HENRY VIII has been much in the news recently. Exhibitions here and abroad, and more recently a two-part television series.

They have all been interesting and revealing, but what has not always come out, certainly not in an analytical way, is an account of a dramatic rebellion which could have lost him his throne, and which came to a climax in York.

It all began in 1533; Henry had built up a rage against the Roman Catholic Church for standing in the way of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

Once the marriage was declared void by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Henry began to turn his back on Rome, and declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England. He also gave his favourite Thomas Cromwell a free hand to send in the troops to ransack, rob and seize the treasures of the Catholic church in his name.

This action was seen as the King's betrayal of the "old" religion and sparked off a rebellion that was to spread through congregations from Lincolnshire into Yorkshire and west into Lancashire and Cumbria.

Geoffrey Moorhouse's book provides a readable account of an outrage which generally does not get beyond a few lines in most of Henry's biographies.

The Pilgrimage Of Grace recounts in graphic detail how the rebellion started in Lincolnshire, at the parish church of Louth, where from its pulpit its vicar, Thomas Kendall, preached the sermon that initiated the uprising. As an orthodox and rigorous theologian, he was outraged at what he saw as his church and beliefs challenged and degraded by the king. He said so.

His words echoed throughout the parishes of Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and the north west and before long more than 30,000 rebels, The Pilgrims Of Grace as they became known, most of them church commoners but led by many gentry of the day, were on the march, posing a huge threat to various towns as well as Henry's own standing in the north of England.

However, Henry was a master of cunning political manoeuvring, and was able to persuade the rebel leaders that their grievances would be considered and insurgents had nothing to worry about. The marchers accepted his word, the rebellion ended and marchers set off back to their homes.

But it was not long before the leaders paid with their lives, with the chief captain and negotiator for the Pilgrims, Robert Aske, eventually executed at York in 1537.

Updated: 08:52 Wednesday, November 19, 2003