Few people around Scunthorpe and Burton-on-Stather today will be aware that in the 1530s, when Henry VIII and his repressive measures against common people and monastery land were raging, revolutionary leaders were travelling hastily across from Louth and Caistor to board a ferry or race towards important meetings in Doncaster. In 1536, a small army of men from Louth walked to Caistor and that village became a central focus in the story of the Pilgrimage of Grace.
In that year, as a Louth man called Nicholas Melton (a shoemaker) emerged as the leader of the local rebellion and became known widely as Captain Cobbler, there were murders done only fifteen miles from Scunthorpe.
The Pilgrimage accelerated as people had more than they could stand of a series of heartless and rapacious measures which were taken against the provinces: common land was being enclosed and so ordinary people lost rights to grazing and some of their food supplies; Henry had disposed of 1,593 areas of monastic land; direct and indirect taxes were summarily increased. Even worse, he was sending hard-nosed commissioners up north and north east, to extort possessions from the middle classes and bully people in general who were vulnerable.
Northerners (anyone north of the Trent/Severn line) felt very distant from government, and they were often written about as a blunt and barbarous people, part-savages. The grudges were mounting as people were executed for quite minor offences. Action needed to be taken, and it was in Lincolnshire that it all began. The catalyst was the punishment of a local man, the Vicar of Louth, Thomas Kendall. His profound beliefs were challenged and tested by the Henrician regime, and he gave a sermon that can only be described as an invitation to rebel. The church bells rang to communicate a rebellion, and they were rung backwards – a sign that there was trouble brewing.
Captain Cobbler started his work in earnest. He was the leader and he had the nucleus of a gang with him from the beginning. A rebellion across the Humber was heard of, and steps were taken to make a connection, for greater strength. A key figure came through now, one Guy Kyme. He became the link-man and messenger between Robert Aske’s men in Yorkshire and Cobbler’s Lincolnshire force. Soon, a huge mass of over 3,000 men was walking towards Caistor. This body was not to be crossed, and they had their first killing quite soon. A bunch of King’s men were pursued and galloped away, but a servant of Lord Burgh’s was grabbed and killed, beaten to death by the mob. Not long after, others were killed, including a man in Horncastle.
The activity in North Lincolnshire came to a head on Hambleton Hill near Market Rasen, and there were so many powerful men involved now, that the whole rebellion was escalating into a national event. It is at this point that Robert Aske made a connection with the Caistor and Barton area. On August 4 at Barton, Aske came off the ferry and, although we know only little about him, he was to have a massive impact on the Pilgrimage. He was a Yorkshireman, with land around Richmond, but also had connections with Aughton, near Howden. This made crossing to Lincolnshire an easy matter for him. In August he made links and associations; and by October he was moving south, passing through Sawcliffe, a few miles north of Scunthorpe, on his way to the Great North Road, accompanied by his nephews.
Aske made a union with the Axholme rebels, and found out that legally, the area around Burton was part of Yorkshire and thus he could appeal to a certain variety of local feeling, all helping the communication process. Aske was to spend a year in negotiations, playing political games, taking part in an accord at Doncaster, and even visiting the King himself at one point, with a guarantee of safe passage. But it was doomed to failure.
Aske was hanged in York in July 1537. We do not really know what happened to King Cobbler. He disappeared from the stage of history during this period. Aske died on market day, on Clifford’s Tower. He was dragged through York, but asked bystanders to pray for him. Of course, skirmishes and reprisals went on for some time, but one of the most significant events in English history had had its beginnings and formed the hub of its communication network, just a few miles from Scunthorpe.