Susan Loughlin

A difficult read. Susan Loughlin’s Insurrection is about The Pilgrimage of Grace, a 1536 protest against Henry VIII’s religious policies by the Catholic population of northern England. The topic is interesting enough, but Loughlin’s book was developed from a PhD thesis and retains much of the language style of a dissertation. A particular feature that annoyed me was repeated reference to previous scholars by name: “Dickens maintained…”; “Accord to Shagin…”; “Andy Wood has stressed…”; “Professor Steven Ellis has described…” and so on. While this may be necessary to convince your committee that you’ve read all the relevant authors, it detracts from readability for the nonacademic.

Was the Pilgrimage organized by the upper classes, or was it a spontaneous mass movement? Loughlin holds for the later, noting that although some nobility joined up, there was no evidence of prior planning. In fact if there had be even a moderate amount of strategy by the Pilgrims, the movement might have succeeded – forced Henry VIII to modify some of religious reforms he’d instituted, and/or to dismiss some of his councilors – particularly Thomas Cromwell. The Pilgrims were able to organize a large number of people – contemporary estimates range from 30 thousand to 80 thousand – and even with a minimum of weaponry a mass this large could have defeated royal forces sent against it. Instead the Duke of Norfolk, in command of royal forces, made various promises to the Pilgrims and they dispersed. After things had settled down Henry VIII was vengeful despite promises of clemency; Robert Aske, one of the Pilgrim’s leaders, was hanged in chains from the walls of York and various other participants ended up with similar medieval justice.

Was the Pilgrimage a genuine religious movement or was it an economic protest? Loughlin argues for religion; the protestors wanted abbeys and festivals restored. However, lots of people who acted against the Pilgrimage come out with substantial economic rewards – manors and estates confiscated from the religious houses. People who played their cards right – some supposed sympathy during the Pilgrimage followed by brutality afterward, with letters to the King advertising how brutal they’d been, came out very well.

Interesting enough after you get through the academic verbiage. No maps. A plate section with generic illustrations of people and places connected to the Pilgrimage. Lots of footnotes but a skimpy index.… (altro)