This Day in History: 1536-10-16

On 16th October 1536, Lord Darcy wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury from Pontefract complaining bitterly that although the king had commanded him ‘to stay or distress the commons who are up in the north and commit the heads to sure ward’, he had already checked the (Pilgrimage of Grace) rising in his own locality for fourteen days, had prevented the rebels from joining the Lincolnshire men but their forces in the north and west surpassed his power to deal with them as he had no weapons or money. He signed off his letter ‘from the King’s strong castle of Pontefract, even the most simply furnished that ever I think was any to defend’.