Volume III Part 38 (1/2)

[130] ”The said Aske suffered no foot man to enter the city, for fear of spoils.”--Manner of the taking of Robert Aske: _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 28.

[131] Earl of Oxford to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_, second series, Vol. III.

[132] Henry VIII. to Lord Darcy, October 13: _Rolls House MS._

[133] Lord Darcy to the King, October 17: _Rolls House MS._

[134] Lord Shrewsbury to Lord Darcy: _Rolls House MS._ first series, 282. Darcy certainly received this letter, since a copy of it is in the collection made by himself.

[135] Manner of the taking of Robert Aske: _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 28.

[136] I believe that I am unnecessarily tender to Lord Darcy's reputation. Aske, though he afterwards contradicted himself, stated in his examination that Lord Darcy could have defended the castle had he wished.--_Rolls House MS._, A 2, 29. It was sworn that when he was advised ”to victual and store Pomfret,” he said, ”there was no need; it would do as it was.” Ibid. And Sir Henry Saville stated that ”when Darcy heard of the first rising, he said, 'Ah! they are up in Lincolns.h.i.+re.

G.o.d speed them well. I would they had done this three years ago, for the world should have been the better for it.'”--Ibid.

[137] Aske's Deposition: _Rolls House MS._ first series, 414.

[138] Examination of Sir Thomas Percy: _Rolls House MS._

[139] Stapleton's Confession: Ibid. A 2, 28.

[140] Examination of Christopher Aske: _Rolls House MS._ first series, 840

[141] Ibid.

[142] Henry VIII. to the Duke of Suffolk: _Rolls House MS._

[143] Wriothesley to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 472.

[144] The Marquis of Exeter, who was joined in commission with the Duke of Norfolk, never pa.s.sed Newark. He seems to have been recalled, and sent down into Devons.h.i.+re, to raise the musters in his own county.

[145] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 493.

[146] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 519.

[147] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 495.

[148] This particular proclamation--the same, apparently, which was read by Christopher Aske at Skipton--I have been unable to find. That which is printed in the State Papers from the Rolls House Records, belongs to the following month. The contents of the first, however, may be gathered from a description of it by Robert Aske, and a comparison of the companion proclamation issued in Lincolns.h.i.+re. It stated briefly that the insurrection was caused by forged stories; that the king had no thought of suppressing parish churches, or taxing food or cattle. The abbeys had been dissolved by act of parliament, in consequence of their notorious vice and profligacy. The people, therefore, were commanded to return to their homes, at their peril. The commotion in Lincolns.h.i.+re was put down. The king was advancing in person to put them down also, if they continued disobedient.

[149] In explanation of his refusal, Aske said afterwards that it was for two causes: first, that if the herald should have declared to the people by proclamation that the commons in Lincolns.h.i.+re were gone to their homes, they would have killed him; secondly, that there was no mention in the same proclamation neither of pardon nor of the demands which were the causes of their a.s.sembly.--Aske's Narrative: _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 28.

[150] Lancaster Herald's Report: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 485.

[151] Stapleton's Confession: _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 28. Does this solitary and touching faithfulness, I am obliged to ask, appear as if Northumberland believed that four months before the king and Cromwell had slandered and murdered the woman whom he had once loved?

[152] ”We were 30,000 men, as tall men, well horsed, and well appointed as any men could be.”--Statement of Sir Marmaduke Constable: _MS. State Paper Office._ All the best evidence gives this number.

[153] Not the place now known under this name--but a bridge over the Don three or four miles above Doncaster.

[154] So Aske states.--Examination: _Rolls House MS._, first series, 838. Lord Darcy went further. ”If he had chosen,” he said, ”he could have fought Lord Shrewsbury with his own men, and brought never a man of the northmen with him.” Somerset Herald, on the other hand, said, that the rumour of disaffection was a feint. ”One thing I am sure of,” he told Lord Darcy, ”there never were men more desirous to fight with men than ours to fight with you.”--_Rolls House MS._