Cromwell acted most cautiously; he selected the strongest men to take the field.  Richard Cromwell said of one of them, Sir John Russell, “for my lord admiral, he is so earnest in the matter that I dare say he could eat the Pilgrims without salt.”  The Duke of Norfolk was entrusted with the command of the king’s forces.

Henry preferred negotiation to battle, in accepting which the rebels were doomed.  To wait was to fail.  Their demands reduced to paper were:  1.  The religious houses should be restored. 2.  England should be reunited with Rome. 3.  The first fruits and tenths should not be paid to the crown. 4.  Heretics, meaning Cranmer, Latimer and others, should cease to be bishops. 5.  Catharine’s daughter Mary should be restored as heiress to the crown.  These and other demands, the granting of which would have meant the death of the Reformation, were firmly refused by the king, who marveled that ignorant churls, “brutes and inexpert folk” should talk of theological and political subjects to him and to his council.

After several ineffectual attempts to meet the royal army in battle, partly due to storms and lack of subsistence, the rebels were induced to disperse and a general amnesty was declared.  But new insurrections broke out in various quarters, and the enraged king determined to stamp out the smoldering fires of sedition.  About seventy-five persons were hanged, and many prominent men were imprisoned and afterwards executed.  This effectually suppressed the rebellion.

The revolt showed the strength of the opponents to the king’s will, but it also proved conclusively that the monarchy was the strongest power in the realm; that the star of ecclesiastical domination had set forever in England; that henceforth English kings and not Italian popes were to govern the English people.  True, the king was carrying things with a high hand, but one reform at a time; the yoke of papal power must first be lifted, even if at the same time the king becomes despotic in the exercise of his increased power.  Once free from Rome, constitutional rights may be asserted and the power of an absolute monarchy judiciously restricted.

Following the Pilgrimage of Grace came the complete overthrow of the monastic system by the dissolution of the larger monasteries.

Henry’s Disposal of Monastic Revenues

What use did Henry make of the revenues that fell into his hands?  As soon as the vast estates of the monks were under the king’s control, he was besieged by nobles, “praying for an estate.”  They kneeled before him and specified what lands they wanted.  They bribed Cromwell, who sold many of the estates at the rate of a twenty years’ purchase, and in some instances presented valuable possessions to the king’s followers.  Many families, powerful in England at the present time, date the beginning of their wealth and position to the day when their ancestors received their share of the king’s plunder.