ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



up, did not join the insurgents till a missive was sent threatening to 

 hang him on the highest tree of the diocese. Roland Threlkeld, the 

 pluralist vicar of Melmerby, Lazonby and Dufton, was treated in a 

 similar fashion. 1 Rumours were current in London implicating the 

 bishop of Carlisle, the prior of Lanercost, the vicar of Penrith, and 

 others, but without sufficient reason. The Duke of Norfolk corrected 

 the mistake about the vicar of Penrith, and Chancellor Towneley 

 exculpated his diocesan from any knowledge of the rebellion. As for 

 the prior of Lanercost, there is no evidence of his treason. 1 The only 

 cleric of consequence, who took a prominent part, was Robert Thomson, 

 vicar of Brough under Stainmore, a demented individual, who was 

 regarded as a prophet among the people. When Norfolk ' tied up ' his 

 threescore and fourteen of the rebels in the various towns and hamlets 

 of the county, only one ecclesiastic 3 was among the number, a chaplain 

 in Penrith, all the rest being of the labouring or agricultural class. 



In many ways the rebellion was an unexpected piece of good luck 

 to the King and his advisers. It furnished them with a pretext to 

 demolish the monasteries root and branch, and they were not long in 

 setting about it. There was no talk now that ' religion was right well 

 kept and observed ' in them as the Act of 1536 declared ; many of the 

 monks were compromised by siding with the rebels, and the King was 

 determined not to let the opportunity slip. The exemption of the 

 statute in the first instance did not blind the abbot of Holmcultram to 

 the ultimate intention of the legislature. When he joined the insurrec- 

 tion and urged his tenants to follow his example, it was with the con- 

 viction that the existence of his abbey was the stake for which he was 

 about to play at the risk of his own life. On the day before the com- 

 mons laid siege to Carlisle he sent the brethren in solemn procession for 

 a blessing on the enterprise, praying the ' All myghty God prossper them, 

 for yffe they sped not this abbe ys lost.' 



The King's agents forwarded to Cromwell indisputable proof of 



In the confession of Chancellor Towneley and the examination on oath of Robert Thomson, vicar 

 of Brough under Stainmore, two lengthy documents, we get a good account of the insurrection in Cum- 

 berland (L. and P. of Henry Fill., vol. xii. pt. i. 687 (i, 2). These and other documents have been 

 printed in Monasteries of Cumb. before Dissolution, pp. 50-94. 



1 One of the county histories (Nicolson and Burn, Hist, of Westmorland, i. 569) contains a letter 

 from the Duke of Norfolk to the King, correcting the rumour with regard to the vicar of Penrith. This 

 letter is important, as the original does not now exist among the State Papers. It is said to have been 

 procured ' from the lords' answer to the tenants concerning tenant right ' a manuscript in the hands of 

 the editors in 1777. The cock-and-bull-story about the bishop of Carlisle was transmitted by Sir Thomas 

 Wharton to Cromwell (L. and P. of Henry fill., vol. xi. 319), and demolished by Chancellor Towneley 

 (ibid. xii. 687). There is no evidence known to the writer against the prior of Lanercost, except that 

 he is mentioned in a despatch from the King to Norfolk, ordering him ' to be tyed up ' with a number of 

 others. This is not the only mistake made by the King in that despatch. The document has been printed 

 in full by the Surtees Society (The Priory of Hexham, vol. i. pp. cl.-cliii.). 



3 It is stated in a document ascribed to 1539 that ten men, chiefly coiners and thieves, were con- 

 demned at the Carlisle assizes in the December of that year, but two of them ' for high treason, because 

 they had bruted in those parts that the Comons were up in the South countrey.' One of these was 

 Richard Howthwaite, sub-prior of Carlisle (Cotton MS. Caligula, B. iii. 156 ; Monasteries of Cumb. 

 before Dissolution, pp. 92-4). The name of the ecclesiastic who was ' tied up ' with the others was Edward 

 Penrith (L. and P. of Henry fill., xii. 498). 



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