House Of Treason: The Rise And Fall Of A Tudor Dynasty (16 page)

The king ‘unwillingly’ ordered Norfolk from Kenninghall to command the army as High Marshal. The Spanish ambassador Chapuys reported: ‘The Bishop of Carlisle . . . [said] he never saw the duke in such spirits as he is at present; which I take to be caused either by his reconciliation with the king or the pleasure he feels that it will ultimately work the ruin and destruction of his competitor and enemy Cromwell, whom the rioters designate the chief cause of these troubles and whose head . . . they actually demand.’
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The problem over the choice of Norfolk as general was that he was widely suspected of sympathising with much of the rebels’ manifesto, and there was persistent gossip that, at the right moment, he would reveal himself as their leader. If Chapuys knew it, so did Henry:
suggested the ambassador. He recalled his conversation with old John, Lord Hussey, in September 1534, when there was unguarded and dangerous talk of Charles V of Spain intervening in England to restore the true faith and safeguard the life of Princess Mary. Hussey’s ill-thought-out plans included Norfolk, as ‘one of those on whom he counted . . . to support the cause of Faith and Church, though it must be said that owing to the said duke’s versatile and inconstant humour, the good old lord . . . did not much rely upon him’.

Norfolk may have been merry, but Henry was ‘dejected’ and, according to Richard Cromwell, in ‘great fear’ of the rebellion.
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The duke, even though he was sixty-three, was his ablest general, but his half-brother remained imprisoned in the Tower for treason, and doubts about his general’s true allegiance loomed large in Henry’s mind. The king summoned Norfolk to Windsor Castle for a private discussion about religion and he boldly offered up Surrey as a hostage ‘to be pledge for my truth, which by my dealing may give occasion to be suspected, shall never be deserved’.
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The offer was refused.

Here was a unique opportunity for Norfolk to regain his monarch’s favour. He bustled off back to East Anglia, pausing only to ask John Kite, the Bishop of Carlisle, and an anonymous rich merchant to buy a huge quantity of woollen cloth in London to provide work for those who might otherwise be unemployed and tempted to join the rebel forces. Norfolk firmly believed that the Devil found work for idle hands. As a piece of lateral thinking, it leaves something to be desired, but at least the duke felt he was being seen doing something to protect the king’s realm. What is more, it was not his money. The bishop promised to lend five or six thousand crowns - about £500,000 at current values - to buy up the surplus bolts of cloth. At the same time, a large number of criminals and debtors who had sought sanctuary in churches and the larger monasteries were rounded up and imprisoned, for fear that they, too, could go over to the insurgents.

Initially, Norfolk scornfully dismissed the Lincolnshire insurrection as a trifling local difficulty and one easily put down by a police action.
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This failure to appreciate the gravity of the situation, or lingering doubts over his loyalty (perhaps inspired by Thomas Cromwell), lay behind a message from Windsor Castle which overtook him when he was halfway home, at Kelvedon, in Essex. His son Surrey was ordered to take a handful of cavalry north but he was to stay behind in his own region to maintain law and order. His hopes of military glory cruelly and unexpectedly dashed, the duke immediately penned a grumpy reply to the king:

His course was now clear: he would disobey his orders and march immediately towards Lincolnshire, rather than be shamed by sitting impotently at home. But after hearing reports of unrest among the East Anglian cloth workers, he had a change of heart and promised the Privy Council that he ‘dared not leave these parts without the king’s command’.
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By 9 October, Norfolk had paid for 600 troops and was equipped with five of his own ‘falcon’ cannon,
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but had no gunners. He also possessed twenty brass hackbushes, or infantry firearms.
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The duke also organised for ‘1,400 or 1,500 tall men out of Suffolk [to be ready] at an hour’s warning’. Realistically, he warned Henry: ‘I think it unwise to be too hasty in giving them [the rebels] battle’ as royalist forces were as yet, too weak ‘to meddle with them’.
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He had also taken firm action against local sedition: ‘I have set such order that it shall be hard for anyone to speak an unfitting word without being incontinently taken and sent to me.’ Although the words must have choked him, he offered to ‘gladly serve’ under the Duke of Suffolk and promised the Privy Council: ‘My lords . . . I shall set forward towards his highness tonight, as the moon rises.’

The duke headed northwards with 3,000 troops, but sought two favours from Cromwell on the way. First, that as Marshal of England, he should command the vanguard in any battle - military glory was still uppermost in the old warhorse’s mind - and, second, could his fellow commanders help him out with some bows and arrows, please? He needed 100 bows and 500 sheaves of arrows: ‘These were better than gold and silver, [as] for money, I cannot get bows and arrows.’
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He was ordered to Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, where a 20,000-strong army was gathering, and reported to Henry on 11 October that he had secured the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, with hastily assembled scratch forces under the command of the local gentry. He had, naturally, not forgotten to protect his own home at Kenninghall:

He was anxious, he wrote, to ‘joyfully show’ Henry ‘what I can do to serve your highness’.
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Then, unexpectedly over the two days, 11-12 October, the rebellious commons of Lincolnshire melted away like spectres at dawn.

Richard Cromwell, relishing his new career as a soldier, regretted their disappearance: ‘I lament nothing so much as that they fly thus, as we had hoped to have used them as they deserved,’ he robustly told his uncle back in London.
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At Lincoln, he snorted, he had found ‘as obstinate persons as ever I saw, who would scarce [re]move their bonnets’ to their betters.

Henry despatched orders to Norfolk on 14 October, commanding that his son with his contingent should remain at Cambridge, while the situation became clearer. Surrey wrote to his father, enclosing the instructions:

Surrey had paid his troops arrears of 3s 4d (16p) ‘as you commanded at Thetford, Bury and Newmarket, and this day the gentlemen [commanders] of the companies have been importuned by them for an advance of wages as they have spent all their money, which is not unlikely considering the great price of victuals . . .’.
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The Lincolnshire insurgents may have drifted home but the threat of rebellion remained as serious as ever. The beacon fires flickering along the ridge of the north Lincolnshire Wolds that heralded their uprising had been seen further north, across the River Humber, and the commoners in the East Riding of Yorkshire belatedly rose in support. Confirmation of the new emergency arrived in London on 15 October. A report reached Cromwell that ‘the greater part of Yorkshire [is] . . . up, and the whole country favour[s] their opinions. The matter hangs like a fever, one day good, another bad.’
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The Yorkshire insurrection posed a far graver threat to Henry’s throne because it was more widespread and better led. Within days, the northern capital of York had been taken and the major seaport of Hull surrendered after a rebel siege of five days. On 20 October, Pontefract Castle capitulated. More than 40,000 insurgents were on the march and the rebellion spread west and north, infecting the counties of Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland.

The Yorkshire rebels called themselves the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ and were led by banners embroidered with the Five Wounds of Christ on the Holy Cross, with the sacred monogram ‘IHS’ shown with the image of a chalice below.
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Their leader, or captain, was Robert Aske, a one-eyed lawyer in his early thirties who had previously been a servant to Henry Percy, sixth Earl of Northumberland. All swore an oath of fidelity to their cause on the Holy Bible:

They were now ‘pilgrims’, defending the old, familiar and comfortable faith of their forefathers, and their emotionally powerful message rallied many, including gentry, minor lords and the religious, to their banners. Ironically, theirs was a vow which Norfolk could, in his heart, have willingly signed up to.

He was again ordered north, in command of the army gathered at Ampthill, but denied the forces he required. Henry may have been unwilling to commit all his forces to Norfolk, in case his fears over his loyalty proved justified.

The king was also keen to avoid spending any more than he had to, although his lieutenants were warned that any talk leaking out of ‘want of money would be most injurious’. Norfolk was rarely a happy general and now complained about having to dip into his own bulging purse to pay the king’s troops. But the old warrior also scented the smoke of battle and pledged to the Privy Council that he would rather now be alongside the Duke of Suffolk in Lincolnshire, ‘furnished with money’, than win 10,000 marks (about £7,000 in money of the time) in a wager.
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The same day, he wrote to Henry acknowledging that ‘we cannot be at Doncaster before [Thursday 26 October] for our horses are too weak to go more than twenty miles [32.2 km.] a day’. He had at last received £10,000 in cash for his soldiers’ pay but this would not ‘despatch the army here and pay those who go northwards till Sunday next. We cannot advance further than they may be paid without disorder ensuing.’ ‘All,’ he added, ‘complain they cannot live on 8d [just over 1.5p] a day.’
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By 20 October, Norfolk had reached Cambridge and late that night sent the king his assessment of the military situation in the north. His letter is lost, but its import may be reconstructed by Henry’s reply. The duke must have counselled that gentle persuasion should be used to disperse the rebels to play for time until enough royalist troops could be concentrated to defeat them in battle. If soft words did not work, George Talbot, fourth Earl of Shrewsbury, with his force of only 7,000 men, should hold the bridges across the Rivers Trent and Don at Newark and Doncaster to prevent further rebel advances but should keep his distance, until reinforced.
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Shrewsbury, indeed, sent a letter to the insurgents passing on Norfolk’s request to have four ‘discreet’ men from the north to meet him at their forward base at Doncaster and explain to him the causes of the revolt. The thrust of the government’s public strategy was that negotiation must be better than shedding Christian blood.

Norfolk, riding ahead of his troops, arrived at Newark early in the morning of Wednesday 23 October, complaining ‘I have not slept two hours these two nights and must take some rest’. He had little chance of slumber. Lord Talbot, Shrewsbury’s son, rode in to brief him on the situation at Doncaster and promised that his father would not give the rebels battle until Norfolk’s forces could join him.

That night - ‘in bed and not asleep’ - a letter was received from Shrewsbury, summoning him to Doncaster to talk to the rebel delegation. Norfolk was anxious about the consequences but mounted up and, accompanied only by a small party of horsemen, set off into the dangers of the night. At Welbeck, 14 miles (22.5 km.) from Doncaster, just before midnight, he dashed off a note to Henry. The duke was convinced it could be the last letter he wrote to his sovereign: