his Council to promise
pardon and a free Parliament at York, a pledge which Norfolk and Darcy
alike construed into an acceptance of the demands made by the insurgents.
Their leaders at once flung aside the badge of the Five Wounds which they
had worn with a cry, "We will wear no badge but that of our Lord the
King," and nobles and farmers dispersed to their homes in triumph. But the
towns of the North were no sooner garrisoned and Norfolk's army in the
heart of Yorkshire than the veil was flung aside. A few isolated outbreaks
in the spring of 1537 gave a pretext for the withdrawal of every
concession. The arrest of the leaders of the "Pilgrimage of Grace" was
followed by ruthless severities. The country was covered with gibbets.
Whole districts were given up to military execution. But it was on the
leaders of the rising that Cromwell's hand fell heaviest. He seized his
opportunity for dealing at the northern nobles a fatal blow. "Cromwell,"
one of the chief among them broke fiercely out as he stood at the Council
board, "it is thou that art the very special and chief cause of all this
rebellion and wickedness, and dost daily travail to bring us to our ends
and strike off our heads. I trust that ere thou die, though thou wouldst
procure all the noblest heads within the realm to be stricken off, yet
there shall one head remain that shall strike off thy head." But the
warning was unheeded. Lord Darcy, who stood first among the nobles of
Yorkshire, and Lord Hussey, who stood first among the nobles of
Lincolnshire, went alike to the block. The Abbot of Barlings, who had
ridden into Lincoln with his canons in full armour, swung with his brother
Abbots of Whalley, Woburn, and Sawley from the gallows. The Abbots of
Fountains and of Jervaulx were hanged at Tyburn side by side with the
representative of the great line of Percy. Lady Bulmer was burned at the
stake. Sir Robert Constable was hanged in chains before the gate of Hull.

[Sidenote: Ireland]

The defeat of the northern revolt showed the immense force which the
monarchy had gained. Even among the rebels themselves not a voice had
threatened Henry's throne. It was not at the king that they aimed these
blows, but at the "low-born knaves" who stood about the king. At this
moment too Henry's position was strengthened by the birth of an heir. On
the death of Anne Boleyn he had married Jane Seymour, the daughter of a
Wiltshire knight; and in 1537 this queen died in giving bir