Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/477

 the demands of the insurgents. Henry wrote a temporising reply, but detained the messengers for some time on the excuse of various sinister rumours. Conferences were arranged in December at Pomfret and Doncaster, and a general pardon was proclaimed at the latter place. Hereupon the King, putting a smooth face on matters, wrote to Aske to come up and confer with him frankly; and, though not without misgivings in spite of his safe conduct, Aske came and seems to have been won over by royal affability. Early in January (1537) he returned to Yorkshire and did his best to allay disquiet, declaring that the King was every way gracious and had approved the general pardon,—that he was sending Norfolk once more into the north, and that grievances would be discussed at a free Parliament at York, where also the Queen would be crowned.

But the pardon had been already ill received at Kendal, in Westmorland, where the people said they had done no wrong; and grave suspicions were aroused in Yorkshire that the King was fortifying Hull and Scarborough. One John Hallom was taken in an attempt to surprise Hull, and Sir Francis Bigod made an equally futile effort to march on Scarborough. Bigod fled and was afterwards captured near Carlisle, where he had joined himself to a new rising provoked by the King's use of border thieves to keep the country down. The Duke of Norfolk, when he came back, went first to Carlisle, where he proceeded by martial law against seventy-four of the insurgents and terrified the country with savage executions. He then went on to Durham and York, where he endeavoured to learn who were chiefly responsible for the demands made and conceded at Doncaster. He got Aske into his hands and sent him up to the King; while the Earls of Sussex and Derby reduced Lancashire to submission by hanging the Abbots of Whalley and Sawley and one or two monks, and securing the surrender of the Abbey of Furness.

The King's principal danger was past; but meanwhile his anxieties abroad had increased. One thing was in his favour, that during the whole of 1536 the Emperor and Francis I were at war, and neither of them wished to interfere with him. But the Pope was trying to make peace between them; and having created Reginald Pole a Cardinal in December, he gave him on February 7 a commission as Legate to bring about Henry's return to his obedience to Rome. Pole was a grandson of the Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV; and his mother, the Countess of Salisbury, was a sister of that Earl of Warwick who was put to death by Henry VII. At the beginning of his reign Henry VIII wished to atone for his father's wrong and Reginald Pole, showing a great love of letters, was educated at the King's expense at Oxford and Padua. For this Pole was certainly most grateful; but he did not approve Henry's later policy and obtained leave to go abroad again. Pressed by the King for a statement of his views as to the Royal Supremacy, he had written a