A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



desired to conciliate the people, and that proclamation to that effect 

 had been made on the previous day. In the proclamation it was 

 stated that all offences committed before i November 1536 should be 

 forgiven on condition that the rebels gave up their leaders, returned to 

 their homes, and made submission before the Duke of Norfolk, whom 

 the king intended to send into these parts as his lieutenant-general. In 

 the absence of the vicar of Brough, some or the leaders joined with 

 Dacre in advising the commons ' to recule and go home every man to 

 his howsse and to rest ther without any fforder insurrection untill siche 

 tyme as the kynges plesure wer forder knowen.' Sir Christopher Dacre 

 undertook to act as mediator between them and the mayor and captain 

 of Carlisle, and gave them pledges that ' no man shuld be stopyd from 

 Carlill to sell ther stuff in the merkett,' and that ' the sawgers of the 

 lorde Clifforthe shuld not ride on the commens. 1 The notable feature 

 of the first insurrection in Cumberland was the entire absence of men 

 of position from the movement. The rabble had no capable leaders. 

 Even the parish clergy held aloof. It was but a feeble performance 

 from first to last. As the people returned to their homes sullen and 

 discontented, the Border men of Esk and Line and ' the black quarters ' 

 offered to harry the two counties in revenge, but they were restrained 

 by Sir Thomas Clifford. 2 



Though the suppression of the monasteries was the ostensible cause 

 of the rebellion, motives of a more selfish nature were at the bottom of 

 the political unrest in Cumberland. It cannot be denied that agrarian 

 grievances contributed much to the exasperation of the people against 

 their rulers. When the people had dispersed to their homes they pulled 

 down enclosures, took possession of tithe-barns, broke the heads of bailiffs 

 and threatened the landlords with penalties unless their demands were 

 granted. The Earl of Cumberland told the king on 12 January 1537 

 that the people were so wild there was danger of a further rebellion. 3 

 On Saturday, 13 January, Robert Wetlay and Parson Wodall, agents 

 of Dr. Leigh, one of the commissioners for the suppression, were 

 taken at Muncaster and brought to Egremont and afterwards to Cocker- 

 mouth, barely escaping with their lives. A few days later the commons 

 spoiled all the tithe barns on the west side of the Derwent.* The fire 

 of a second insurrection was smouldering, and needed only a spark to 

 burst into flame. A pretext was not long delayed. On Monday, 1 2 

 February, Sir Thomas Clifford went to Kirkbystephen to arrest two 

 of the ringleaders of the first insurrection, who had taken refuge in the 



1 The details of the progress of the first insurrection are fully stated by Chancellor Towneley and 

 the vicar of Brough in their examinations before Tregonwell, Lay ton and Leigh ' in the Towre of 

 London' on 20 March 1537 (L. & P. of Henry VIII. xii. [i.], 687 [1-2]). These depositions with 

 other documents of this period have been printed by the present writer in The Monasteries of Cumberland 

 and Westmorland (Carl. Scient. Soc.), 25-94. 



2 L. & P. of Henry VIII. xi. 993. 



3 Ibid. xii. (i), 18, 71. In the opinion of the Duke of Norfolk, expressed to Cromwell on 21 February, 

 1537, agrarian grievances were the chief cause of the rebellion in Cumberland and Westmorland (ibid, 

 xii [I], 478). 



Ibid. 185. 



272 



