1536.]
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE.
513
were in the interest of Pole, of European Catholicism, the Empire, and the Papacy; the country gentlemen desired only the quiet enjoyment of a right to do as they would with their own, and the quiet maintenance of a Church which was too corrupt to interfere with them. The working people had a just cause, though disguised by folly; but all honest sufferers soon learnt, that in rising against the Government, they had mistaken their best friends for foes.
SeptemberIt was Michaelmas then, in the year 1536. Towards the fall of the summer, clergy from the southern counties had been flitting northward, and on their return had talked mysteriously to their parishioners of impending insurrections in which honest men would bear their part.[1] In Yorkshire and Lincolnshire the stories of the intended destruction of parish churches had been vociferously circulated; and Lord Hussey, at his castle at Sleford, had been heard to say to one of the gentlemen of the county, that 'the world would never mend until they fought for it.'[2] September passed away; at the end of the month, the nunnery of Legbourne, near Louth, was suppressed by the visitors, and two servants of Cromwell were left in the house, to complete the dis-- ↑ 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 2nd 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.
