Some of the best families in that part of the
country joined the revolt, although it is noteworthy that these same
families were afterwards Protestant and Puritan; the rebel army numbered
about forty thousand men, well equipped for service. Many prominent
abbots and sixteen hundred monks were in the ranks. The masses were
bound by oath "to stand together for the love which they bore to
Almighty God, His faith, the Holy Church, and the maintenance thereof;
to the preservation of the king's person and his issue; to the purifying
of the nobility, and to expel all villein blood and evil counsellors
from the king's presence; not from any private profit, nor to do his
pleasure to any private person, nor to slay or murder through envy, but
for the restitution of the Church, and the suppression of heretics and
their opinions." It is clear, from the language of the oath, that the
rebels aimed their blows at Cromwell. The secular clergy hated him
because he had shorn them of their power; the monks hated him because he
had turned them out of their cloisters, and clergy and people loathed
him as a maintainer of heresy, a low-born foe of the Church. The
insurgents carried banners on which was printed a crucifix, a chalice
and host, and the five wounds, hence they called themselves "Pilgrims of
Grace." The revolt was headed by Robert Aske, a barrister.
Cromwell acted most cautiously; he selected the strongest men to take
the field. Richard Cromwell said of one of them, Sir John Russell, "for
my lord admiral, he is so earnest in the matter that I dare say he could
eat the Pilgrims without salt.
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