III. The Rising in the North........................................................................................
The subject of this ballad is the great northern insurrection in the 12th year of
Elizabeth, 1569; which proved so fatal to Thomas Percy, the seventh Earl of
Northumberland.
There had not long before been a secret negotiation entered into between some
of the Scottish and English nobility, to bring about a marriage between Mary Queen
of Scots, at that time a prisoner in England, and the Duke of Norfolk, a nobleman of
excellent character and firmly attached to the Protestant religion. This match was
proposed to all the most considerable of the English nobility, and among the rest to
the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, two noblemen very powerful in the
north. As it seemed to promise a speedy and safe conclusion of the troubles in
Scotland, with many advantages to the crown of England, they all consented to it,
provided it should prove agreeable to Queen Elizabeth. The Earl of Leicester
(Elizabeth's favourite) undertook to break the matter to her; but before he could find
an opportunity, the affair had come to her ears by other hands, and she was thrown
into a violent flame. The Duke of Norfolk, with several of his friends, was committed
to the Tower, and sumnmonses were sent to the northern Earls instantly to make their
appearance at court. It is said that the Earl of Northumberland, who was a man of a
mild and gentle nature, was deliberating with himself whether he should not obey the
message, and rely on the queen's candour and clemency, when he was forced into
desperate measures by a sudden report at midnight, Nov. 14, that a party of his
enemies were come to seize on his person.[1] The earl was then at his house at
Topcliffe in Yorkshire. When rising hastily out of bed, he withdrew to the Earl of
Westmoreland, at Brancepeth, where the country came in to them, and pressed them
to take arms in their own defence. They accordingly set up their standards, declaring
their intent was to restore the ancient religion, to get the succession to the crown
firmly settled, and to prevent the destruction of the ancient nobility, &c. Their
common banner[2] (on which was displayed the cross, together with the five wounds
of Christ,) was borne by an ancient gentleman, Richard Norton, Esq. of Norton-
Conyers: who with his sons (among whom Christopher, Marmaduke, and Thomas, are
expressly named by Camden,) distinguished himself on this occasion. Having entered
Durham, they tore the Bible, &c. and caused mass to be said there: they then marched
on to Clifford-moor near Wetherby, where they mustered their men. Their intention
was to have proceeded to York; but, altering their minds, they fell upon Barnard's
castle, which Sir George Bowes held out against them for eleven days. The two earls,
who spent their large estates in hospitality, and were extremely beloved on that
account, were masters of little ready money; the Earl of Northumberland bringing
with him only 8000 crowns, and the Earl of Westmoreland nothing at all for the
subsistence of their forces, they were not able to march to London, as they at first
intended. In these circumstances, Westmoreland began so visibly to despond, that
many of his men slunk away, though Northumberland still kept up his resolution, and
was master of the field till December 13, when the Earl of Sussex, accompanied with
Lord Hunsdon and others, having marched out of York at the head of a large body of
forces, and being followed by a still larger army under the command of Ambrose
Dudley, Earl of Warwick, the insurgents retreated northward towards the borders, and
there dismissing their followers, made their escape into Scotland. Though this
insurrection had been suppressed with so little bloodshed, the Earl of Sussex and Sir
George Bowes, marshal of the army, put vast numbers to death by martial law,