Robert Aske (political leader)

Robert Aske (1500–1537) was an English lawyer, who became a leader of rebellion in Yorkshire. He led the Pilgrimage of Grace protest in 1536; King Henry VIII of England had him executed for treason on 12 July 1537.

Aske was the younger son of Sir Robert Aske of Aughton near Selby, a scion of an old Yorkshire family. The family was well connected: one of Aske's cousins was Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland, his first cousin once removed, for his mother Elizabeth Clifford was the daughter of John Clifford, 9th Baron de Clifford, and Margaret Bromflete; Queen Jane Seymour was also his third cousin through the same line.

Aske became a lawyer, and was a Fellow at Gray's Inn. A devout man, he objected to Henry's religious reforms, 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 locals 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.

On 13 November 1536, Aske treated with the royal delegates, including the Duke of Norfolk, and received an assurance of an audience and safe passage to the king. Among the insurgents' requests was the punishment of heretical bishops and of the king's evil advisers, the recall of his anti-ecclesiastical legislation, the prosecution of his "visitors", Lee and Layton, and the holding of a parliament in the North. He travelled to London, met Henry VIII, and received promises of redress and safe passage.

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