Robert Aske

Robert Aske (c. 1500 – 12 July 1537) was an English lawyer who became a leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace uprising against the Suppression of Religious Houses Act 1535 in 1536. He was executed for treason against King Henry VIII on 12 July 1537. Life Aske was a younger son of Sir Robert Aske of Aughton near Selby, of an old Yorkshire family. Aske was well connected: his mother, Elizabeth Clifford, was a daughter of John Clifford, 9th Baron de Clifford, and his wife Margaret Bromflete (only daughter of Sir Henry Bromflete; and Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland, was his first cousin once removed. Queen Jane Seymour was also his third cousin, also through his mother. Aske became a barrister and was a Fellow of Gray's Inn. A devout man, he objected to Henry's religious revolt, particularly the Dissolution of the Monasteries. When rebellion broke out in York against Henry VIII, Aske was returning to Yorkshire from London. Not initially involved in the rebellion, he took up the cause of the rebels and headed the Pilgrimage of Grace. By 10 October 1536, he had come to be regarded as their "chief captain". Most of Yorkshire, and parts of Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, and Westmorland were in revolt. Nine thousand insurgents marched on York, where Aske arranged for the expelled monks and nuns to return to their houses; the King's tenants were driven out and religious observance resumed.