1537: Robert Aske, for the Pilgrimage of Grace

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On this date in 1537, Robert Aske was hanged for leading the Pilgrimage of Grace.

The year preceding had been among the most wrenching in British history, and when Henry VIII began shuttering Catholic monasteries, many an egg that would comprise the English Reformation‘s omelette would be shattered.

In the conservative and Catholic-leaning north, Thomas Cromwell‘s reforms (combined with various political and economic grievances) triggered an uprising that soon controlled York.

This fraught situation ended much easier for the English crown than it might have, with a royal negotiating strategy of nominally accepting the Pilgrimage’s terms inducing the massive rebel force to disband, allowing its leaders to be seized thereafter on the first pretext of renewed trouble.

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Robert Aske, the barrister who had come to the fore of the Pilgrimage movement and had personally negotiated terms with Henry, was among about 200 to suffer death for their part in the affair. In Aske’s case, it was against the will of Jane Seymour, Henry’s demure third queen and also a Catholic-inclined traditionalist; she made an uncharacteristic foray into state policy by ask(e)ing for Aske’s life, summarily vetoed by the king’s reminding her the fate of her politically-minded predecessor.*

Here’s Aske hanged at York Castle in The Tudors:

And here’s an inscription on a Yorkshire church reminding one of Aske’s surviving brothers of the events of those pivotal months.

* In other wives-of-the-king developments, Henry’s future (sixth, and final) wife Katherine Parr was taken a hostage by the rebels during the Pilgrimage.

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2 thoughts on “1537: Robert Aske, for the Pilgrimage of Grace”

  1. I believe that the contemporary civic records of the City of York state that Aske was brought from York Castle to a scaffold outside All Saints church (Pavement, York) and that the body was guarded overnight at an inn (The Eagle and Child – proprietor Master Robert Pyements) in Pavement and next morning taken with a military guard to Heworth Moor (a short distance outside the city walls) where it was hung in chains, with dire penalties proclaimed against anyone who should touch the remains thereafter. Which is the true account?

  2. Pingback: ExecutedToday.com » 1540: Thomas Cromwell

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