A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



their fears and prevent their taking up arms again, and urged the king to send down the Duke of 

 Norfolk as soon as possible to appease the people, but on 8 January John Hallom, one of the 

 captains of the commons for Yorkswold, began to scheme for the capture of Hull and Scarborough." 

 For the moment Aske managed to keep him quiet, but two days later Hallom was visited at 

 Watton by Sir Francis Bigod. Bigod seems to have been a man of some learning and at one 

 time to have inclined towards the party of the Reformation ; '* he had remained quietly at 

 Mulgrave Castle near Whitby during the early days of the Pilgrimage of Grace, and although 

 present at the conference at Pontefract was mistrusted by the commons. For some reason he now 

 came to Hallom, denounced the royal pardon as of no effect because it was issued in Henry's name 

 but not actually by him, and after reading to Hallom a book which he had written defining the 

 respective authority of the pope and the king he went into Watton Priory and persuaded the 

 canons to elect a new prior in place of one intruded by Cromwell and expelled during the 

 late rising. He then left, and on 15 January wrote to Hallom to seize Hull while he himself 

 took Scarborough. Hallom at once rode to Hull with a score of men, expecting to find another 

 sixty waiting for him in the town ; finding that the expected support was not forthcoming he 

 withdrew, but being reproached for deserting his men rode back into the town, where he was at 

 once attacked by two of the aldermen and after a short struggle captured. Meanwhile Bigod had 

 fired beacons and called a muster at Settrington early on 16 January. Amongst those who 

 attended was George Lumley, son and heir of Lord Lumley, and him Bigod forced to act as 

 captain for the attack on Scarborough. Bigod then rode off towards Hull while Lumley with 

 some forty men went towards Scarborough, picking up another hundred or so on his way. The 

 castle apparently was undefended, but Lumley persuaded his men not to enter it, and after setting 

 a watch round it and appointing John Wyvell and Ralph Fenton as captains he went off home 

 and left the rising to collapse, which it did as soon as Sir Ralph Eure, the keeper of the castle, 

 returned." Bigod, in the meantime, had been trying to raise a force for the capture of Hull 

 and the release of Hallom, but Aske and Sir Robert Constable poured cold water on his attempt, 

 and when he reached Beverley Sir Ralph Ellerker attacked him and scattered his following with 

 little trouble.'" 



The Duke of Norfolk now came north, not on a mission of pacification but of vengeance. 

 Fortunately for Yorkshire he began with the more northern counties and soon realized that 

 it would be a mistake to carry vengeance too far." The king, moreover, seeing his way to use the 

 rising of Bigod and Hallom for the destruction of the leaders of the earlier rising, whom he had 

 had to pardon, could afford to be merciful to the lesser offenders. Bigod was arrested and sent up 

 to London ; Aske and the other leaders were sent for and came of their own free will or under 

 pressure, and the whole of those who had so lately defied him were soon in the king's power. 

 Although Aske, Lord Darcy, and Sir Robert Constable had done their best to keep the commons 

 quiet and had actually prevented them from rising, it was easy to twist their acts and words into 

 a usurpation of the king's authority and an expression of sympathy with the cause if not with the 

 actions of Bigod and Hallom." A slight misadventure occurred at the beginning of the York 

 assizes, when William Levening was acquitted by the jury," to the great annoyance of Norfolk 

 and the king, but the duke took good care that the jury selected for the preliminary trial of the 

 more important prisoners should return a true bill against them.*" The result of the actual trial 

 at Westminster in May 1537 was a foregone conclusion. Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Stephen 

 Hamerton, and Sir John Bulmer pleaded guilty but gained nothing thereby, they being hanged 

 at Tyburn with Bigod, Lumley, Nicholas Tempest," the Abbots of Fountains and Jervaulx, the 

 ex-Prior of Guisborough and others ; Lady Bulmer was burnt at Smithfield and Lord Darcy 

 executed on Tower Hill.'' Early in July the last two victims were put to death. Sir Robert 

 Constable being hanged in chains at Hull, of which town he had been commander during the 

 rising, and Robert Aske suffering at York, ' where he was in his greatest and most frantic glory.'" 

 The king need fear no more risings, for the north ' was never in a more dreadful and true 

 obeisance.' ^ 



It is needless to say that the promise of a Parliament and coronation of the queen at York was 

 not fulfilled, and the only visit paid by Henry VIII to Yorkshire was in 1540." The ostensible 

 object of the journey was to meet King James V of Scotland, but as, after much correspondence, 



^ The chief sources for the account of Hallom's rising are L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xii (i), 201, 370. 



" Ibid. Introd. pp. vi, vii. " L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii (l), 369. 



" Ibid. 159, 161, 174. " Ibid. 609. 



"Ibid. 847-8. "Ibid. 731. 



" Ibid. 1 172. " For the story of Nicholas Tempest see rorki. Arch. Journ. xi, 246-78. 



° L. and P. Hen. VIU, xii (2), Introd. pp. ii, iii. " Ibid. 156, 292. 



<» Ibid. 59. 



* Hunter, ' Henry VIII's Progress in Yorks,' Roy. Arch. Inst. Proc. at York. 



414 



