Rising of the North
gigatos | March 20, 2022
Summary
The Rising of the North, also known as the Revolt of the Northern Earls, was a November-December 1569 rebellion aimed at the overthrow of Queen Elizabeth I, an Anglican, the enthronement of the Catholic queen Mary Stuart, and the restoration of the Catholic faith in England. The rebellion was led by two Catholic earls with estates in northern England: Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland and Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmoreland; Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, was also involved. They were pushed to the rebellion by emissaries of King Philip II of Spain. It was ill-prepared, however, and quickly enough suppressed, the leaders of the rebellion fleeing England. One of them, the Earl of Westmoreland, died in exile; another, the Earl of Northumberland, was extradited to England and executed. Their estates and titles were confiscated.
In 1558, Queen Mary I of England died and was succeeded by Elizabeth I. However, not everyone was happy with her candidacy. First of all, the Catholics were dissatisfied, for they questioned the legitimacy of Elizabeth”s birth; in addition, the new queen practiced Anglicanism. The Catholics, supported by the kings of France and Spain, believed that Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, who was the granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII, should be queen. This position was particularly strongly supported in Northern England, where several influential members of the English nobility were Catholics. Even during the reign of Henry VIII in the North of England there was dissatisfaction with the religious policy of the king, which resulted in two rebellions (the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 and the Beagot Rebellion of 1537). The position of Mary Stuart”s supporters strengthened after the birth of her son James in 1566, but in 1567 she was overthrown and forced to flee to England, where Queen Elizabeth effectively imprisoned her.
The religious conversion movement was supported by other Catholic states, especially Spain, whose ruler, King Philip II, the former husband of Queen Mary Tudor, sent emissaries to England who made contact with disaffected nobles. One of these was Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland.
Although the Earl of Northumberland had no political ambitions, he was devoted to the Catholic faith. In addition, he was dissatisfied with Queen Elizabeth”s religious policies. As a result, the Spanish emissaries who approached him were able to convince the Earl of the need for rebellion by promising to send military aid.
Another aristocrat involved in the rebellion was Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. One of the richest men in England, he was widowed for the third time in 1567. And Mary Stuart”s flight to England led him to the idea of becoming her husband and returning her to the throne, but Queen Elizabeth, who did not trust the duke, refused to support his intrigue. But Norfolk was determined to carry out his plan, especially since the northern nobility supported his marriage aspirations and he himself had the support of Spain. Though he himself later denied taking part in the plot to overthrow Elizabeth, he did involve another northern earl, Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmoreland, married to his sister Jane Howard, in the rebellion. He was at the English court in August, but on September 22, learning that Elizabeth, who feared his ambitions, was likely to send him to imprisonment in the Tower, fled to his possessions. In response, the queen demanded his return, disbelieving his absences about illness. The duke sent a message to the northern earls, begging them not to start a rebellion now, as it might cost him his life, and on October 2 was forced to obey the order and arrived at St. Albans, after which he was placed in the custody of the Tower. Because of this he did not take part in the rebellion itself.
In September 1569, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland met at York with the Earl of Sussex, head of the Council of the North, with whom they were on friendly terms. However, he soon began to doubt their loyalty, and it was also revealed that the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland were in correspondence with the Spanish ambassador, in early November on the advice of the Earl of Sussex both Earls were suddenly summoned to London, but they refused to come.
On November 14, the Earl of Northumberland wrote a letter of apology, pledging allegiance to the crown, but the rebels realized they had been exposed, panic broke out among them, and they rebelled prematurely. On November 15, several soldiers arrived at the house of the Earl of Northumberland with orders to arrest him as a precautionary measure, but he managed to slip away and arrive at the house of the Earl of Westmoreland in Brunsepet. There the two earls issued a proclamation about their intention to restore the Catholic faith, urging supporters to join them, as well as their intention to free the former Queen of Scots, Mary Stuart, who was imprisoned at Tutbury. The earls and their men were joined by many neighbors and ended up leading an army of 1,700 horsemen and 4,000 infantry. Although the horsemen were well-trained warriors, the infantrymen were for the most part an undisciplined mob. On November 16, the army moved into Durham, where a Catholic Mass was held and Anglican devotional books were burned. On November 17 they moved south to Darlington and then toward York. They did not attack York, passing it. Between November 18 and 20, the Earl of Northumberland visited Richmond, urging their inhabitants to join the rebellion. On November 20, both earls attended mass at Ripon with the Countess of Northumberland. At the same time, one of their detachments occupied Hartlepool to provide a link to the Continent, from where the rebels waited for help. On November 22, the main rebel army gathered at Clifford Moore
Mary Stuart at this time had already been hurried from Tutbury to Coventry. On November 26 at Windsor the rebel leaders were solemnly proclaimed traitors. At the same time Sir George Bowes raised an army and fortified himself at Barnard Castle, while Sir John Forster and Sir Henry Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland, were gathering troops on the frontier. The rebel leaders at first planned to march on York, where the Earl of Sussex was stationed, but when they learned of the troops that had been raised, they changed their plans. The Earl of Westmoreland moved on Barnard Castle, besieging it. George Bowes successfully defended it for 11 days, but the betrayal of the garrison forced him to surrender the castle in exchange for his freedom, after which he joined the Earl of Sussex. The Earl of Westmoreland himself retreated to Raby, pursued by the army of John Forster and Henry Percy.
The Earl of Northumberland withdrew to Topcliffe, where the Earl of Sussex moved from York on December 11. As he advanced north, the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland joined forces and retreated to the borders. The rebellion was eventually crushed. On December 16, at Hexham, the rebellious earls disbanded their followers, urging them to flee on their own, and they themselves fled to Scotland, finding refuge at Liddesdale
The rebellion was ill-prepared and suppressed. Its leaders were in Scotland, and the English government attempted to bring them back. The Earl of Northumberland was persuaded to return and apply for pardon by his brother, and the Earl of Westmoreland by his relative, Sir Robert Constable. The rebels, however, did not venture to accept the offer. The Earl of Northumberland was eventually captured by the Regent of Scotland, Earl Morton, and extradited to England in 1572, where he was executed. The Earl of Westmoreland fled to the Spanish Netherlands, where he died in poverty in 1601. The Duke of Norfolk, whose evidence of involvement in the rebellion was not found, was implicated in the Ridolfi plot in 1572, as a result of which he was executed in the same year.
The rebellion proved almost bloodless. The death toll was highest during the siege of Barnard Castle, when five soldiers were accidentally killed while jumping over the walls in a desperate attempt to escape the city. In fact, the rebels” main targets were economic, including shelling barns, destroying fields, and killing cattle belonging to supporters of the queen. However, the government cracked down on the rebels with harsh repression. Although the main leaders escaped, more than 800 rebels were executed. In any settlement that aided the rebels, executions were carried out to serve as a warning to others.
In 1571 all the estates and titles of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland were confiscated. The title of Earl of Northumberland was eventually given to Henry Percy, brother of the former earl, because he remained loyal to the queen. The title of Earl of Westmoreland, however, was not recreated until 1624 for Francis Fain, maternal grandson of Henry Neville, 4th Baron Abergavenny, descendant of the first Earl of Westmoreland.
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