ABSTRACT
The Pilgrimage was the one good opportunity to carry out their long-cherished plans. If the Marquis of Exeter had raised the west and Lord Montague had raised Hampshire, the south would have been plunged into turmoil and the northern Pilgrims would have been able to march on London at leisure. A. F. Henry might have been forced to fly, and Mary proclaimed queen. The White Rose party in England had done nothing to help the Pilgrims. It would have been well for them if they had said as little; and yet the words that were afterwards objected against them were sometimes clearly innocent, sometimes just touched with disaffection to the government,—very seldom coming even under the most stringent treason law ever enforced in England. According to the news then current in Rome, Henry had given way to the Pilgrims, and intended to hold a northern parliament in the spring.
