A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



Such a man could not stand a storm. His 

 servility lost him the respect of his brethren and 

 the reverence of his tenants. The letters about 

 the Borradalle case show that he was prepared to 

 betray the visitors of the order to the centralizing 

 policy of Cromwell. ^^ The monks were in- 

 subordinate ; Roger writes that he had been 

 forced to put one, Dan Richard Banke, in prison.'-' 

 It is suggestive that Doctors Legh and Layton 

 singled him out for their unpleasant criticism.'^ 

 The district of Furness, moreover, was ablaze with 

 the ardour of the Pilgrimage of Grace.''' Robert 

 Legate, a friar who had been put into the 

 monastery by the visitors to read and preach to 

 the brethren, sent accounts of the violent speech 

 and deeds which led to the surrender of the 

 house. When the northern insurrection broke 

 out, 3,000 men collected from the fells to the 

 north and east of the abbey."' Most of them 

 desired to get rid of real feudal grievances,"' but 

 they also gave expression to the feeling against 

 the royal supremacy. Several of the monks 

 desired to join the commons, and a coarse pro- 

 phecy was current among them : ' In England 

 shall be slain the decorat Rose in his mother's 

 belly,' or in other words, ' Your Grace shall die 

 by the hands of priests, for their Church is your 

 mother.'"* During the last months of 1536 

 words became more definite. John Broughton 

 laid a wager with Legate that in three years all 

 would be changed, and the new laws annulled. 

 The bishop of Rome, he said, was unjustly put 

 down."' Henry Salley, when overcome with 

 ale, used to say that no secular knave should be 

 head of the church ; he was afterwards clapped 

 into prison at Lancaster."* And Christoplier 

 Masrudder even heard one of the brethren say 

 that the king was not right heir to the crown, 

 for his father came in by the sword."' Legate 

 could not get a hearing for his lectures of Holy 

 Scripture."' On All Hallows' Eve the crisis 

 came. Four brethren, Michael Hammerton, 

 the cellarer, Christopher Brown, the master of 

 the fells, William Rigge, and the plain-spoken 

 Broughton had been sent to the rebels. They 

 took with them over ;^20, came to terms, and 

 returned to Dalton for recruits. The captain of 

 the rebels, a man named Gilpin, was to meet the 

 tenants at Furness. The monks advised their 

 men to agree as they had done. Alexander 

 Richardson, the bailiff of Dalton, testified that 



'^' L. and P. Hen. Fill, vi, 1557. 



'" Ibid, vi, 78;. "' Ibid. I, 364. 



"'In 1533 a book entitled Unio Dissidentium was 

 being studied by the parish priest of Dalton. Legate 

 found ^^'iUiam Rede construing the Parafhroses of 

 Erasmus to his scholars, and dismissed him from keep- 

 ing school in Dalton (ibid, vi, 287 ; xii (l), 842). 



'" Corres. of Earlof Derby (Chet. Soc. New Ser.), 49. 



'^ L. and P. Hen. J'llI, xi, 1 246. 



•"Ibid, xii (I), S4 1. "^Ihidi. 



"' Ibid. 841 ; cf. 840, 1089. '" Ibid. 



'" Ibid. 



the monks encouraged the commons, and urged 

 that now or never was the time-, 



for if they sit down, both you and Holy Church is 

 undone ; and if they lack company, we will go with 

 them, hve and die with them to defend their most 

 godly pilgrimage. 



When arguments failed, threats were used. 

 Brian Garner, the prior, and a fellow monk 

 commanded the tenants to meet the commons in 

 their best array, on pain of death and the pulling 

 down of their houses. The vicar of Dalton fled 

 into the woods to escape them. The abbot also 

 fled. He had tried in vain to keep a middle 

 course. When John Broughton uttered the 

 prophecy about the king, he had said, ' Dan 

 John, this is a marvellous and a dangerous word.' 

 Three or four days afterwards he told the 

 brethren that he could not stay there till the 

 rebels came, or it would undo both himself 

 and them. So on the eve of All Saints he and 

 William Flitton, the deputy steward, put out in 

 a little boat and came to Lancaster. Thence 

 they escaped to the Earl of Derby at Lathom. 

 According to Christopher Masrudder, he bade 

 the monks ere he departed do their best for the 

 commons."' The danger from the rebels did 

 not last long,'*" but the abbot's difliculties grew 

 greater rather than less. He is said to have 

 written to his brethren from Lathom that he 

 had taken a way to be sure both from king and 

 commons. This may have seemed easy at 

 Lathom, but it was impossible at Furness. 

 When Roger returned he was met with a re- 

 quest to sign certain articles. What these were 

 is not stated, but perhaps something may be 

 gathered from the words of John Green, spoken 

 on the Friday after St. Martin's Day, that the 

 king should never make them an abbot, but they 

 would choose their own.'*' The monks shared 

 in the hopes nursed by the commons during this 

 winter. Dr. Dakyn, the vicar-general of Rich- 

 mond, hoped to get money from Furness.'*^ The 

 speech of the brethren was as unguarded as ever; 

 only three took the king's part, and the abbot 

 was so fearful that he 'durst not go to the 

 church this winter alone before day.' '*' The 

 royal officers began to arrive on the scene, and 

 Roger in alarm insisted upon a strict observance 

 of the statutes and of the visitors' injunctions. 

 This was on the first Sunday in Lent. Three 

 weeks later he heard that either Legate or the 

 bailiff of Dalton had put in letters of complaint.'" 

 The commissioners, the Earls of Derby and 

 Sussex, came to the abbey about the middle of 



"' Ibid, xii (I), 652 (ii), 840-2 ; Corres. of Earl of 

 Derby, 4.^-6 ; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vi, 445. 



"" See above, p. 43. 



'" L. and P. Hen. Fill, xii (i), 652, 841. 



'" Ibid, xii (l), 914, 965. "» Ibid. 841. 



'" The bailifPs testimony is dated 14 March, i 537, 

 but there must have been information given before 

 this. 



124 



