This Day in History: 1536-10-13

On 13th October 1536, with the remaining Lincolnshire insurgents (precursor to the Pilgrimage of Grace) having dispersed, the Earl of Shrewsbury wrote to Lord Darcy in Pontefract stating that the rebels ‘now mind themselves to be the King’s true and faithful subjects at all times and from time to time accordingly’ and as they would give no further help to the Yorkshiremen (even stopping boats on the Humber, Ouse and Trent so ‘that none shall come over but be glad to return homewards like fools’), he trusted any disturbances near Darcy would cease. On the same day, Darcy wrote to the king expecting the rebels to encounter him shortly but ‘there was not one gun in Pontefract Castle ready to shoot. There is no powder, arrows and bows are few and bad, money and gunners none, the well, the bridge, houses of office etc for defence, much out of frame’.