Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/607

1536.] prepared his way by a letter to Lord Darcy, to do away the effects of his late overtures. He arrived at the town on the 28th of November. On Monday the 27th, the northern notables, laity and clergy, had assembled at Pomfret. Thirty-four peers and knights, besides gentlemen and extemporized leaders of the commons, sat in the castle hall; the Archbishop of York and his Convocation in Pomfret church. The discussions of the latter body were opened by the Archbishop in a sermon, in which he dared to declare the meeting unlawful and the insurrection traitorous. He was swiftly silenced: a number of soldiers dragged him out of the pulpit, and threw him down upon the pavement. He was rescued and carried off by a party of his friends, or in a few more moments he would have been murdered. The clergy, delivered from his control, drew up a list of articles, pronouncing successively against each step which had been taken in the Reformation; and other articles simultaneously were drawn