James Froude - History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. III

October 3. Meeting at Horncastle.

So matters went at Louth and Castre. On Tuesday, October 3d, the country rose at Horncastle, in the same manner, only on an even larger scale. On a heath in that neighbourhood there was “a great muster”; the gentlemen of the county came in, in large numbers, with “Mr. Dymmock,” the sheriff, at their head. Dr. Mackarel, the Abbot of Barlings, was present, with his canons, in full armour; from the abbey came a waggon-load of victuals; oxen and sheep were driven in from the neighbourhood and a retainer of the house carried a banner, on which was worked a plough, a chalice and a host, a horn, and the five wounds of Christ. 103The sheriff, with his brother, rode up and down the heath, giving money among the crowd; and the insurrection now gaining point, another gentleman “wrote on the field, upon his saddlebow,” a series of articles, which were to form the ground of the rising.

Articles of the rebels’ petition.

Six demands should be made upon the crown: 1. The religious houses should be restored. 2. The subsidy should be remitted. 3. The clergy should pay no more tenths and first-fruits to the crown. 4. The Statute of Uses should be repealed. 5. The villein blood should be removed from the privy council. 6. The heretic bishops, Cranmer and Latimer, Hilsey Bishop of Rochester, Brown Archbishop of Dublin, and their own Bishop Longlands the persecuting Erastian, should be deprived and punished.

Messengers are despatched to the king.

The deviser and the sheriff sate on their horses side by side, and read these articles, one by one, aloud, to the people. “Do they please you or not?” they said, when they had done. “Yea, yea, yea!” the people shouted, waving their staves above their heads; and messengers were chosen instantly and despatched upon the spot, to carry to Windsor to the king the demands of the people of Lincolnshire. Nothing was required more but that the rebellion should be cemented by a common crime; and this, too, was speedily accomplished.

The Chancellor of the Bishop of Lincoln is murdered.

The rebellion in Ireland had been inaugurated with the murder of Archbishop Allen; the insurgents of Lincolnshire found a lower victim, but they sacrificed him with the same savageness. The chancellor of Lincoln had been the instrument through whom Cromwell had communicated with the diocese, and was a special object of hatred. It does not appear how he fell into the people’s hands. We find only that “he was very sick,” and in this condition he was brought up on horseback into the field at Horncastle. As he appeared he was received by “the parsons and vicars” with a loud long yell – “Kill him! kill him!” Whereupon two of the rebels, by procurement of the said parsons and vicars, pulled him violently off his horse, and, as he knelt upon his knees, with their staves they slew him,” the parsons crying continually, “Kill him! kill him!”

As the body lay on the ground it was stripped bare, and the garments were parted among the murderers. The sheriff distributed the money that was in the chancellor’s purse. “And every parson and every vicar in the field counselled their parishioners, with many comfortable words, to proceed in their journey, saying unto them that they should lack neither gold nor silver.” 104These, we presume, were Pole’s seven thousand children of light who had not bowed the knee to Baal – the noble army of saints who were to flock to Charles’s banners. 105

The same Tuesday there was a rising at Lincoln. Bishop Longlands’ palace was attacked and plundered, and the town occupied by armed bodies of insurgents. By the middle of the week the whole country was in movement – beacons blazing, alarm-bells ringing; and, pending the reply of the king, Lincoln became the focus to which the separate bodies from Castre, Horncastle, Louth, and all other towns and villages, flocked in for head quarters.

The duty and the conduct of Lord Hussey of Sleford.

The duty of repressing riots and disturbances in England lay with the nobility in their several districts. In default of organized military or police, the nobility ex officio were the responsible guardians of the peace. They held their estates subject to these obligations, and neglect, unless it could be shown to be involuntary, was treason. The nobleman who had to answer for the peace of Lincolnshire was Lord Hussey of Sleford. Lord Hussey had spoken, as I have stated, in unambiguous language, of the probability and desirableness of a struggle. When the moment came, it seems as if he had desired the fruits of a Catholic victory without the danger of fighting for it, or else had been frightened and doubtful how to act. When the first news of the commotion reached him, he wrote to the mayor of Lincoln, commanding him, in the king’s name, to take good care of the city; to buy up or secure the arms; to levy men; and, if he found himself unable to hold his ground, to let him know without delay. 106His letter fell into the hands of the insurgents; but Lord Hussey, though he must have known the fate of it, or, at least, could not have been ignorant of the state of the country, sate still at Sleford, waiting to see how events would turn. Yeomen and gentlemen who had not joined in the rising hurried to him for directions, promising to act in whatever way he would command; but he would give no orders – he would remain passive – he would not be false to his prince – he would not be against the defenders of the faith. The volunteers who had offered their services for the crown he called “busy knaves” – “he bade them go their own way as they would;” and still uncertain, he sent messengers to the rebels to inquire their intentions. But he would not join them; he would not resist them; at length, when they threatened to end the difficulty by bringing him forcibly into their camp, he escaped secretly out of the country; while Lady Hussey, “who was supposed to know her husband’s mind,” sent provisions to a detachment of the Lincoln army. 107For such conduct the commander of a division would be tried by a court-martial, with no uncertain sentence; but the extent of Hussey’s offence is best seen in contrast with the behaviour of Lord Shrewsbury, whose courage and fidelity on this occasion perhaps saved Henry’s crown.

Wednesday, Oct. 4. Lord Shrewsbury raises a force,

Friday, October 6. And entreats Lord Hussey to join him.

But without effect.

He takes a position at Nottingham.

The messengers sent from Horncastle were Sir Marmaduke Constable and Sir Edward Madyson. Heneage the commissioner was permitted to accompany them, perhaps to save him from being murdered by the priests. They did not spare the spur, and, riding through the night, they found the king at Windsor the day following. Henry on the instant despatched a courier to Lord Hussey, and another to Lord Shrewsbury, directing them to raise all the men whom they could muster; sending at the same time private letters to the gentlemen who were said to be with the insurgents, to recall them, if possible, to their allegiance. Lord Shrewsbury had not waited for instructions. Although his own county had not so far been disturbed, he had called out his tenantry, and had gone forward to Sherwood with every man that he could collect, on the instant that he heard of the rising. Expecting the form that it might assume, he had sent despatches on the very first day through Derbyshire, Stafford, Shropshire, Worcester, Leicester, and Northampton, to have the powers of the counties raised without a moment’s delay. 108Henry’s letter found him at Sherwood on the 6th of October. The king he knew had written also to Lord Hussey; but, understanding the character of this nobleman better than his master understood it, and with a foreboding of his possible disloyalty, he sent on the messenger to Sleford with a further note from himself, entreating him at such a moment not to be found wanting to his duty. “My lord,” he wrote, “for the old acquaintance between your lordship and me, as unto him that I heartily love, I will write the plainness of my mind. Ye have always been an honourable and true gentleman, and, I doubt not, will now so prove yourself. I have no commandment from the king but only to suppress the rebellion; and I assure you, my lord, on my truth, that all the king’s subjects of six shires will be with me to-morrow at night, to the number of forty thousand able persons; and I trust to have your lordship to keep us company.” 109His exhortations were in vain; Lord Hussey made no effort; he had not the manliness to join the rising – he had not the loyalty to assist in repressing it. He stole away and left the country to its fate. His conduct, unfortunately, was imitated largely in the counties on which Lord Shrewsbury relied for reinforcements. Instead of the thirty or forty thousand men whom he expected, the royalist leader could scarcely collect three or four thousand. Ten times his number were by this time at Lincoln, and increasing every day; and ominous news at the same time reaching him of the state of Yorkshire, he found it prudent to wait at Nottingham, overawing that immediate neighbourhood till he could hear again from the king.