The news of this outbreak was even more disquieting than that of the first. Besides being much further from London, where the King’s armies could only reach them with great difficulty, the Yorkshire rebels were nearer the lawless and hostile Scottish borders. They had from the very first been in sympathy with their neighbours in the south, and had communicated with them by means of beacons burned on the banks of the Humber[461]. The same motives had prompted them to rise in arms. They elected as captain a young barrister named Aske, who issued a proclamation for all men to assemble on Skipworth Moor, and take oath to be faithful to the King’s issue and noble blood, to preserve the Church from spoil, and be true to the commonwealth--a clever euphemism for demanding the death of Cromwell and his adherents. The Yorkshiremen had gone about their revolt with far more method and system than the Lincolnshire rebels. The latter had been easily conquered, mainly because they lacked a head; but the Yorkshiremen promised to give far more trouble. They made musters by scrolls and bills nailed to the door of every church in the county, and proclaimed that any one who refused to take their oaths and rise with them should be put to death, whether he was lord or peasant. It was even rumoured that they intended to send an embassy to Flanders, to ask for aid in money and armed men, and to petition the Pope for absolution for all offences committed in the course of their holy pilgrimage[462]. The King replied at once to Darcy’s letter, commanding him to arrest all seditious persons, and promising so to treat the originators of the revolt in Lincolnshire that all York should soon learn that they had got their deserts[463]. Darcy wrote to the Lord Mayor of York, warning him to be prepared to resist the insurgents, while he himself proceeded to Pomfret Castle to hold it against the rebels, and there awaited further instructions from the King[464]. He succeeded in maintaining his position at Pomfret for only ten days however, for on October 20 he surrendered the town to the rebel army under the leadership of Aske, and together with the Archbishop of York, who had sought refuge there, swore to take part with the insurgents[465]. At his trial in the following year he pleaded that he was unable to hold out any longer because the provisions had run short, and further stated that he had been compelled to side with the rebels under pain of death. He also alleged as an excuse for his conduct that he thought that if he got in touch with the insurgents, he could the more easily induce them to lay down their arms. How loyal he really was to the King must remain a matter of conjecture, but there is strong reason to think that he had much sympathy with the revolt[466].