* 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 summons 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 upon 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. 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 of the crown firmly settled, and to prevent the destruction of the ancient nobility, &c. Their common banner† (on which was displayed the Cross, together with the five wounds of Christ) was borne by an ancient gentleman, Richard Norton, Esq., of NortonConyers; 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 *This circumstance is overlooked in the ballad. + Besides this, the ballad mentions the separate banners of the two noblemen. moor near Wetherbye, where they mustered their men. Their intention was to have proceeded on 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 had 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 Hunsden 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, without any regular trial. The former of these caused at Durham sixty-three constables to be hanged at once. And the latter made his boast, that for sixty miles in length and forty in breadth, betwixt Newcastle and Wetherbye, there was hardly a town or village wherein he had not executed some of the inhabitants. This exceeds the cruelties practised in the West after Monmouth's rebellion: but that was not the age of tenderness and humanity. Such is the account collected from Stow, Speed, Camden, Guthrie, Carte, and Rapin; it agrees in most particulars with the following ballad, which was apparently the production of some northern minstrel, who was well affected to the two noblemen. It is here printed from two MS. copies, one of them in the editor's folio collection. They contained considerable variations, out of which such readings were chosen as seemed most poetical and consonant to history. LISTEN, lively lordings all, And I will sing of a noble earle, The noblest earle in the north countrìe. Earle Percy is into his garden gone, 5 And after him walkes his faire ladie:* I heare a bird sing in mine eare, That I must either fight, or flee. Now heaven forefend, my dearest lord, That ever such harm should hap to thee: 10 But goe to London to the court, And faire fall truth and honestìe. Now nay, now nay, my ladye gay, Mine enemies prevail so fast, That at the court I may not bee. 15 *This lady was Anne, daughter of Henry Somerset, Earl of Worcester. O goe to the court yet, good my lord, Then your warrant they may bee. Now nay, now nay, thou lady faire, Yet goe to the court, my lord, she sayes, 25 And I myselfe will ryde wi' thee: At court then for my dearest lord, Now nay, now nay, my lady deare; Than leave among my cruell foes My love in jeopardy and strife. But come thou hither, my little foot-pàge, To maister Norton thou must goe Commend me to that gentleman, And say that earnestly I praye, VOL. I. 20 One while the little foot-page went, When to that gentleman he came, And when the letter it was redd I wis, if you the truthe wold know, He sayd, Come thither, Christopher Norton, Father, my counselle's fair and free; Gramercy, Christopher, my sonne, Thy counsell well it liketh mee, And if we speed and scape with life, Well advanced thou shalt bee. word. 45 50 55 60 |