Edward Lee (bishop) - The Pilgrimage of Grace and Later Life

The Pilgrimage of Grace and Later Life

When the northern insurrection called the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out, later in 1536, Lee's position was equivocal at first. He took refuge on 13 October with Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy de Darcy, who held Pontefract Castle. On the 20th it was surrendered to the rebels, and the archbishop was compelled to take the oath of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Initially perhaps in favour of the movement, his opinion may have changed; for when on 27 November he and the clergy met in the church to consider certain articles proposed to them, he preached on the other side. The clergy, however, would not be led by him, and he was dragged from the pulpit.

For some time out of the king's favour, Cromwell stood by his friend, and in July 1537 Lee wrote to him thanking him for giving Henry a good report of his sermons. In his diocesan duties he was assisted by a suffragan bishop. He served on the commission that drew up the Institution of a Christian Man. In May 1539 he argued in parliament in defence of the Six Articles, and in conjunction with others drew up the bill founded upon them. He was on the commission appointed in the spring of 1540 to examine the doctrines and ceremonies retained in the church, and on that which had to determine on the invalidity of the king's marriage with Anne of Cleves.

From about 1540 he was patron to the struggling Roger Ascham. His support was not very generous, and was accompanied by criticism, but tided Ascham over for a few years at the beginning of his career as humanist and writer.

In 1541 new statutes for the government of the church of York were issued under the great seal. Lee surrendered to the crown in 1542 the manors of Beverley and Southwell and other estates, receiving in exchange lands belonging to certain suppressed priories, an exchange not particularly disadvantageous to the see. He died on 13 September 1544, at the age of sixty-two, and was buried in his cathedral church. Lee was the last archbishop of York that coined money.