556
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 13.
ed the danger. 'His Majesty,' wrote his secretary on the 18th of October, 'appeareth to fear much this matter, specially if he should want money, for in Lord Darcy, his Grace said, he had no great hope.' Ten thousand pounds were raised in two days. It was but a small instalment; but it served to 'stop the gap' for the moment. Oct. 24.Three thousand men, with six pieces of field artillery, were sent at once after Norfolk, and overtook him on the 24th of October at Worksop.
Norfolk, it was clear, had gone upon the service most reluctantly. He, too, had deeper sympathies with the movement than he cared to avow; but, even from those very sympathies, he was the fittest person to be chosen to suppress it. The rebels professed to have risen in defence of the nobility and the Catholic faith. They would have to fight their way through an army led by the natural head of the party which they desired to serve.[1] The force under Shrewsbury was now at Doncaster, where, on the 25th, the Duke joined him. The town was in their hands, and the southern end of the bridge had been fortified. The autumn rains had by this time raised the river, securing their flank, and it would have been difficult for an attacking army to force a passage, even with great advantage of numbers. Their situation, at the same time, was most precarious; of the forty thousand men, of whom Shrewsbury had- ↑ The Marquis of Exeter, who was joined in commission with the Duke of Norfolk, never passed Newark. He seems to have heen recalled, and sent down into Devonshire, to raise the musters in his own county.
