In his youth Constable carried off a ward of Chancery , and tried to marry her to one of his retainers . In the reign of Henry VII he was of signal service to the crown upon the Cornish Rebellion led by Lord Audley , who marched on London and was defeated at the battle of Blackheath in 1497 . Constable was one of the knights bannerets that were created at Blackheath by Henry VII after his victory on 17 June 1497 . In the following reign he was also at Flodden . In 1536 , on the outbreak of the great Yorkshire rising , known as the Pilgrimage of Grace , caused by the beginning of the destruction of monasteries in 1536 , he took the leading part , along with Robert Aske and Lord Darcy . Constable was among those who made their submission , and received their pardon . At the beginning of the next year , January 1537 , when Sir Francis Bigod rashly attempted to renew the insurrection , Constable exerted himself to keep the country quiet . When this last commotion was over , he , like the other leaders , was invited by King Henry VIII to proceed to London . This he refused , and at the same time removed for safety from his usual place of abode to a dwelling thirty miles away . Hereupon the powerful minister Thomas Cromwell caused the Duke of Norfolk to send him up with a sergeant-at-arms on 8 March . He with Aske and Darcy was committed to the Tower till they should be tried , and meantime Norfolk was directed to say in the north that they were imprisoned , not for their former offences , but for treasons committed since their pardon . What those treasons were the Duke was conveniently forbidden to say . There was ' no speciality to be touched or spoken of ' , but all ' conveyed in a mass together ' . True bills were returned against them , and after their condemnation it seemed to the King ' not amiss ' that some of them should be remitted to their county for execution , ' as well for example as to see who would groan ' . Constable and Aske were therefore sent down to Yorkshire , exhibited as traitors in the towns through which they passed , and Constable was executed at Hull on 6 July 1537 being hanged in chains over Beverley gate at Hull , and thereby forfeited Flamborough and 35 other manors in Lincolnshire . The Duke of Norfolk witnessed his execution ; Sir Robert was married to Jane Ingleby of Ripley ( b. 1472 ) in 1492 , probably in Yorkshire , England . Jane 's parents were Sir William Ingleby of Ripley , son of John Ingleby of Ripley and Margaret Strangeways , Baroness Willoughby , and his wife Catherine Stillington , daughter of Thomas Stillington of Nether Acaster and Agnes Bigod . Sir Robert and Jane had the following issue : He is a major character in '' The Man on a Donkey '' by H F M Prescott
Pilgrimage of Grace
Pilgrimage of Grace
Robert Constable