Henry thundered an answer in his most high and mighty style: "How presumptuous then are ye, the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm, and of least experience to find fault with your prince in the electing of his councillors and prelates!" He at once dispatched an army with orders "to invade their countries, to burn, spoil and destroy their goods, wives and children." [Sidenote: March 1537] Repression of the rising in Lincolnshire was followed by the execution of forty-six leaders. But the movement had promptly spread to Yorkshire, where men gathered as for a peaceable demonstration, [Sidenote: October 1536] and swore not to enter "this pilgrimage of grace for the commonwealth, save only for the {304} maintenance of God's faith and church militant, preservation of the king's person, and purifying the nobility of all villein's blood and evil counsellors, to the restitution of Christ's church and the suppression of heretics' opinions." In Yorkshire it was feared that the money extorted from the abbeys was going to London; and that the new treason's acts would operate harshly. Cumberland and Westmoreland soon joined the rising, their special grievance being the economic one of the rise of rents, or rather of the heavy fines exacted by landlords on the renewal of leases. An army of 35,000 was raised by the insurgents but their leader, Robert Aske, did not wish to fight, though he was opposed by only 8,000 royal troops. He preferred a parley and demanded, in addition to a free pardon, the acceptance of the northern demands, the summons of a free Parliament, the restoration of the papal supremacy as touching the cure of souls, and the suppression of the books of Tyndale, Huss, Luther, and Melanchthon. The king invited Aske to a personal interview, and promised to accede to the demand for a Parliament if the petitioners would disperse. An act of violence on a part of a few of the northerners was held to absolve the government, and Henry, having gathered his forces, demanded, and secured, a "dreadful execution" of vengeance. Though the Pilgrimage of Grace had some effect in warning Henry not to dabble in foreign heresies, the policy he had most at heart, that of making himself absolute in state and church, went on apace. The culmination of the growth of the royal power is commonly seen in the Statute of Proclamations [Sidenote: Statute of Proclamations, 1539] apparently giving the king's proclamations the same validity as law save when they touched the lives, liberty, or property of subjects or were repugnant to existing statutes. Probably, however, the intent of Parliament was not {305} to confer new powers on the crown but to regulate the enforcement of already existing prerogatives. As a matter of fact no proclamations were issued during the last years of Henry's reign that might not have been issued before.