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'And
the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction
of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their
taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of
the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good
land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.' {Exodus Chapter III
verses 7&8} The key to understanding the Exodus of Crathornes leaving their ancestral home and settling several hundred miles away is an understanding of what was going on with religion in the 1500s. England had been a Catholic country since Christians first arrived in the British Isles and converted the heathen people. So Catholicism was the order of the day for everyone, until Henry VIII wanted to get a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and the Pope wouldn't let him. In 1534 Henry set up the Protestant Church of England, with himself as the head rather than the Pope. A few years later he took his most decisive step against the power of the church, when he began the Dissolution of the Monasteries. However not everyone agreed with this new religion, especially in the north of England where Catholicism remained strong. There were several uprisings leading to the 'Pilgrimage of Grace' which took place in 1536 & 1537. This began at Louth in Lincolnshire spreading to Yorkshire and then to Cumberland and Westmorland, with tens of thousands of people marching to its cause.
Pilgrimage members swore an oath of allegiance making clear they supported God, the Church and the King, but not the 'villein blood and evil councillors' of the new religion. Robert Aske was made leader, and the rebels occupied York on the 16th of October 1536 then on the 20th captured Pontefract Castle, where Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York took the oath. Monks and nuns were reinstated, and Aske announced his intention of marching to London to declare their grievances to the King himself and obtain restitution for the Church.
One
strand of this revolt was 'Bigod's insurrection' of January 1537, where Sir
Francis Bigod of Settrington, Yorkshire, led an uprising at Beverley. The whole
of the North was soon in the hands of the rebels, with military posts from
Newcastle to Hull. Subsequently
Aske, followed by 30,000 to
40,000 men, proceeded south towards Doncaster, where the royal forces were
stationed. Henry VIII's army was not strong enough to fight this enormous uprising, so he negotiated a peace with Robert Aske. The King promised that he would pardon the rebels and hold a parliament in York to discuss their demands, so the Pilgrimage of Grace army, thinking they had won, went back to their homes. However, as soon as they'd dispersed, the leaders were arrested and over 200 people were then executed for their part in the rebellion, including Robert Aske, Sir Francis Bigod and Abbots of the four largest monasteries in the north. Henry VIII himself ordered that "dreadful execution to be done upon a good number of inhabitants of every town, village and hamlet that have offended…" - which must have included the Catholic community of Crathorne. It seems certain that the Crathorne family itself was closely involved with this resistance against the state. In the mid 1430s a Crathorne had married Catherine Bigod, from the prominent Catholic family which later produced both Sir Francis Bigod and Robert Aske, the leaders of the rebellion who had been killed by the King. So the Crathornes had direct family links with the rebel leaders themselves. In this climate of rebellion and fear, it seems quite probable that some of the Catholic Crathornes would want to spirit their families away to safer places, outside the violence and executions of the North. So where did they go? Although the International Genealogical Index doesn't list every marriage, it does provide an indication of where the Crathornes were – and it shows an interesting trend. There are just 20 marriages outside Yorkshire before 1600: 4 in Lincolnshire, 3 in Norfolk, 2 in Warwickshire and Kent, and 1 each in Leicestershire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Sussex. The only cluster is in London, where a Roger Crathorne had married in 1518 (or at least made a Will then) and 4 others - presumably his children - had children in the 1560s and 70s.
Apart from the London group, it is striking that all the families are from single isolated marriages. This implies that they had only recently moved to the area, as a long established family would have more than one wedding in a 50-year period. All the marriages are south from Crathorne, only on the eastern side of England, with many near the coast. Were they all trying to find safety in remote locations? Was the Exodus planned, or just individuals moving away? And are there Catholic links to all their new homes? Not all of these isolated Crathorne colonies would survive over time, but several - in London, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire - certainly did! To find out more about Crathornes in all the counties of England, click on the 'counties' button below. Or click 'Evolution for a graphic summary of how the Crathornes spread over time.
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