On this day in history, 26th October…
1529 – Thomas More took his oath as Chancellor
1536 – The rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace halted at Scawsby Leys, near Doncaster, where they met troops captained by the Duke of Norfolk. The rebels were said to number around 30,000 and Norfolk’s army only a fifth of the size, but Robert Aske chose to negotiate and a deal was eventually struck, with Norfolk giving promises from Henry VIII that their demands would be met and that they would be pardoned. Aske then dismissed his troops. Unfortunately, Henry VIII later broke his promises to the rebels.
1538 – Geoffrey Pole, brother of Cardinal Reginald Pole and son of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, was interrogated in his prison at the Tower of London regarding letters he and his family had received from his brother and words which he had uttered showing his support for the Cardinal, who had denounced the King and his policies in his treatise, Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione.
In “The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church”, G W Bernard writes of how Geoffrey’s spirit was so broken by his two months in prison and the interrogation that he even attempted suicide, but the knife was too blunt.
