of the demands made by the
insurgents. Their leaders at once flung aside the badge of the "Five
Wounds" which they had worn, with a cry, "We will wear no badge but that
of our lord the King," and nobles and farmers dispersed to their homes
in triumph. But the towns of the North were no sooner garrisoned and
Norfolk's army in the heart of Yorkshire than the veil was flung aside.
A few isolated outbreaks in the spring of 1537 gave a pretext for the
withdrawal of every concession.

The arrest of the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace was followed by
ruthless severities. The country was covered with gibbets. Whole
districts were given up to military execution. But it was on the leaders
of the rising that Cromwell's hand fell heaviest. He seized his
opportunity for dealing at the northern nobles a fatal blow. "Cromwell,"
one of the chief among them broke fiercely out as he stood at the
council board, "it is thou that art the very special and chief cause of
all this rebellion and wickedness, and dost daily travail to bring us to
our ends and strike off our heads. I trust that ere thou die, though
thou wouldst procure all the noblest heads within the realm to be
stricken off, yet there shall one head remain that shall strike off thy
head."

But the warning was unheeded. Lord Darcy, who stood first among the
nobles of Yorkshire, and Lord Hussey, who stood first among the nobles
of Lincolnshire, went alike to the block. The Abbot of Barlings, who had
ridden into Lincoln with his canons in full armor, swung with his
brother-abbots of Whalley, Woburn, and Sawley from the gallows. The
abbots of Fountains and of Jervaulx were hanged at Tyburn side by side
with the representative of the great line of Percy. Lady Bulmer was
burned at the stake. Sir Robert Constable was hanged in chains before
the gate of Hull.

The defeat of the northern revolt showed the immense force which the
monarchy had gained. Even among the rebels themselves not a voice had
threatened Henry's throne. It was not at the King that they aimed these
blows, but at the "low-born knaves" who stood about the King. At this
moment, too, Henry's position was strengthened by the birth of an heir.
On the death of Anne Boleyn he had married Jane Seymour, the daughter of
a Wiltshire knight; and in 1537 this Queen died in giving birth to a
boy, the future Edward VI. The triumph of the Crown at home was doubled
by its triumph in the great dependency which had so long held th