This book attempts both to take stock of directions in the field and to suggest alternative perspectives on some central aspects of the period.

Autumn 1536. Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn are dead. Henry VIII has married Jane Seymour, and still awaits his longed for male heir. Disaffected conservatives in England see an opportunity for a return to Rome and an end to religious experimentation, but Thomas Cromwell has other ideas.The Dissolution of the Monasteries has begun and the publication of the Lutheran influenced Ten Articles of the Anglican Church has followed. The obstinate monarch, enticed by monastic wealth, is determined not to change course. Fear and resentment is unleashed in northern England in the largest spontaneous uprising against a Tudor monarch – the Pilgrimage of Grace – in which 30,000 men take up arms against the king.This book examines the evidence for that opposition and the abundant examples of religiously motivated dissent. It also highlights the rhetoric, reward and retribution used by the Crown to enforce its policy and crush the opposition.

An examination of the significance and function of oaths in the English Reformation.

Operating principally from original sources, it revises the standard work of the Dodds and appraises the research produced in the subject over the last thirty years.

During the Pilgrimage of Grace for a short time Henry VIII lost control of the North of England and there was a very real possibility of civil war. Protesting against the king's betrayal of the 'old' religion, his new taxes, and his threat to the rights of landowners, the poor and the powerful united against their king and his henchman Thomas Cromwell, raising an army of 40,000.The leader of the Pilgrimage was the charismatic, heroic figure of Robert Aske, a lawyer. Under his influence and persuasion most of the Northern nobility joined the rebellion and gathered for battle at Doncaster where they would have outnumbered the king's soldiers by 4 to 1. But Aske had an unshakeable belief in justice and fair dealing, which was to prove his undoing. He was persuaded by the king's men to abandon military force and negotiate terms in London. Once there he was arrested, charged with treason and hanged in chains. Another 200 'pilgrims' were executed in the North as a 'fearful spectacle'.

The papers collected in these volumes revolve around the political, constitutional and personal problems of the English government between the end of the fifteenth-century civil wars and the beginning of those of the seventeenth century. Previously published in a great variety of places, none of them appeared in book form before. They are arranged in four groups (Tudor Politics and Tudor Government in Volume I, Parliament and Political Thought in Volume II) but these groups interlock. Though written in the course of some two decades, all the pieces bear variously on the same body of major issues and often illuminate details only touched upon in Professor Elton's books. Several investigate the received preconceptions of historians and suggest new ways of approaching familiar subjects. They are reprinted unaltered, but some new footnotes have been added to correct errors and draw attention to later developments.

This is the first full account of the Pilgrimage of Grace since 1915. In the autumn and winter of 1536, Henry VIII faced risings first in Lincolnshire, then throughout northern England. These rebellions posed the greatest threat of any encountered by a Tudor monarch. The Pilgrimage of Grace has traditionally been assumed to have been a spontaneous protest against the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but R. W. Hoyle's lively and intriguing study reveals the full story. Professor Hoyle examines the origins of the rebellions in Louth and their spread; he offers new interpretations of the behaviour of many of the leading rebels, including Robert Aske and Thomas, Lord Darcy; and he reveals how the engine behind the uprising was the commons, and notably the artisans, of some of the smaller northern towns. Casting new light on the personality of Henry VIII himself, Professor Hoyle shows how the gentry of the North worked to dismantle the movement and help the crown neutralize it by guile as events unfolded towards their often tragic conclusions.