Rising of the North (1569): Catholic Earls Revolt in England

The Rising of the North was a Catholic rebellion in northern England in November and December 1569, led by Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and Charles Neville, Earl of Westmorland. The rebels sought to restore the Catholic Mass and to free Mary, Queen of Scots, from captivity. It was the most serious armed challenge to Elizabeth I’s rule, and its failure was followed by harsh reprisals.

Background

The north of England was still largely Catholic in sympathy a decade after Elizabeth’s religious settlement of 1559. Its great families, the Percys and the Nevilles, had long ruled the region, but they felt pushed aside by the queen’s government, led by William Cecil, and by officials sent from the south.

Mary, Queen of Scots, had fled to England in May 1568 after losing her throne following the murder of Lord Darnley and its aftermath. To many English Catholics she was the rightful heir to the throne. In 1569 a group of nobles promoted a plan to marry her to Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, England’s senior nobleman.

Elizabeth learned of the scheme and was furious. Norfolk was sent to the Tower of London in October 1569. When the queen ordered the northern earls to come to court, they feared that they too would be arrested.

The rising

Urged on by their supporters, including Westmorland’s wife Jane Howard, Norfolk’s sister, the earls gathered their followers in County Durham. On 14 November 1569 they entered Durham, where their men destroyed Protestant service books in the cathedral and had the Latin Mass celebrated. The rebels marched under the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ, recalling the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536. In the following weeks altars were set up again and Mass was said in many parish churches of Durham and North Yorkshire, and some people were reconciled to the Catholic Church. The earls issued proclamations saying that they acted to restore the true religion and to protect the realm from evil counsellors, while declaring loyalty to the queen.

The rebel army, perhaps 5,000 to 6,000 strong, moved south through Yorkshire, reaching Bramham Moor near Tadcaster. Its aim was Tutbury in Staffordshire, where Mary was held. But the government moved her south to Coventry, and the rebels, short of money, arms and noble support, turned back in late November.

They besieged Barnard Castle, held for the queen by Sir George Bowes, which surrendered in mid-December, and seized the port of Hartlepool in the hope of Spanish help. No help came.

Collapse

The Earl of Sussex, president of the Council of the North at York, and a large royal army from the south under the Earl of Warwick and Lord Clinton (the Lord Admiral) advanced against them. Without fighting a battle, the rebel leaders disbanded their forces in mid-December and fled across the border into Scotland.

In February 1570 Leonard Dacre raised a further revolt in Cumberland. Lord Hunsdon defeated him near the River Gelt on 20 February 1570, the only real battle of the episode, and Dacre fled abroad.

Repression

Elizabeth demanded exemplary punishment. She ordered around 700 executions under martial law, aimed mainly at ordinary men without property, while richer rebels could buy pardons or lost their lands. Historians estimate that several hundred were actually hanged, often given as 450 to 600, in towns and villages across Durham and Yorkshire.

Northumberland was sold to the English by the Scottish regent’s government and beheaded at York on 22 August 1572. Westmorland escaped to the Spanish Netherlands and died there in 1601. The estates of the Nevilles were forfeited to the crown.

Consequences

The failure of the rising broke the independent power of the old northern nobility. The Council of the North was strengthened, and the region was increasingly governed by men loyal to the crown.

The pope’s bull Regnans in Excelsis, issued in February 1570, excommunicated Elizabeth too late to help the rebels. Together with the rising, it convinced the government that Catholicism was a political threat. Penal laws against Catholics grew harsher, and Norfolk, involved in a new conspiracy, the Ridolfi Plot, was executed in 1572.

Timeline

• 1568, May: Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England.
• 1569, October: The Duke of Norfolk is sent to the Tower.
• 1569, 14 November: The rebels enter Durham and restore the Mass in the cathedral.
• 1569, late November: The rebels turn back from Bramham Moor.
• 1569, mid-December: Barnard Castle surrenders; the earls flee to Scotland.
• 1570, 20 February: Leonard Dacre is defeated near the River Gelt.
• 1572, 22 August: Northumberland is executed at York.

Why it matters

The Rising of the North was the last great rebellion of England’s feudal nobility and the last major Catholic rising against the Tudor state. Its defeat secured Elizabeth’s Protestant settlement, while the fear it caused shaped the harsh treatment of English Catholics for decades, up to the time of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.