[148] This particular proclamation--the same, apparently, which was read by Christopher Aske at Skipton--I have been unable to find. That which is printed in the State Papers from the Rolls House Records, belongs to the following month. The contents of the first, however, may be gathered from a description of it by Robert Aske, and a comparison of the companion proclamation issued in Lincolnshire. It stated briefly that the insurrection was caused by forged stories; that the king had no thought of suppressing parish churches, or taxing food or cattle. The abbeys had been dissolved by act of parliament, in consequence of their notorious vice and profligacy. The people, therefore, were commanded to return to their homes, at their peril. The commotion in Lincolnshire was put down. The king was advancing in person to put them down also, if they continued disobedient. [149] In explanation of his refusal, Aske said afterwards that it was for two causes: first, that if the herald should have declared to the people by proclamation that the commons in Lincolnshire were gone to their homes, they would have killed him; secondly, that there was no mention in the same proclamation neither of pardon nor of the demands which were the causes of their assembly.--Aske's Narrative: _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 28. [150] Lancaster Herald's Report: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 485. [151] Stapleton's Confession: _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 28. Does this solitary and touching faithfulness, I am obliged to ask, appear as if Northumberland believed that four months before the king and Cromwell had slandered and murdered the woman whom he had once loved? [152] "We were 30,000 men, as tall men, well horsed, and well appointed as any men could be."--Statement of Sir Marmaduke Constable: _MS. State Paper Office._ All the best evidence gives this number. [153] Not the place now known under this name--but a bridge over the Don three or four miles above Doncaster. [154] So Aske states.--Examination: _Rolls House MS._, first series, 838. Lord Darcy went further. "If he had chosen," he said, "he could have fought Lord Shrewsbury with his own men, and brought never a man of the northmen with him." Somerset Herald, on the other hand, said, that the rumour of disaffection was a feint. "One thing I am sure of," he told Lord Darcy, "there never were men more desirous to fight with men than ours to fight with you."--_Rolls House MS._ [155] "Sir Marmaduke Constable did say, if there had been a battle, the southern men would not have fought. He knew that every third man was theirs. Further, he said the king and his council determined nothing but they had knowledge before my lord of Norfolk gave them knowledge." Earl of Oxford to Cromwell: _MS. State Paper Office_. [156] "I saw neither gentlemen nor commons willing to depart, but to proceed in the quarrel; yea, and that to the death. If I should say otherwise, I lie."--Aske's Examination: _Rolls House MS._