The Isles of Loch Awe and Other Poems of my Youth With Sixteen Illustrations. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton |
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE;
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The Isles of Loch Awe and Other Poems of my Youth | ||
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE;
OR, THE BALLAD OF SIR STEPHEN HAMERTON.
Her shrines King Henry did deface,
When our fathers made in her defence
Their Pilgrimage of Grace.
The narrative of this ballad is simply historical, and nothing is overstated or arranged for effect. The Great Northern Insurrection was called “The Pilgrimage of Grace” by its adherents.
The ballad is written from a Roman Catholic point of view. We ought not to judge the actions of religious men from the outside, as they appear to us; but from the inside, as they appeared to themselves.
Three risings are recorded by Hollinshed. The first was an important one. The insurgent army mustered 40,000 men, well-appointed, “ with captains, horsses, armor, and artillerie.” The rebels encamped near Doncaster, where they were met by the royal forces under the Duke of Norfolk. The two armies were prevented from engaging by a sudden overflow of the River Don, (not an uncommon occurrence there at the present day). Afterwards the king pardoned the ringleaders, and the insurgents dispersed.
The second rising was excited by Sir Francis Bigod of Settrington, Yorkshire, in February 1537. It began in his own neighbourhood, extending to the east coast at Scarborough; but was soon suppressed, and Sir Francis himself imprisoned in the Tower.
The third rising took place later in the same year. Its chiefs were Lord Darcy, Sir Robert Constable, Sir John Bulmer, Sir Thomas Percy (a brother of the Earl of Northumberland), Sir Stephen Hamerton (brother-in-law to Sir Francis Bigod), Robert Aske, and others. They were all brought to the Tower, attainted, and executed.
And many a knight and squire rode forth
To conquer justice from the king
In the Rising of the North.
And suits of steel their pilgrim dress!
Their dames were left in lonely halls
To pray for their success.
To this safe hearth from troubled times,
I would bequeath to all kind hearts
In simple ballad rhymes.
Thereon are carved five ancient shields;
There is a strong, embattled tower
Amid the level fields.
Under the arch beneath the stone.
His wife and children with him rest—
He doth not sleep alone.
Though since her death he won the hand
Of the sister of that bloody lord,
Clifford of Westmoreland.
Beneath the narrow span
Of the arch in the wall of the chantrey built
To our Ladye and St. Anne!
The holy Church's rights,
The last of those who died for her,
The last of the faithful knights;
And now against the ebbing tide,
The boat goes up to Westminster,
Where they must all be tried
“Defender of the Faith;”
They who defended it indeed
Must die a felon's death!
Rose white above the crowded hall;
Like a peak whereon the snow doth rest
It towered above them all.
And Constable, and Hamerton,
But nowhere with the brave esquires
Sir Stephen's only son.
And upward with a calm regret,
Where ranks of angels hold the shield
Of good Plantagenet.
The people groaned to hear the fate
Of that old baron, who had served
For fifty years the state.
And Lincoln ground drank noble blood;
So fell they by the tyrant's hand
Whose lust they had withstood.
And on the gallows, side by side,
Like thieves upon the Tyburn tree,
A felon's death they died.
At York they tolled a funeral knell;
Above the grave of his only son
They tolled the minster bell.
But not a corpse lies buried there
That died a more unhappy death
Than poor Sir Stephen's heir.
For those who slept in the vaults around;
But never more in that dark chapelle
The hymn for the dead shall sound!
Coldly above him the grave did close;
And coldly the priests looked on, and none
Would pray for his soul's repose.
Lived on. In peace her lot was cast.
She lived till Time had slowly healed
The sorrows of the past.
The famous Rising in the North.
Alas! it was a luckless day
Our ancestors rode forth.
But not a corpse lies buried there
That died a more unhappy death
Than poor Sir Stephen's heir.—
The Isles of Loch Awe and Other Poems of my Youth | ||