Henry VIII's attacks on the Church, his assumption of supremacy over it and the dissolution of the monasteries outraged many of his people. In the autumn of 1536, the king faced the worst crisis of his reign – the rebellion that became known as the 'Pilgrimage of Grace'.
The first uprising was in Lincolnshire, and the revolt then spread quickly across the north of England. Under their banner of the Five Wounds of Christ, noblemen and peasants joined together, demanding the return of the old religion, the restoration of the monasteries and the sacking of Thomas Cromwell, whom they thought (rightly) was behind much of what they objected to. Some monks and priests played leading parts, preaching incendiary sermons and even wearing armour.
The rebellion was led by Robert Aske, a London barrister with Yorkshire roots. He and a band of 9,000 followers occupied York, and by the time they reached Doncaster, the insurgents held much of the North.
On 26 October 1536, at Scawsby Leys near Doncaster, the rebels halted. They numbered 30,000, with another 12,000 in reserve at Pontefract – the largest army that England had seen since the Wars of the Roses. The pilgrims were overwhelmingly strong – yet they chose to negotiate.
And that was their undoing. The duke of Norfolk managed to broker a deal and the army dispersed, with promises from Henry that their demands would be met and all the rebels pardoned. But within weeks, Henry reneged on his promises, arrested the ringleaders and exacted a savage retribution. All across the north of England, hundreds of men and women were dragged out of their homes and hanged on the slightest suspicion of having been involved.
Henry's supremacy of the Church, which had begun in the name of freeing England from the papal yoke, was turning into a new royal tyranny, to be enforced by bloodshed.
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 1536: The Pilgrimage of Grace
http://englishhistory.net/tudor/grace.ht
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An account of the uprising by the Tudor chronicler Edward Hall.
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The Pilgrimage of Grace: The rebellion that shook Henry VIII's throne by Geoffrey Moorhouse (Orion, 2003)
A sensational and tragic story set against a backdrop of medieval politics and religion.
Get this book
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 Scawsby Leys
2 miles north-west of Doncaster town centre, South Yorkshire
An unprepossessing track in a field was once the line of the Great North Road where it crosses the broad plain of the northern bank of the River Don. It was here, at dawn on 26 October 1536, that the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace called a general muster of their troops. All the flower of the north was there: 30,000 men. On the other side of the river were King Henry's forces, a mere 8,000 not very willing southern recruits, captained by the aged duke of Norfolk, who had only arrived at 2am. There was no battle, but because of Henry's broken promises and vindictiveness, many of the rebels who behaved so honourably here died soon after.
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