Chapter XXI: The Council of the North (3)

Norfolk’s visit to the south was a short one[1423]. He was back at Sheriffhutton on 27 August. Now that the Council of the North was an established fact he was impatient to be gone. It remained to be seen whether he could ever compass his return. On 27 August he wrote “I am ... very desirous to bring Tynedale, before my departing hence, in better order than it is,”[1424] but the task proved too long and he left it unaccomplished.

On the West Marches Sir Thomas Wharton was on the whole a successful warden, and under his rule there was at least a very fair appearance of regular justice, both on the Marches and in Cumberland, although this did not mean that there was any lack of such incidents as inspired the Border ballads[1425].

The Middle Marches were a very different affair. Norfolk was longing to make his name terrible in the district which had treated his authority with such light-hearted contempt. He wished to arrange that James V should make a descent on Liddesdale at the same time as he attacked Tynedale. The Abbot of Arbroath held out some hope that his master would consent to this, but on 8 September James replied to Norfolk that he would give his wardens such charge that a simultaneous raid of this sort would be quite unnecessary[1426]. Consequently the Duke was obliged to undertake the Borders without James’ help.

While Norfolk awaited James’ answer at Sheriffhutton he busied himself in reconciling the feuds of various Yorkshire gentlemen. Among others Sir Henry Saville came to an agreement with “all his neighbours and sisters” and might prove a good servant. On 5 September Norfolk was suffering from a cold in the head. He wrote to Cromwell, and after regaling him with his symptoms in great detail, proceeded to ease his temper by abuse of his subordinates. According to his account the whole of the north was in a state of Utopian peace except Tynedale and Reedsdale, for which the Keeper and the warden were responsible. “Widdrington would fain do well, but surely it is not in him. Carnaby is so feared of his person that he doth nothing but keep the house. Men doth much doubt of his hardiness having yet shown no part of manhood since his coming hither. I would they were both in Paradise, so other good were in their rooms; for by their defaults I shall be enforced, as soon as I shall be able to travel, to ride to those cold parts which I fear shall not be without some danger. And yet had I rather to adventure the same, than to have the continual crying out of the poor people that I have to come thither.”[1427]

Norfolk rode to Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 14 September, and found that no restitution had been made for plunder taken during the rebellion, and that there were under a dozen offenders to be tried. In fact all the Border was very reluctant to deliver thieves to the law[1428], not from mercy nor even from fellow-feeling, although the gentlemen of the country were not much more honest than the reivers, but because when a man was hanged his kinsmen would never forget the feud. The blood feud was the weapon which enabled the mosstrooper to keep up his war against the world; it was his last and best protection. The King’s deputy warden might take a thief red-handed. If he brought him to the gallows many things would follow. The deputy warden’s cattle would never be safe at the pride of the moon; his hay-stacks and barns would mysteriously take fire; wherever he went he would never ride safely, for on the open moors an arrow might fly from a whinbush, and in the streets of a town a man might lurch against him with a knife in his hand. It generally happened that the warden let the thief go free.

Norfolk was very angry at this state of affairs. The blood feud made no difference to him, as he was leaving the north so soon. He made further complaints to the King of Carnaby and Widdrington, and proposed others to be promoted in their places. If Tynedale and Reedsdale refused to make restitution on the 20th and 21st September, “I will be busy with them.” Reedsdale was not expected to give trouble, and if the men of Tynedale proved more obstinate Norfolk would make a descent upon their houses, burn them to the ground, set their standing corn ablaze, and when the people were driven into the hills, he would lay garrisons “to defend their malice,” whenever they wickedly tried to get something to eat[1429].

The King answered on 18 September in one of those letters which must have been such a trial to his servants. He remained blandly determined that “whosoever kick against it” he would be served by the men of his own choice and no others. As to Tynedale, he sent orders very unlike his usual instructions. Clemency was to be shown. He expected Norfolk to reform, not to destroy[1430]. It must be put to Henry’s credit that if he had raised, for his own purposes, a breed of mosstroopers more savage than their fathers, he did not like them to be slaughtered wholesale, though it is doubtful whether this was due to some faint sense of his own responsibility or merely to an anticipation of the next war with Scotland.

Norfolk held two sessions at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, one on Monday 17 September, the other on Wednesday 26 September. Only nine thieves were executed altogether, but both Tynedale and Reedsdale were at last induced to make restitution or to put in sufficient pledges for it[1431]. Norfolk said with natural pride that he had redressed above a hundred wrongs since he came to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and that he would leave the country better contented[1432]. He had “swept the houses so clean” that the Bishop of Durham and his Council would find little to do[1433]. The King fully approved of all his proceedings and sent him a letter of thanks[1434].

On 28 September 1537 Norfolk left Newcastle-upon-Tyne[1435]. He was at Sheriffhutton on 4 October[1436]. On 6 October he started on his journey southward[1437]. His long mission was over. The government of the north passed into other hands.

Instead of the old expedient by which the supreme authority was conferred on a powerful nobleman, Henry had resolved that the north should be governed by a council. Although Cromwell was a warm advocate of this system, he cannot be given the credit for its invention. Government by council was a favourite Tudor device from the days of Henry VII onwards. It was said that in 1640 over a third of England was ruled by various councils, offshoots of the Privy Council[1438].

Sufficient evidence has already been given to prove that the north required a better system of government than it had hitherto enjoyed. The Pilgrims at Pontefract had proposed that it should have adequate parliamentary representation, that parliaments should sometimes be held there, that law courts should be established at York competent to deal with all but the most important cases, and that in general the interests and welfare of the north should be treated as of equal importance with those of the south.

Instead of this, the King resolved to treat the north as a conquered province. It was placed under a form of government in which there was no representation and from which there was no appeal. If the Council of the North was to work at all, its decisions, however unjust, must be upheld by the central government. The north had already undergone an experimental foretaste of this method of rule, and had hated and protested against it[1439], but the country was to groan under the Council of the North for another hundred years, until released by the Great Civil War. Yet the Council was not more autocratic than the Privy Council itself, and such partial success as it had in enforcing law and order was some compensation for the fact that it was entirely opposed to the independent spirit of the people.

Most of the new council’s members had been leaders in the Pilgrimage; such were Sir Ralph Ellerker, Sir Thomas Tempest, Robert Bowes, William Babthorpe and Robert Chaloner. They were capable, ambitious men, bound to make their way upwards. They were not insincere Pilgrims, but the rising failed and they turned their energies to the King’s service as the only course left open to them. Norfolk’s business was to conciliate them and win them over, and he had succeeded: “all these men have their price.” They had been willing to risk their lives for a cause, but having escaped, they would not sacrifice their careers. As members of the Council of the North, they helped to keep in subjection the country whose liberties they had so lately borne arms to defend.

Norfolk and his council in 1537 may be regarded as the forerunners of the new council, and the King’s lieutenant, when there was one, was always the president of the Council of the North.

The advantages which the King derived from the establishment of the Council were obvious. It was small and could work easily and effectively, for although a large number of members were sometimes appointed, there were only five salaried members, who, with the president and vice-president, were obliged to attend and were competent to transact business[1440]. Its members were chosen and dismissed by the King; there was no danger that the office would become hereditary or that individual members might be too powerful. It was therefore safe to trust them with very extensive powers.

The Council of the North had jurisdiction over the whole of the five northern counties, Northumberland, Durham, Westmorland, Cumberland and Yorkshire. Privileged districts such as the Palatinate of Durham were entirely abolished. The Council was authorised to hear and determine all offences connected with unlawful assemblies and breaches of the peace, and all actions concerning property and debts[1441]. Its duties were to aid the ecclesiastical authorities in the repression of papists and heretics, to maintain uniformity and good morals, to protect agriculture, to defend the poor against the rich, to supervise the justices of the peace[1442], and to provide for the defence of the Border. “It was empowered to inflict almost any penalty short of death,” and although in cases of difficulty it might appeal for advice to the Privy Council, there was no appeal for suitors from its decisions[1443]. It administered justice according to either the law of the land or the discretion of its members[1444]. The Council also held sessions, oyer and gaol delivery, heard indictments for murder and felony, and executed felons. “In this respect their powers exceeded even those of the Star Chamber.”[1445] In short, the Council exercised all the powers previously held by Norfolk.

Before 15 October 1537 the Council of the North held its first meeting at York[1446]. It was composed of Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, the president; Sir Thomas Tempest; Sir Ralph Ellerker; Sir Marmaduke Constable the elder; Robert Bowes; William Babthorpe; Richard Bellasis; Robert Chaloner; John Uvedale; Sir William Evers; and Thomas Fairfax, the King’s serjeant-at-law[1447]. Robert Holgate, Bishop of Llandaff and prior of Watton, also took part in its deliberations[1448]. The officers of the court consisted of the Lord President, the Vice-President, four or more learned Councillors, the Secretary, the King’s Attorney, two Examiners, one Registrar, fourteen Attornies, one Clerk of the Attachments, two Clerks of the Seal, one Clerk of the Tickets, one Serjeant-at-Arms, one Pursuivant, ten Collectors of Fines, two Tipstaves[1449].

The first report of the Council of the North has not been preserved, but a letter from Tunstall to Cromwell, written at the same time (15 October), probably gives the information which was contained in it. Wide as the powers of the Council were, the members were not satisfied. They found that they had no power to levy men in order to enforce their precepts; the gentlemen had all sworn to levy none save at the King’s command. The Council referred the matter to the King, “considering therewith that fire is more easily quenched in the spark than in the flame.” They also referred two minor points to the King; they wished to know what seal they should use, and they requested that the decrees of the Duke of Richmond’s late council might be sent to help them in their decisions[1450].

Finally they wished for instructions concerning the little heirs of the house of Percy[1451]. It was now represented by Sir Ingram Percy, who was dying by inches in the Tower, and Sir Thomas Percy’s two sons. The Dowager Countess had been arrested by Sir Brian Hastings in February 1536–7. Her goods were seized and inventoried, but they were worth little, even the plate being valued at “an hundred pounds or very easy more.” She had few jewels and robes for a lady of her position. Hastings good-naturedly wrote to Cromwell in her favour[1452]. Before the beginning of October she had been released, her lands and goods were restored to her, and she was living at Catton in Yorkshire[1453].

The Percy estates were viewed by the King’s surveyor Robert Southwell in August[1454]. The government kept a careful eye on the natural heirs of all this wealth, Sir Thomas Percy’s sons Thomas and Henry. On 8 July Norfolk wrote: “As to Sir Thomas Percy’s children, I have entreated good Sir Thomas Tempest to take them into his custody; they being at this time in the Bishopric within two miles of his house; and have promised him to have their costs paid for.”[1455] Sir Thomas soon grew weary of his charge. Tunstall wrote on 15 October that Sir Thomas still kept the children at Norfolk’s command; but “his house is not strong but very weak, and within sixteen mile of Tynedale, no town betwixt, nor other obstacle than the river of Tyne when the water is risen; for at low waters there be two fords that every man may pass, by which the thieves do much annoy our country. I know this to be true by experience, for I have ridden the same way. He desireth much to be rid of the custody of them, and demandeth of me licence to be absent for the keeping of them; which reasonably I cannot deny and yet his presence were very necessary. Some other place more within the country were more meet than his house, and the children be young and must be among women.”[1456] The Council must have feared that Sir Thomas Percy’s old friends the reivers of Tynedale might carry off his children. Permission was given to place them wherever it was thought best[1457].

With the fall of the house of Percy the old order of things ended. The new began with the Council of the North. There is this excuse for Bowes and the other Pilgrims who served on the Council; they probably believed that they were saving the country from the Duke of Norfolk’s despotism. Norfolk never realised his dream of a northern dictatorship. It was improbable from the first that he would ever be able to force Henry to concede him such a position, and it is quite incredible that the King would have made such a grant willingly; but the northern gentlemen did not know that. Norfolk’s pose was that of a faithful old servant who reluctantly performed a disagreeable duty laid upon him by his master. Partly because he needed Norfolk, and partly to gratify his love of playing with a man’s hopes and fears, the King gave the Duke sufficient public countenance to make this pose appear plausible. Bad as the Council of the North might be, the gentlemen supported it, because they believed it to be the lesser of two evils. Its tyranny was not so unendurable as that of “this false Duke.”

NOTES TO CHAPTER XXI

Note A. The Border pledges were hostages. When the reivers were in
trouble they delivered up one of every surname or clan, in earnest of
their better behaviour. The object of the government was to obtain a
pledge who was sufficiently important to make his loss a matter of
anxiety to his surname. The object of the reivers was to induce the
government to accept as a pledge some man whom his friends did not
mind losing. Theoretically the life of the pledge was forfeit if his
people committed fresh offences, but the penalty seems very seldom to
have been exacted in full. The pledges were not usually kept in strict
confinement and were relieved by new comers every month or so. In the
case of disorders, however, the pledges were more strictly imprisoned,
and cases even occurred when they were half-starved until their
kinsmen were reduced to obedience.

An example of the chaffering over pledges occurred on Tuesday, 17
July, 1537. Sir Cuthbert Radcliff and Sir Reynold Carnaby called the
men of Tynedale to a meeting at Hexham for the restitution of spoil.
Edward and Cuthbert Charleton came in “under assurance,” and said that
they were willing to follow any order taken by the meeting. Edward
Charleton was anxious for the release of his pledge; he offered one of
his tenants in exchange, but Carnaby did not consider a tenant
sufficient. The other Charletons would neither pledge for nor with
Edward; they proposed to lay a separate hostage for themselves when
the first had returned. In this extremity Edward Charleton offered his
son, a boy of thirteen, whom Carnaby was ready to accept, as he
thought that his father would be loth to lose him[1458].

When Norfolk left the north the eight Border pledges whom he had kept
at Sheriffhutton Castle were removed to York, as no sufficient guard
remained at Sheriffhutton. In York the marchmen boarded at a
serjeant’s house and showed themselves every day to the
sheriffs[1459]. The Council of the North dared not imprison them for
fear “there would never more come in to be pledges.” Bishop Tunstall,
the president of the Council, objected to the presence of the pledges
in York. He was also annoyed because “two of the most active men of
all Tynedale” had come as pledges “to change and loose the others for
a season as has always been accustomed.” These two had promised
Norfolk to resist the inroads of the outlawed Charletons, and Tunstall
thought that they had come as pledges just before the full moon, when
they were most needed at home, to be “honestly ... quit of their
promise.” The Council of the North decided to move the pledges to
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, because “it is within eighteen miles of their
country, and coming thither they should learn no new ways, whereas now
coming hither [to York] so far from home, by exchange, they learn all
the byways of all countries adjoining unto them, which makes them more
bold to steal, when they know which way to escape with their
prey.”[1460]

The system of hostages is very characteristic of the age.
Fundamentally unjust, it was a survival of primitive barbarism. It was
clear that the pledges at Newcastle-upon-Tyne or York could not be
guilty of outrages on the Border, but if the guilty could not be made
to suffer, the innocent must be punished. This system was peculiarly
congenial to Henry. He openly looked upon the mother and brothers of
Reginald Pole, for instance, as hostages for his good behaviour. When
he defied the King, it was only Henry’s extreme benignity which
prevented him from ordering the Cardinal’s relations to instant
execution. They were in the end put to death almost avowedly as a
means of making the Cardinal suffer.

Note B. March treason was committed when an Englishman allied himself
with a Scot to attack another Englishman. Such crimes were
investigated and punished in the Wardens’ Courts. The penalty was
decapitation. Such a case was tried in October 1537 at Carlisle before
Sir Thomas Wharton, the King’s deputy warden[1461].

Note C. This letter is not included among the Letters and Papers of
Henry VIII. Raine’s reference is MSS Cotton. Caligula B iii, 241.