Suppression: PM Emerson's novel on the rising that led to the Pilgrimage of Grace

A new novel explores the biggest rebellion of Tudor times. Grame Hammond reports.

Visitors to the market town of Louth might know it now as cobbled, quaint and mostly untroubled by drama.

But back in 1536, it was the location of the Lincolnshire Rising, leading to the biggest rebellion of the Tudor period.

Locals rallied against against King Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries in what became known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.

And this is the backdrop to Suppression, the debut novel from PM Emerson, a journalist who spent more than four decades working for publications and medical bodies nationwide. Much of her career was based in Lincolnshire, with a focus on how "distant decision-makers affected the lives of local people without a voice”.

The mother-of-two and grandmother moved to Surrey after being widowed and Suppression is her debut novel.

She says: “This story was inspired by a blue plaque remembering the vicar of Louth, who had been executed for his part in the Lincolnshire Rising. I knew Louth well and wanted to find out more.

“As I did, I realised that, without any good reason, I disliked the poor man intensely. However, my research kept mentioning a monk who was suppressed when the abbey at Louth was seized, and I switched my focus to him. Finding the monk’s testimony in the National Archives was a wonderful moment and I was hooked.”

At the time the book is set, Henry VIII had declared himself Head of the Church of England, uprooting the order the country has followed for centuries.

But her character Anys Barre has more immediate fears. Struggling to raise her fatherless child, she believes the fate of her soul lies in the hands of the new vicar, Thomas Kendall, a man who despises her.

Close by at Louth Park Abbey, devoted monk William Morland, a Yorkshireman, watches with growing dread as the king's quarrel with Rome turns into open war on the monasteries.

When Louth's abbey is seized, monks and townspeople alike are powerless to prevent its fall. Yet it forges unexpected alliances, and when Kendall appears to defy the king's actions openly during a service, it throws Anys and William into the centre of a growing storm as Louth becomes the spark that threatens to set the North ablaze with with Lincolnshire Rising.

The book follows he Pilgrimage of Grace, the largest ever rising of English Catholics, and includes the story of the lawyer Robert Aske, who left his home in the East Riding to ride with the Lincolnshire men before returning to Yorkshire to become leader of Pilgrims; Sir Robert Constable, commander of the East Riding Pilgrims; and John Hallam, a pilgrim and farmer from the Driffield area, all of whom are executed in Yorkshire for the parts they played.

Several Yorkshire monasteries, including Meaux near Beverley and Rievaulx close to Helmsley, also play significant parts in the story.

Suppression by PM Emerson, released by The Book Guild imprint of Troubador Publishing, is out now. ISBN: 9781835744291.