In doing so, Heneage was acting in his capacity as Steward of the Bishop of Lincoln, John Longland, Lord of the Manor of Louth. As a cleric of unmistakably traditionalist outlook, Longland might seem an unlikely pairing with Cromwell as the symbol of obnoxious religious change, but the very nature of the Bishop’s jurisdiction in Louth invited local resentment. Borough manors dominated by great churchmen rarely had an easy relationship with their clerical overlords. If they had become prosperous boroughs on their own account, they sought rights and freedoms unimagined in the remote ages when
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