Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/249

] they saw the images thrown down or removed, the ancient rites neglected or despised; and they felt themselves aggrieved, but more especially with the ordinances of Cromwell as Vicar-General, who retrenched many of their ancient holidays. He also incensed the clergy, by prohibiting the resort to places of pilgrimage, and the exhibition of relics. These greatly reduced the emoluments o£ the clergy, whom, he on the other hand compelled to lay aside a considerable portion of their revenues for the repairs of the churches, and the assistance of the poor. This caused them to foment the discontents of the people, and the thousands of monks now wandering over the country without a home and a subsistence, found out too ready listeners in the vast population which had been accustomed to draw their main support from the daily alms of the convents and monasteries.



The people, seeing all these ancient sources of a lazy support suddenly cut off by Government, grew furious; and their disaffection was strengthened by observing that many of the nobility and gentry were equally malcontent, whose ancestry had founded monasteries, and who, therefore, looked upon them with feelings of family pride, and, moreover, regarded them as a certain provision for some of their younger children. There were many of all classes who thought with horror of the souls of their ancestors and friends, who, they believed, would now remain for ages in all the torments of purgatory, for want of masses to relieve them.

All these causes operating together produced formidable insurrections, both in the north and south. The first rising was in Lincolnshire. It was headed by Dr. Mackrel, the Prior of Barlings, who was disguised like as mechanic, and by another man in disguise, calling himself Captain Cobbler. The first attack was occasioned by the demand of a subsidy for the king, but the public mind was already in a state of high excitement, and this was only the spark that produced the explosion. Twenty thousand men quickly rose in arms, and forced several lords and gentlemen to be their leaders. Such as refused, they either threw into prison or killed on the spot. Amongst the latter was the Chancellor of Longland, an ecclesiastic by no means popular. The king sent a force against them under the Duke of Suffolk, attended by the Earls of Shrewsbury, Kent, Rutland, and Huntingdon.

Suffolk found the insurgents in such force that he thought it best to temporise, and demanded of them what they had to complain of. Thereupon, the men of Lincolnshire drew up and presented to him a list of six articles of grievance. These consisted, first and foremost, of the suppression of the monasteries, by which they said such numbers of persons were put from their livings, and the poor of the realm were left unrelieved. Another complaint was of the fifteenth voted by Parliament, and of having to pay fourpence for a beast, and twelvepence for every twenty sheep. They affirmed that the king had taken into his councils personages of low birth and small reputation, who had got the forfeited lands into their hands, "most especial for their singular lucre and advantage."