manly statement of his conduct—extenuating nothing—boasting of nothing—relating merely the simple and literal truth. Henry repeated his assurance to him that the Parliament should meet at York; and Aske returned, hoping perhaps against hope, at all events, exerting himself to make others hope, that the promises which ihey supposed to have been made to them at Doncaster would eventually be fulfilled. To one person only he ventured to use other language. Immediately that he reached Yorkshire, he wrote to the King describing the agitation which still continued, and his own efforts to appease it. He dwelt upon the expectations which had been formed, and in relating the expressions which were used by others, he indicated not obscurely his own dissatisfaction.
'I do perceive,' he said, 'a marvellous conjecture in the hearts of the people, which is, they do think they shall not have the Parliament in convenient time; secondly, that your Grace hath by your letters written for the most part of the honourable and worshipful of these shires to come to you, whereby they fear not only danger to them, but also to their own selves; thirdly, they be in doubt of your Grace's pardon by reason of a late book answering their first articles, now in print,[1] which is a great rumour amongst them; fourthly, they
- ↑ And for another reason. They were forced to sue out their pardons individually, and received them only as Aske and Lord Darcy had been obliged to do, by taking the oath of allegiance and binding themselves to obey the obnoxious statutes so long as they were unrepealed.—Rolls House MS. first series, 471.
