Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/30

10 which was not a pardon, but a proclamation. None were to have the benefit of it, unless they took the King for supreme head of the Church; and that was against the Gospel. If, therefore, he said, you will take my part, I will take yours. You who will follow me, hold up your hands.'

They did not know Bigod; but in their humour they would have followed any one who had offered to lead them. Every hand went up. 'Who will not go,' they cried, 'strike off his head!' 'Now is the time to rise, or else never. Forward! forward! forward! forward now! on pain of death. Forward now, or else never; and we shall have captains just and true; and no gentlemen shall stay us.' … The spent force of the great rising could still issue in noise, if in nothing else.

Among the crowd was the eldest son of Lord Lumley, taken there, if his own word was true, by little else than curiosity. Bigod saw him; and he was pitched upon to head a party to Scarborough, and seize the castle. He went unwillingly, with followers little better than a rabble. The townspeople were languid; the castle had been newly entrenched; the black mouths of cannon gaped between the parapets. The insurgents stood gazing for a few hours on their hopeless enterprise, and at the end Lumley stole away out of the town, and left his men to shift as they could. Hull and Beverley were to be attempted on the same day by Hallam and Bigod.