Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

I cannot as yet write of the state of this country, as of mine own knowledge; but I am informed that the greatest part of our gentlemen are not well affected to godly religion, and that among the people there are many remnants of the old. They keep holy days and fasts abrogated; they offer money, eggs, etc. at the burial of their dead; they pray beads, etc., so as this seems to be as it were another church, rather than a member of the rest. And for the little experience I have of this people, methinks I see in them three evil qualities, which are great ignorance, much dullness to conceive better instruction, and great stiffness to retain their wonted errors. I will labour as much as I can to cure every of these, committing the success to God. I forbear to write unto her Majesty of these matters, till I may write upon better knowledge.

Comment

Comment

Are the money and eggs grave goods?

As only the second Archbishop of Canterbury and York, Grindal seems to have acquired his fair share of myths, and none more ridiculous than the following fable by one William Knipe, which has him stabbed in York Minster prior to his arrival in Yorkshire alongside the non-existent Abbot of the dissolved St. Mary’s Abbey by Thomas Wilson aka Mountain, of whom, and of whose remarkable escape attempt and hanging, no other record exists:

July 30th, A.D. 1570.–At Peter’s Prison, York, in the Hall of Pleas, Thomas Wilson, alias Mountain, was tried on an indictment, wherein he was charged with having been guilty of the wilful murder of George de Walton, Abbot of St. Mary’s, on the 13th day of July, 1570, in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter’s, York; also charged for that he on the said 13th day of July, did feloniously stab the Right Reverend Father in God, Edmund Grindall, Lord Archbishop of York, with intent to do him some grievous bodily harm, in the said Cathedral Church of St. Peter, York. He was found guilty after a trial which lasted four days, and ordered to be executed on the 18th of August following. On Monday morning, being the day fixed for the execution of the said Thomas Wilson, alias Mountain, he was taken from the dungeon of Peter’s Prison, at eight o’clock in the morning, to the gallows of the Abbey of St. Mary, Clifton. Since his confinement, he had several times attempted to break the prison, and, after his condemnation, he made a hole through a brick-and-a-half partition, large enough for him to pass into the chapel gallery, from which he astonishingly ascended into another ten feet above, with fetters weighing nearly fifty pounds, and so formed as not to permit one foot to step six inches before the other. Here he broke through a plaster partition, and thus got over the brick ceiling of all the cells, and immediately under the roof of all the building, where he was overheard and soon secured. On searching him, a hooked nail and a bit of tin plate were found. The bit of plate he had whetted to a very keen edge, as a knife, to cut up the stout canvas cover of his bed into long strips. These he had twisted and strongly tied together, so as to form a very stout rope, nearly forty feet long, whereby be intended to make his descent from the roof into the surrounding yard. He was afterwards confined in a dungeon on the ground floor, and so chained that he could not reach any of the walls, and a guard was constantly kept with him. Since then his conduct had been a mixture of rage and disappointment, very unbecoming his situation. He was brought under the gallows at nine o’clock in the morning, where he spent some time in addressing the crowd, after which he twice called out, “God save the Queen,” threw aside his book, and was launched into eternity. After the execution his body was hung in chains on Clifton Ings (Knipe 1867).

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Original

[Grindal]’s first going down to York was not before the month of August [1570]; the 17th day whereof he came to Cawood, a seat of the Archbishops of York, where he was delivered from his late distemper: but he feared the air of that place, being very moist and gross, as he wrote in a letter to the Secretary. Nor did he much like Bishopsthorp, the other house nearer York, which was reported to him to be an extreme cold house for winter. Yet because he would be near York, to deal in matters of commission, he purposed to remove thither at Michaelmas. He was not received with such concourse of gentlemen at his first coming into the shire, as he hoped for. Sir Thomas Gargrave, with his son, Mr. Bunnie, Mr. Watterton, one of the Savyls, and four or five gentlemen more, met him near to Doncaster, and conducted him unto the said Sir Thomas’s house, where he lodged that night; and the next day met him at his church Mr. Ask, Mr. Hungate, and four or five more inferior gentlemen, and brought him to Cawood. But several came to him soon after, excusing themselves either by their own sickness, or of some of their families; as Sir William Babthorp, Mr. Slingesby, Mr. Goodrick, Mr. Beckwith, and some others: for indeed agues were at that time very universal throughout all that country. Sir Henry Gates was then with the Lord Lieutenant in the north, but came to the Archbishop upon his return.

In what condition he found the people of these parts at his first coming among them, take his own account in his own words, in his letter wrote to the Secretary, August 29:

I cannot as yet write of the state of this country, as of mine own knowledge; but I am informed that the greatest part of our gentlemen are not well affected to godly religion, and that among the people there are many remnants of the old.

They keep holydays and fasts abrogated: they offer money, eggs, etc. at the burial of their dead: they pray beads, etc. so as this seems to be as it were another church, rather than a member of the rest. And for the little experience I have of this people, methinks I see in them three evil qualities; which are, great ignorance, much dullness to conceive better instruction, and great stiffness to retain their wonted errors. I will labour as much as I can to cure every of these, committing the success to God. I forbear to write unto her Majesty of these matters, till I may write upon better knowledge. In the mean time I shall not cease in my daily prayers to commend her Majesty to Almighty God. God keep you. From Cawood this 29th August, 1570.

Yours in Christ,

Edm. Ebor.

By postscript he took occasion to mention some others of the gentry that came to him that day to dinner, namely, Mr. Layton, Mr. Thomas Gowre, Mr. Place, with one Mr. Davel, who dwelt far off, and came only to welcome him: concerning which last he wished there were many such.

541 words.

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• Anglicanism (2) ·
• Archbishop of Canterbury (4) ·
• Archbishop of York (18) ·
• 📌Bishopthorpe Palace (4) ·
• 📌Bishopthorpe (6) ·
• Calvinism (8) ·
• Capital punishment (7) ·
• Catholic Church (57) ·
• 📌Cawood (Selby) (5), West Riding, now North Yorkshire ·
• Cawood Castle (4) ·
• Church of England (93) ·
• Clifton, York (5) ·
• Cotton Gargrave (1) ·
• Dissolution of the monasteries (9), the set of administrative and legal processes 1536-41 by which Henry VIII disbanded Catholic monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries, seized their wealth, disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions ·
• 📌Doncaster (34) ·
• Edmund Bunny (1) ·
• Elizabeth I (1533-1603) (15), ruled 1558-1603, established an English Protestant church ·
• Grave goods (2) ·
• Grindal, Edmund (ca. 1519-1583) (5), Calvinist Puritan, refugee from Mary, then under Elizabeth I successively Bishop of London, Archbishop of York, Archbishop of Canterbury ·
• Hanging (24) ·
• Henry Gates (MP) (1) ·
• Henry VIII (1491-1547) (16), ruled 1509 until his death, initiator of the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from papal authority and introducing the theory of the divine right of kings, dissolved convents and monasteries, invested heavily in the navy ·
• London (74) ·
• Lord-lieutenant (1) ·
• Murder (38) ·
• North Yorkshire (10) ·
• Sheriff of Yorkshire (3) ·
• St Mary’s Abbey, York (5) ·
• Thomas Gargrave (1) ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (147) ·
• Winter (11) ·
• 📌York (164) ·

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Similar

• 26 December 1570: Edmund Grindal, Puritan archbishop of York, orders the removal of rood-lofts (and their superstitious images), and the erection of pulpits
• 21 September 1549: The leaders of the Seamer Rebellion – egalitarian, republican and Catholic – against the Edwardian Reformation are hanged at York
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