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

“Masters, there is a statute made whereby all persons be restrained to make their will upon their lands; for now the eldest son must have all his father’s lands; and no person, to the payment of his debts, neither to the advancement of his daughters’ marriages, can do nothing with their lands, nor cannot give to his youngest son any lands.” – Speech of Mr. Sheriff Dymock, at Horncastle: Rolls House MS. A 2. 29.

“They want the Statute of Uses qualified, that a man be allowed to bequeath part of his lands by will. It will invade the old accustomed law in many things.” – Examination of Aske: MS. ibid. “Divers things should be reformed, and especially the Act of Uses. Younger brothers would none of that in no wise.” – Earl of Oxford to Cromwell: Miscellaneous MSS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. I.

The depositions of prisoners taken after the rebellion are full of evidence on this point. George Gisborne says: “We were in mind and will to meet for certain causes, the which concerned the living of the poor people and commons, the which they say be sore oppressed by gentlemen, because their livings is taken away.” — Rolls House MS. miscellaneous, first series, 132.

Wm. Stapleton says: “Among the causes of the insurrection were pulling down of villages and farms, raising of rents, enclosures, intakes of the commons, worshipful men taking yeomen’s offices, that is, becoming dealers in farm produce.” — Rolls House MS.

I am tempted to add a petition sent from one of the discontented districts to the crown, which betrays great ignorance of political economy, although it exhibits also a clear understanding both of the petitioners’ sufferings and of the immediate causes of those sufferings.

“Please it your noble Grace to consider the great indigence and scarcity of all manner of victual necessary to your subjects within this realm of England, which doth grow daily more and more, by reason of the great and covetous misusages of the farms within this your realm; which misusages and the inconveniences thereof hath not only been begun and risen by divers gentlemen of the same your realm, but also by divers and many merchant adventurers, clothmakers, goldsmiths, butchers, tanners, and other artificers and unreasonable covetous persons, which doth encroach daily many farms more than they can occupy in tilth of corn; ten, twelve, fourteen, or sixteen farms in one man’s hands at once; when in time past there hath been in every farm of them a good house kept, and in some of them three, four, five, or six ploughs kept and daily occupied, to the great comfort and relief of your subjects of your realm, poor and rich. For when every man was contented with one farm, and occupied that well, there was plenty and reasonable price of everything that belonged to man’s sustenance by reason of tillage; forasmuch as every acre of land tilled and ploughed bore the straw and the chaff besides the corn, able and sufficient with the help of the shakke in the stubbe to succour and feed as many great beasts (as horses, oxen, and kine) as the land would keep; and further, by reason of the hinderflight of the crops and seeds tried out in cleansing, winnowing, and sifting the corn, there was brought up at every barn-door hens, capons, geese, ducks, swine, and other poultry, to the great comfort of your people. And now, by reason of so many farms engrossed in one man’s hands, which cannot till them, the ploughs be decayed, and the farmhouses and other dwelling-houses; so that when there was in a town twenty or thirty dwelling-houses they be now decayed, ploughs and all the people clean gone, and the churches down, and no more parishioners in many parishes, but a neatherd and a shepherd instead of three score or four score persons.” — Rolls House MS. miscellaneous, second series, 854.

Abbot of York to Cromwell — Miscellaneous MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. LII.

See a very remarkable letter of Sir William Parr to Cromwell, dated April 8, 1536, a few months only before the outbreak of the rebellion: Miscellaneous MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XXXI.

It was said that the visitors’ servants had made apparel, doublets, yea, even saddle-cloths, of the churches’ vestments. – Examination of John Dakyn: Rolls House MS. miscellaneous, first series, 402.

Rolls House MS.

Ibid., Miscellaneous, first series, 402.

Aske’s Deposition: Rolls House MS.

Depositions on the Rebellion, passim , among the MSS. in the State Paper Office and the Rolls House.

George Lumley, the eldest son of Lord Lumley, said in his evidence that there was not a spiritual man in the whole north of England who had not assisted the rebellion with arms or money. — Rolls House MS.

The parish priest of Wyley, in Essex, had been absent for three weeks in the north, in the month of August, and on returning, about the 2d of September, said to one of his villagers, Thomas Rogers, “There shall be business shortly in the north, and I trust to help and strengthen my countrymen with ten thousand such as I am myself; and I shall be one of the worst of them all. The king shall not reign long.” – Confession of Thomas Rogers: MS. State Paper Office , second series, Vol. XXX. p. 112.

Deposition of Thomas Brian: Rolls House MS. A 2, 29.

We find curious and humorous instances of monastic rage at this time. One monk was seen following a plough, and cursing his day that he should have to work for his bread. Another, a Welshman, “wished he had the king on Snowdon, that he might souse his head against the stones.” – Depositions on the Rebellion: Rolls House MS.

Sir Robert Dighton and Sir Edward Dymmock said they heard many of the priests cry, “Kill the gentlemen.” The parson of Cowbridge said that the lords of the council were false harlots; and the worst was Cromwell. “The vicar of Haynton, having a great club in his hand, said that if he had Cromwell there he would beat out his guts.” “Robert Brownwhite, one of the parsons of Nether Teynton, was with bow and arrows, sword and buckler by his side, and sallet on his head; and when he was demanded how he did, he said, ‘None so well;’ and said it was the best world that ever he did see.” My story, so far, is taken from the Miscellaneous Depositions, Rolls MS. A 2, 28; from the Examination of William Moreland, MS. A 2, 29; and from the Confession of John Brown, Rolls House MS. , first series, 892.

Very opposite stories were told of the behaviour of the gentlemen. On one side it was said that they were the great movers of the insurrection; on the other, that they were forced into it in fear of their lives. There were many, doubtless, of both kinds; but it seems to me as if they had all been taken by surprise. Their conduct was that of men who wished well to the rising, but believed it had exploded inopportunely.

The plough was to encourage the husbandmen; the chalice and host in remembrance of the spoiling of the Church; the five wounds to the couraging of the people to fight in Christ’s cause; the horn to signify the taking of Horncastle – Philip Trotter’s Examination; Rolls House MS. A 2, 29.