Meanwhile Robert Aske was sending out letters to the men of the East Riding, and on Sunday, October 8th, the town bell at Beverley was set ringing and the townsmen ‘took oathe to the comons.’ Then with greate noyse, showtes, and cryes they made proclamation everye man to appere at Westwood grene the morrowe after with suche horse and harnes as they had upon payne of death. Great was the alarm of the ‘weake, craysid’ Christopher at these doings, and he gave orders to his people that they should keep themselves within doors. But his wife had determined otherwise, and went out to talk over the hedge and learn what was happening. ‘Where is your husband and his folkes that he cometh not as other dooth?’ she was asked, and her reply made quite clear which way her sympathies lay. ‘They be in the freers, goo pull them oute by the heddes.’ Christopher Stapleton’s wife had evidently paid more heed to the advice of a certain Carthusian monk, ‘Sir Thomas Johnson, otherwise called Bonadventure,’ who was at that time an inmate of the Grey Friary, than she had to the commands of her husband. The lady’s suggestion came very near being carried out on the following morning. But appearances were saved by William Stapleton and his brother Brian’s coming out on the ‘Westwood grene’ to take their oath, while ‘certayne honnest men’ were sent to record the oath of Christopher. Whereat Christopher’s wife and the Carthusian monk were ‘very joyous and merye,’ while outside on the ‘grene’ there were unanimous cries: ‘Maister William Stapulton shelbe our Captayne.’ * * * * * William Stapleton thus became one of the leaders of the insurgents. By his orders Hunsley beacon and Tranby beacon were fired; men came in from _Newbalde_ and _North Cave_, _Brantyngham_, _Cottingham_ and _Hassell_; and a small army of nine thousand marched to _Wighton Hill_, there to meet Robert Aske, who had ‘raysed all Howdenshire and Marshelande.’ Following the plan of campaign decided upon at Weighton, Aske with the main part of the army of insurgents marched to York, which surrendered on October 16th, and thence to Pontefract, which he captured four days later. Meanwhile Stapleton laid siege to Hull, encamping his men close to the Beverley Gate. The city was being held for the King by Sir Ralph Ellerker and Sir John Constable, neither of whom would hear of surrender; for they were determined, as Sir John Constable put it, rather to ‘dye with honneste than lyve with shame.’ An easy way to effect the capture of the town was pointed out by one of Stapleton’s men, who said that with one barell of pyche fiered and sent downe with the tyde he would sett on fyer all the shippes in the haven. But Stapleton would have none of such methods, and, much to the disgust of the more unruly of his men, he even forbade the firing of the windmills near the Beverley Gate.