And word is brought to our royall queene
Of the rysing in the North countrie.
Her grace she turned her round about,
And like a royall queene shee swore,[7]
I will ordayne them such a breakfast,
As never was in the North before.
Shee caus'd thirty thousand men be rays'd,
With horse and harneis faire to see;
She caused thirty thousand men be raised,
To take the earles i' th' North countrie.
Wi' them the false Erle Warwick went,
Th' Erle Sussex and the Lord Hunsden
Untill they to Yorke castle came
I wiss, they never stint ne blan.
Now spred thy ancyent, Westmorland,
Thy dun bull faine would we spye:
And thou, the Erle o' Northumberland,
Now rayse thy half moone up on hye.
But the dun bulle is fled and gone,
And the halfe moone vanished away:
The Erles, though they were brave and bold,
Against soe many could not stay.
Thee, Norton, wi' thine eight good sonnes,
They doom'd to dye, alas! for ruth!
Thy reverend lockes thee could not save,
Nor them their faire and blooming youthe.
Wi' them full many a gallant wight
They cruellye bereav'd of life:
And many a childe made fatherlesse,
And widowed many a tender wife.
NOTES
- This circumstance is overlooked in the ballad.
- Besides this, the ballad mentions the separate banners of the two noblemen.
- This was Anne, daughter of Henry Somerset, Earl of Worcester.
- It is well known that the fate of the Nortons forms the theme of Wordsworth's
White Doe of Rylstone.-- Editor.
5.Dun Bull, &c.] The supporters of the Nevilles, Earls of Westmoreland, were Two
Bulls Argent, ducally collar'd Gold, armed Or, &c. But I have not discovered the
device mentioned in the ballad, among the badges, &c. given by that house. This
however is certain, that, among those of the Nevilles, Lords Abergavenny (who were
of the same family), is a dun cow with a golden collar: and the Nevilles of Chyte in
Yorkshire (of the Westmoreland branch) gave for their crest, in 1513, a dog's (grey-
hound's) head erased. So that it is not improbable but Charles Neville, the unhappy