The story so far…
Week 38: Vile Blood (1/2)
Aske: he is a petty gentleman, but the king places him at once – second cousin to Harry Percy, and kin to the Cliffords of Skipton Castle.
Cromwell knows him as a member of Gray’s Inn. He has enforced an oath on all pilgrims, lending the rebellion ‘the colour of piety.’
He is aware it is a gross presumption to offer oaths in the name of the king. And he must forsee – for he must be acquainted with the chronicles – what the end will be: how rank the puddle in which he swims and will one day sink.
‘If Aske were fighting in your own cause, you would call him a robust captain, and godly too, because he directs his ragbag army to pay for what it takes from the country people.’
Aske has only one eye and the one-eyed Francis Bryan longs to kill him in single combat. ‘How did he lose his eye? No one knows.’