Revolting Women · Part 2 · First published August 2025

Women in the Pilgrimage of Grace: Silent Supporters or Engaged Activists?

The Pilgrimage of Grace is usually remembered through lords, abbots and rebel hosts. The surviving record also shows women urging, provisioning, carrying messages and, in Margaret Bulmer’s case, suffering execution for treason.

The road to rebellion

Henry VIII’s break with Rome altered religious and social life across England. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 declared the king head of the Church. Cromwell’s visitations of 1535–36 inspected and valued monastic houses, helping prepare the way for the dissolution of the lesser monasteries. Royal injunctions curtailed some saints’ days, pilgrimages and local devotions. At the same time, subsidy collection and rumours about the seizure of parish valuables fed anxiety.

Lincolnshire

The first major outbreak began at Louth on 1 October 1536 and spread quickly. Depositions preserved in State Papers record unnamed women who “did comfort the commons”. They appear not as commanders of armed bands, but as participants whose words were considered worth recording by officials.

Yorkshire and the rebel host

The Yorkshire rising was much larger. Contemporary and later estimates put the host in the tens of thousands. Women appear in several supporting roles: bringing food and ale, joining public celebrations when the rebels entered York, and carrying intelligence. One examination describes a woman concealing a letter in her clothing to avoid detection.

Margaret Cheyne Bulmer

The most prominent female case is Margaret Cheyne, Lady Bulmer. She was prosecuted for treason after the rising and convicted in May 1537. The original article notes a dispute over the recorded place of execution: some records point to Smithfield, while Stow places it at Tyburn. She was executed by burning on 25 May 1537.

Her case also exposes the gendered language surrounding female political involvement. Later descriptions could present politically active women as sexually disorderly or manipulative, turning political agency into moral accusation.

Noblewomen and counsel

Depositions also brought elite women into view. Lady Conyers and Lady Latimer were accused of counselling their husbands to join the cause. Lady Hussey attracted scrutiny after her husband’s execution. These allegations did not always produce formal charges, but they show that women’s advice was treated as politically consequential.

Economic consequences

Women were not affected only as direct participants. Repression, execution and forfeiture could impoverish households and widows. The surviving record therefore captures both political participation and the gendered consequences of punishment.

What the evidence supports

The evidence does not support a claim that women commanded the Pilgrimage as a collective force. It does support something more precise: women were present in the communications, provisioning, encouragement, household decision-making and aftermath of the rising, and at least one woman was executed for treason in connection with it.

Sources used in the original article

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vols. XI–XII; State Papers SP 1/115–117; York House Books, vol. II; R. W. Hoyle, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s; M. L. Bush, The Pilgrimage of Grace; Barbara Harris, English Aristocratic Women 1450–1550; ODNB; John Stow; Eamon Duffy, Voices of Morebath.