Early modern Britain 1509–1745, Year 11: the Pilgrimage of Grace and the English Revolution (Power and the people option)

Louth

HintA market town where trouble began around a church service.

The whyThe rising spread because people feared that government commissioners were about to strip their churches of valuables. Within days the movement had spread into Yorkshire.

Robert Aske

HintHe drew up a council that wrote the rebels' list of demands.

The whyThe rebels swore an oath and called themselves 'pilgrims'. They said they were loyal to the king and blamed his advisers for the changes.

Thomas Cromwell

HintHenry's chief minister during the break with Rome.

The whyThey also wanted the closing of the monasteries stopped and bishops they saw as heretics removed. They treated Henry as misled by bad advisers rather than as the enemy.

A general pardon

HintIt was a promise made to avoid a battle against far more men.

The whyNorfolk also promised a parliament at York and a pause in the closing of the abbeys. The rebels dispersed, but once fresh trouble broke out in early 1537 the promises were not kept.

They were arrested and executed as traitors

HintThe king no longer felt bound by the earlier promises.

The whyHenry used the new rising as his excuse to act, and Aske's body was hung in chains at York. The revolt did not stop the closing of the monasteries, but the government re-established the Council of the North in 1537 to govern the region.

The divine right of kings

HintA claim about where royal power comes from.

The whyCharles I held it with a profound belief. He resented what he saw as parliamentary interference in matters that were his concern alone, and this made compromise very hard.

11

HintJust over a decade.

The whyWithout Parliament to grant taxes, Charles had to use unpopular ways to raise money. Critics later called this era the 'Eleven Years' Tyranny'.

Ship Money

HintIt was named after what it paid for.

The whyCharles used it in peacetime without parliamentary approval, which provoked fierce resistance. It alienated many natural supporters of the Crown, including wealthy landowners such as John Hampden.

He badly needed money

HintWar had emptied the royal purse.

The whyThe Long Parliament used the chance to dismantle the Personal Rule. During 1641 it abolished Star Chamber and Ship Money and passed the Triennial Act, so Parliament had to be called at least once every three years.

He tried to arrest five MPs in person

HintHe was too late: the men he wanted had been warned.

The whyThe king sat in the Speaker's chair and asked Speaker Lenthall where the men were. Lenthall answered that he could speak only as the House directed him. The king left empty-handed.

The Levellers

HintColonel Rainsborough was their leading sympathiser in the army.

The whyThey also called for parliaments every two years and equality before the law. Their ideas were debated by the army council at Putney in 1647.

Men who owned property

HintThey feared that giving the vote to all would lead to anarchy.

The whyCromwell chaired the debates because General Fairfax was absent. Radicals such as Rainsborough argued that even the poorest man should have a voice in choosing the government he lived under.

30 January 1649

HintIt was midwinter, in Whitehall.

The whyHe was tried by a special court and found guilty of treason. Within weeks the monarchy was abolished, on 17 March, and England was declared a Commonwealth in May.

Soldiers stopped hostile MPs from entering the Commons

HintIt was carried out by the New Model Army, not by Parliament's own vote.

The whyThe MPs who remained became known as the Rump Parliament. The purge cleared the way for the king's trial in January 1649.

Lord Protector

HintIt sounded less like a crown.

The whyCromwell held the title until his death in 1658. The monarchy was restored in 1660 under his enemy's son, Charles II, ending the Commonwealth.