NOTES TO CHAPTER IV
Reading edition
Note A. Throughout this book the “New Learning” is used in the sense of protestant or anti-papal opinions, not as another name for the classical revival.
Note B. One of his parishioners, John Bird, tried to lay information against him, but Duke had sufficient influence to stop him, and the accusation was not made until after the rebellion, for Bird mentions witnesses to whom he spoke “a month before the rising.” There is another deposition by Bird against a priest in L. and P. XII (1), 301, too much mutilated to be intelligible. Cf. XI, 1495.
Note C. Other prophecies of about the same period are printed by Furnivall, op. cit. pp. 316–20, but they are unintelligible.
Note D. The Prophecies of Rymour, Beid and Marleyng[399]:
“When the black fleet of Norway is comen and gone
And drenched in the flood truly
Mickle war hath been beforne
But after shall none be.
Holy Church shall harnes hent
And III years stand on stere,
Meet and fight upon a bent,
Even as they seculars were.”
87Note E. A curious illustration of the feelings with which the north regarded the King’s family arrangements is given by the fragmentary story of Mary Baynton, a girl of eighteen, the daughter of Thomas Baynton of Birlington, i.e. Bridlington in Yorkshire. The only document relating to her adventures is undated, but probably belongs to the year 1533. She made her appearance at Boston in Lincolnshire, and represented herself as the Princess Mary fleeing from her father’s cruelty. Although she must eventually have been arrested, she seems to have been received with respect and sympathy. Her fate is unknown, and it is impossible to say whether she was a deliberate impostor or a self-deluded lunatic. There is nothing to show that she had any accomplices, but it is interesting to observe that she was connected with Bridlington and Boston, which were two centres of the rebellion. Her story was “that the French queen was her aunt and her godmother, and upon a time the said French queen, being of her pleasure in a bath, and she with her there, looked upon a book and said to her, ‘Niece Mary, I am right sorry for you, for I see here that your fortune is very hard; you must go a-begging once in your life, either in your youth or in your age.’ And therefore I take it upon me now in my youth, and I intend to go beyond the sea to mine uncle the emperor, as soon as I may get shipping.”[400]
Note F. In April 1536 there was a disturbance in Somersetshire about which little is known. On 21 April 1536 John Py informed Cromwell that he had arrested Thomas Towghtwodde of Bridgewater. The prisoner had attempted to fly the country because his apprentice “was one of those who made the business in Somerset.” The apprentice was three days with “those who made the business ... till my lord Fewaryn sent him home.”[401]
In May Cromwell noted among his remembrances “the poor men of Somerset for their pardon,”[402] and on 26 May 140 persons were pardoned for making unlawful assemblies in Somerset[403]. Others were executed for the same offence, and £50 were allowed for expenses to “Serjeant Hinde the King’s Solicitor and others that went for the executing of the rebels in the west.”[404]
It is probable that this rising was due to social discontent, and not to religious grievances, as the Act for the Suppression of the Monasteries was passed only in March and was not enforced until June, while the rising was early in April.
It is curious that, according to Wriothesley’s Chronicle, there was also a rising in Somersetshire in April 1537[405]. The only allusion to this second rising in the Letters and Papers occurs on 13 May 1537, when Sir John St Lo requested Cromwell to contradict the report that the King was displeased with John Horner for “his taking the men imprisoned at Nunney” and causing them to be executed at Taunton[406].
88It is probable that there were two risings in Somerset, one in April 1536, the other in April 1537. But it is possible that there was only one rising, that in April 1536. After that rising some prisoners were executed and others pardoned, but some may have remained in prison at Nunney, either because they were condemned to perpetual imprisonment or because they were never tried. In April 1537, when there were rumours of a rebellion in Devonshire and Cornwall, the magistrates may have become alarmed and executed the unfortunate prisoners out of hand. It is evident that the execution in April 1537 was hasty and irregular. If this second hypothesis were correct, Wriothesley must have misdated the entry in his Chronicle, or, hearing of the executions in Somerset in April 1537, he may have concluded that there had been a rising. It is simpler and involves less guessing to assume that there were two risings.
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