former monastic lands and property, including the Ellerton Priory estates. Today, Ellerton church, on the site of the priory, contains a modern window portraying Robert Aske.
Melbourne & Storwood – The de Ros family were lords of the manor of Storwood from the early 13th century and had a moated manor house there. Their estate in Storwood and Melbourne passed to the Manners family in 1508 and Sir Thomas Manners inherited it in 1513. Manners was already one of Henry’s favourites after distinguishing himself in the wars against France and he was made Earl of Rutland in 1526. Manners was a joint royal general in the suppression of the Lincolnshire rebellion in 1536 and he was one of Norfolk’s deputies opposing the Pilgrimage of Grace. He benefitted massively from continuing to be a key figure in the dissolution of the monasteries and expanded his estates across Yorkshire and the midlands. His main Yorkshire seat was Helmsley castle, and after the pilgrimage he took over the extensive monastic lands of Rievaulx abbey, Kirkham priory, Warter priory and Nunburnholme nunnery, and was responsible for the destruction of most of Rievaulx’s buildings. In the 1540s Henry gave lands in Melbourne (in addition to the estates at Temple Newsham and Settrington of executed rebel leaders Darcy and Bigod) to Scottish nobleman the Earl of Lennox, who he hoped would broker a marriage between Prince Edward and Mary Queen of Scots.
Sutton on Derwent – the crown still owns a large estate at Sutton, which had previously belonged to Kirkham Abbey until it was grabbed by Henry. There are dozens of farms called ‘Grange’ along the line of the trail (e.g. Storwood Grange, Woodhouse Grange, Thornton Grange, Pocklington Grange), which would all originally have belonged to a monastery – all outlying monastic farms in medieval times were called granges and worked by lay brothers. Dr George Palmes, the Rector of Sutton-on-Derwent and an ecclesiastical and civil lawyer, was a leading rebel cleric. He was at the forefront of the fears that Henry was going to confiscate the possessions of parish churches (rumours abounded that Henry was going to take church crosses and candlesticks and substitute tin replacements) and sat on the rebel’s conference of clerics in December 1536 which considered the articles to put to the King’s representatives. Palmes was from a Naburn gentry family, and his brother, Robert, sat on the grand jury that tried the rebel leaders for treason. Dr George Palmes prospered after the Pilgrimage, being made canon of Givendale and then archdeacon of York in addition to retaining the living of Sutton. But his Catholic leanings remained and under Queen Elizabeth in the 1560s he was stripped of his offices and imprisoned.
Thornton – Thornton was the East Riding home of the Dean of York. In its prime it must have been an impressive edifice, having been rebuilt circa 1410 by John Prophete after he had appealed to the Pope for support after finding all the Dean’s houses within his Pocklington jurisdiction in a dilapidated state. Prophete was an important 15th century politician and churchman who was the king’s secretary and keeper of the Privy Seal in addition to being Dean of York and Prebend of Bugthorpe. At the time of the Pilgrimage of Grace the Dean was Brian Higden who had a long career as a churchman and crown lawyer. While many previous Deans had not lived locally, Higden lived predominately at the Dean’s houses in York and Thornton, and was a key East Riding Justice of the Peace. He held many important royal commissions and was the Chancellor of the Council of the North in 1525 when Henry made his six-year old illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, the governor of the north, and a year later Higden was a signatory for a peace treaty with Scotland. Higden also carried out several monastic surveys, including detailed catalogues of Fountains and Rievaulx abbeys before they were dissolved. His long service for the crown, however, do not appear to have gained him great wealth, and in 1539 he wrote from Thornton to Thomas Cromwell to complain about his financial circumstances and that the former Pilgrimage leader, Nicholas Rudston of Hayton, had been granted the lease of deanery farms in Hayton, Burnby and Bielby without his consultation.
Burnby – Burnby’s Robert Wilberfosse, cousin of Richard Wilberfosse from up the road, is thought to be one of the gentlemen who represented Pocklington on the pilgrim councils. Burnby was also the seat (along with Saxton near Scarborough) of the Hungate family who bought the site of Nunburnholme priory after its dissolution, before being promptly evicted by the rebels.
Nunburnholme – Nunburnholme Priory, founded around 1180, was the poorest house in Yorkshire at the dissolution. The priory was at the opposite end of the village to the church (which contains a remarkable Viking cross) and its history is relatively obscure, probably due to its size and lack of endowments. But Nunburnholme finally hit the headlines in the 1530s. The Archbishop of York investigated the priory in 1534 and the prioress, Isabel Thwing had to resign because she had a child. The priory was one of the first to be closed in August 1536, and the first to be reinstated by the rebels in October. Boosted by the Pilgrims forces being nearby at Pocklington, the vicar of Nunburnholme, Richard Hawcliffe, and a group of rebels, forcibly evicted local landowner, William Hungate, who had been awarded the site and monastic buildings, and reinstated the nuns. Hawcliffe, son of Sir William Hawcliffe, was from a gentry family from Grimthorpe. It was common for younger sons of gentry and noble families to go into the church, and Richard Hawcliffe was the brother in law for Pocklington’s two leading gentry, William Dolman (brother of John, the Pocklington School founder) and John Sotheby.
Kilnwick Percy – The lord of the manor of Kilnwick Percy at the time of the Pilgrimage was Sir Thomas Heneage, from another family who owned estates in both the East Riding and Lincolnshire. Heneage was a Tudor courtier who became Henry VIIIs ‘Groom of the Stool’, it sounds, and was, the person with responsibility for helping the king use the toilet, but in Tudor times was an important position and was regarded as the monarch’s private secretary. The Groom of the Stool was obviously the courtier who was literally closest to the monarch, but Heneage was given the role in 1536 when the previous occupant, Edward Norris, was beheaded for allegedly getting too close to Anne Boleyn. Heneage had bought Kilnwick from the impoverished Ughtred’s in 1524 and the Kilnwick archives note that in 1535 he had repaired his manor house there with thatch, mortar and timber – almost all the buildings of the time in the East Riding were timber framed filled with clay mortar. Heneage had stood against the Lincolnshire rebellion, and linked up with Lord John Hussey and Sir Marmaduke Constable to suppress the revolt. He remained loyal to Henry during the pilgrimage and avoided involvement. He was rewarded by being given Ruddings Grange at Ellerton, one of the priory’s granges there. The 1562 will of Kilnwick Percy’s vicar of the time indicates that the Catholic mass had been maintained at Kilnwick long after it had been banned.
Millington – In the early 16th century some of the main personalities of the rebellion were familiar figures to the people of Millington as the Hussey and Constable families were both lords of the manor. The Salveyn family had owned Millington for centuries until the 1490s when Ann Salveyn married William Hussey, brother of Sir John Hussey who was executed on 1537 for his part in the Lincolnshire revolt. William Hussey, whose main East Yorkshire manor was North Duffield, then sold it on to Robert Constable in 1510, and Constable subsequently gave it to St Johns College, Cambridge, on the death of his father.
Warter – Warter Priory was the biggest and wealthiest of the five monasteries in the district around Pocklington. It also had a somewhat murky past, and the 14th century abbot was notorious for having locals ‘bumped off’ to take over their lands, and use their goods to pay the murderers. In the archbishop’s investigation of 1534 Warter was found to be a place of much laxity. The priory was ordered to look its doors at night, and the canons banned from wearing gold and silver jewellery. Two years later Cromwell’s enquiry accused the prior and a canon of fornication, one of them with a nun. The Warter canons are also believed to have been involved in both the Pilgrimage and Bigod’s 1537 insurrection., The 200 Pilgrims who were subsequently executed included the sub-prior and kitchener of Warter. However, only a few of the monks and canons involved suffered such a fate, and most lived comfortable lives after the dissolution, either being given a pension or church benefice. From Warter Robert Appleby is believed to have ended up as vicar of Market Weighton, William Moody became a chantry priest at Pocklington (unfortunately for him King Edward VI banned chantries in 1547 and he died the following year), while Thomas Spruse remained at Warter as its vicar.