This book studies the largest insurrection to occur in England between the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and the English Civil War of the 164Os. It concentrates upon the nine rebel armies that were mobilised in the North during the month of October 1536, examining their recruitment, organisation, grievances and aims, as well as the impact they made upon the government of Henry VIII.

Operating principally from original sources, it revises the standard work of the Dodds and appraises the research produced in the subject over the last thirty years.

Bush proposes that, as a rising of the commons, the aim of the rebellion was to safeguard the commonwealth as well as to protect Christ's faith, arguing that it cannot be fully explained as a reaction against the Henrician Reformation. On the other hand, in adopting the idiom of a rising of the commons, it did not become simply a popular uprising, but was rather a conjunction of protest, with gentlemen, clergy and commons establishing working alliances with each other against the government.

Besides a study of revolt, this book provides a vital insight into the cultural, religious, political and social beliefs of sixteenth-century England.