POLITICAL HISTORY 



of insurrection were first observable in Westmorland, when the 

 parishioners of Kirkbystephen and Brough under Stainmore mustered 

 on Sanford Moor on 16 October 1536 in response to the rising in 

 Richmondshire and Durham. The commons, as the insurgents were 

 called, chose as their leaders Robert Pullayn, Nicholas Musgrave, Chris- 

 topher Blenkinsopp and Robert Hilton, who undertook the task of 

 swearing the people to be true to God, the church, the king and the 

 commonwealth. Dividing themselves into two bands, Musgrave at 

 the head of one party marched down one side of the Eden towards 

 Penrith, and Pullayn with his company went down the other. In 

 vain did they search for the gentry dwelling on either side. Sir 

 Thomas Wharton, Mr. Warcop of Lammerside Hall, and Sir John 

 Lowther had fled ; but they succeeded in catching Mr. Dudley and 

 others at Eamont Bridge. In a few days the insurrection was general. 

 Penrith became the rallying point for the rebellious commons of the 

 eastern part of the county. After a tumultuous meeting on Penrith Fell, 

 the captains of that place, Anthony Hutton, John Beck, Gilbert Whelp- 

 dale and Thomas Birbeck, who received the names of Charity, Faith, 

 Poverty and Pity, sent messengers to Edenhall and compelled Sir Edward 

 Musgrave to take the oath. Parties were scattered in all directions to 

 fan the flame of rebellion. The commons of Caldbeck rose on 23 

 October and brought Chancellor Towneley, their rector, with them to 

 a meeting at Cartloganthorne, where they were joined by the commons 

 of Greystoke, Skelton, Castlesowerby, and the townships beyond Eden. 

 Robert Thomson, vicar of Brough under Stainmore, who was regarded 

 as a prophet by the insurgents, took novel measures to overcome the 

 unwillingness of the parochial clergy to espouse his cause. At the 

 assemblage on Kylwatlynhow, he ordered the crier to proclaim that if 

 Parsons Towneley and Threlkeld and others refused to join the commons 

 ' they shuld stryke off owr heydes and set my heyd (Towneley 's) on the 

 heyst playce within the diocese.' It was necessary, he argued, that the 

 commons should be supplied with a staff of able chaplains to instruct 

 them in the faith. At the daily mass in Penrith church, where the 

 four captains followed him in procession through the aisles with drawn 

 swords, this singular man expounded one by one the ten commandments 

 and declared ' that the brekyng of these comaundementes was the cause 

 of all that grete troble.' In the western division of the county the 

 centre of the insurrection was at Cockermouth, to which Thomson and 

 twenty followers repaired for a meeting to be held on Moota Hill. 

 Thither came the abbot of Holmcultram with the tenants of his lord- 

 ship. Repeated messages were sent to Carlisle, but that city remained 

 loyal to the king under the guardianship of Sir Thomas Clifford, bastard 

 son of the Earl of Cumberland. Great anxiety was felt for its safety 

 when the insurgents to the number of 15,000 men assembled on 3 

 November at Burford Oak on Broadfield, about seven miles from the 

 city, but by the intervention of Sir Christopher Dacre they were 

 dissuaded from besieging it. There were rumours that the king 



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