the army of the Earl of Warwick, 12,000 in number, the insurgents held a council at Durham, on the 16th of December; but dissension again broke out betwixt Westmoreland and Northumberland to such a degree that the forces scattered, and the enterprise was at an end. The foot got away to their homes, and the earls fled across the border with 500 horse.
Elizabeth, who is characteristically represented, in the fine old ballad of "The Rising of the North," as swearing stoutly on the first news of this rising—
"Her grace she turned her round about,
And like a royal queen she swore—
'I will ordaine them such a breakfast,
As never was in the north before,'"—
now demanded the surrender of the fugitives. Murray, by bribes and menaces, induced Hector Armstrong of Harlow, with whom Northumberland had sought refuge, to give him up; but Murray did not dare to send his captive to England, but shut him up in Mary's old prison, the castle of Lochleven, where he continued till 1572, when Morton, having become regent, surrendered him to Lord Hunsdon, at Berwick, when he was sent to York and executed. Westmoreland escaped to Flanders. The Countess of Northumberland, Ratclide, Markenfield, Swinburn, Tempest, and other exiles continued safe amongst the border clans of Hume, Scot, Carr, Maxwell, and Johnstone. The brave old Norton, who bore the banner of his house, which displayed "the cross,
'And the five wounds our Lord did bear,'"
surrounded by his nine gallant sons, is said by the old ballad, which has been followed by Wordsworth in "The White Doe of Rylstone," to have fallen:
"Thee, Norton, with thine eight good sons,
They doomed to die, alas! for sooth;
Thy reverend locks thee could not save.
Nor them their fair and blooming youth."
Francis, the eldest son, who refused to fight against his sovereign, is represented as being killed in endeavouring to rescue the family banner. Other authorities, however, assert that Norton escaped into Scotland with the rest. In England no severity was spared in punishing the fallen insurgents. Those who possessed property were reserved for trial in the courts, to secure the forfeiture of their estates. These, and the fugitives together, amounted to fifty-seven noblemen, gentlemen, and free-holders, so that their wealth would form a good fund for the payment of the expenses of the campaign, and the reward of the officers and soldiers. On the poorer class Sussex let loose his vengeance with a fury which was intended to convince Elizabeth of his before-questioned loyalty. In the county of Durham he put to death more than 300 individuals, hanging at Durham at one time sixty-three constables; and Sir George Bowes made his boast that, for sixty miles in length, and fifty in breadth, betwixt Newcastle and Wetherby, there was hardly a town or village in which he did not gibbet some of the inhabitants as a warning to the rest; a cruelty, says Bishop Percy, "which exceeds that practised in the west after Monmouth's rebellion; but this was not the age of tenderness or humanity." Sussex, in writing to Cecil, says, "I gesse it will not be under six or seven hundred at leaste of the common sort that shall be executed, besides the prisoners taken in the field."
When the vengeance was completed, Elizabeth issued a proclamation that all others should be pardoned who came in and took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. She declared that she was accused of persecuting for religious opinion, but she denied that, affirming that she should molest no one for their religious sentiments, provided they did not gainsay the Scriptures, nor the creed apostolic and catholic; or for their practice, so long as they outwardly conformed to the laws of the realm, and attended regularly the divine service in the ordinary churches, as by statute required.
No one who went out on this expedition acted a stranger part than Leonard Dacres, the head of the house of Gillsland. He was deep in the plots for the restoration of Mary, but at the time of the "rising of the north," he was at the Court of Elizabeth, gathering all the information of affairs that he could. On the outbreak taking place, he hurried to the north, on the pretence of mustering forces for Elizabeth, but in reality for Mary. But, on his arrival, the rebel army was in full retreat from Hexham to Naworth on its way to Scotland. Adroitly calling out his retainers, he pursued his flying friends, and made a number of prisoners, by which he acquired much reputation for his loyalty amongst his neighbours, who were greatly amazed to find, soon after, the Earl of Sussex attempting to arrest him, the Council in London being much better acquainted with his real character than those about him. He then turned about, and on the 20th of February, 1570, sent a defiance to Lord Hunsdon from Naworth Castle. After a bloody skirmish on the banks of the Chelt, the Dacres were defeated, and Leonard fleeing, secured himself first in Scotland, and afterwards in Flanders.
This escapade of the Dacres is supposed to have been excited or encouraged by an event which had just taken place in Scotland—the murder of the regent Murray. The regent, finding that there would never be any rest for either England or Scotland whilst the Queen of Scots was detained in her unjust captivity, entered into serious negotiations with Elizabeth, to have her surrendered to his own custody, when it would have been in his power to get rid of her on some pretence. Knox, in no equivocal language, in a letter to Cecil which still remains, had recommended her being put out of the way, telling him, "If ye strike not at the root, the branches that appear to be broken will bud again, and this more quickly than man can believe, with greater force than we could wish." On the day on which this letter was dated, Murray dispatched Elphinstone to Elizabeth, to impress upon her the absolute necessity of some immediate and decisive dealing with Mary. He assured her that the faction in her favour both at home and abroad was daily acquiring fresh force; that the Spaniards and the Pope were intriguing with the Romanists of England and Scotland, and that daily succours were expected from France. He demanded that she should, therefore, at once exchange the Queen of Scots for the Duke of Norfolk, and enable him, by a proper supply of money and arms, to resist their common foes. He entreated her to remember that the heads of all these troubles—no doubt meaning Mary and Norfolk—were at her command, and that if she declined this arrangement, he must forbear to adventure his life as he had done.
