Norman castles in Derbyshire…

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Peveril Castle

Peveril Castle in Castleton springs to mind as does Duffield Castle which was razed to the ground thanks to an earl of Derby rebelling against King Henry III once too often. Peveril was one of the earliest post conquest castles to be constructed but what stands to day reflects the improvements of King Henry II after the confiscated it from the Peveril family.

No one could accuse Derbyshire of having an important castle within its boundaries, which raises interesting questions about Derby as a Norman administrative centre although it did apparently have some form of early castle as its remains can be found on Speed’s map of 1610 at Cockpit Hill. It has probably got much to do with the fact that the Normans linked Derbyshire to Nottinghamshire, providing only one sheriff for the two counties. William Peveril was the castellan for Nottingham Castle as well as holding the royal forest in the Peak on the king’s behalf.

There was a fortification at Bolsover as well but today we think of the seventeenth century ‘play’ castle built by William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle rather than a motte and bailey castle designed to dominate the locals and control the area. Sir Charles Cavendish, William’s father, began to change the appearance of the old medieval castle in 1608. The so-called ‘Little Castle’ stands on the footprint of the original building.

And then there’s Codnor but that was built at the beginning of the thirteenth century while the motte at Bakewell, which looks more like a pimple on the hillside, is twelfth century dating from the Anarchy when Stephen and Matilda were taking lumps out of one another and the barony were busy turning to brigandage.

Further reading reveals that there are more Norman fortifications in the county than I first realised:

  1. Pilsbury Castle guarding the Dove Valley.
  2. It is suggested that the fortifications at Pilsbury and Hartington, at Banktop, may have been complimentary structures. All that remains at Hartington is a large mound with a flat top.
  3. Crowdecote is just down the road from Hartington and Pilsbury – there’s not much left and quite why the Normans wanted three forts to guard the crossing of the Dove and its associated trackways is another matter entirely. The manors were all in the hands of Henry de Ferrers who may have built a fortification to ensure he kept his territory. It’s also possible that they were thrown up during the troubles of the Anarchy – in which case Hartington and environs must have been rather dangerous to one’s health on occasion. Crowdecote doesn’t get a mention in Domesday but there were some Saxon pottery finds there.
  4. Camp Green at Hathersage, next to the church, was excavated during the 1970s and revealed itself to be a ringwork enclosure however lack of dating evidence means that it was unclear whether the Normans got to work with their shovels or whether earlier inhabitants of the Peak created a defensive position here. Based on analysis of many other similar sites Hodges argues it was the Normans.
  5. Harthill near Youlgrave may be a Norman construction but it’s also been argued that its Iron Age in origin. Certainly, that’s what I always understood it to be!
  6. Hassop Moss near Glossop has similar dating problems and may well be part of a rather grand hunting lodge dating from a later period.
  7. Hope had a Saxon Royal manor which seems to have been fortified.
  8. There’s another platform for a fortification at Stony Middleton on the optimistically named Castle Hill. Dating it is difficult – it could be British, Roman, or Norman and there were pot shards found there dating the for thirteenth and fourteen centuries. Interestingly the site is near to a lead mine which certainly explains the presence of the fortification.
  9. Tissington has a potential ringwork near its church but the problem is that there was rather a lot of earthwork activity during the English Civil War so its difficult to tell whether the remains are a Civil War redoubt or something olde being repurposed.

It may be the case that the Norman ringworks in the Peak District were built quickly to control some very grumpy farmers whose land had just been ‘harried’ by the Normans in the winter of 1069-1070. It has also been suggested that this was land which was agriculturally viable and needed to be protected. Not that it’s always clear who did the building or when it happened – it certainly demonstrates the importance of dating evidence.

Exciting as all this may be, Derbyshire’s castles are hardly on the same scale as the corresponding structures further north or the castles of the marches of Wales but in its turn it demonstrates that in the aftermath of the conquest matters settled themselves down and it was only during times of civil conflict that people felt the need to sling up a conical mound to perch on. There are, of course, many fortified manors in the region – some of them rather lovely, including Haddon Hall but that’s a slightly different story.

Creighton, O. H. Castles and Landscapes

Hodges, R (1980) ‘Excavations at Camp Green Hathersage (1976-77)’ Journal of the Derbyshire Archeological Society, Vol 100, pp25-34

http://www.gatehouse-gazetteer.info/home.html

Peter of Savoy and the Honour of Richmond

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Peter of Savoy, statue in front of the Savoy Hotel, was Eleanor of Provence’s uncle. His father intended that Peter should enter the church but in 1234 he concluded that the life of a cleric was not for him. When he arrived in England, Henry III, showered favours on him because it would please Eleanor. In 1240 the king granted him most of the Honour of Richmond. However, the envy of the barons focused upon him and at the start of the Second Barons’ War he life the country for his own safety.

In 1265 Simon de Montfort confiscated the honour but in the aftermath of the Battle of Evesham, Henry III returned the estates to him. Peter, who married his cousin Agnes of Faucigny, had only one legitimate child, a daughter named Beatrice but she did not inherit the honour of Richmond after her father’s death in 1268. Instead the honour reverted to the Crown.

The first man who acquired the barony was the eldest son of Alice of Brittany and Peter de Dreux who became the 2nd Earl of Richmond in 1268. In the succeeding generations five of the earls of Richmond would be Dukes of Brittany. Only one of them lived most of his life in England in service of its kings. John, Earl of Richmond born in 1266 was granted the honour in 1306 by Edward I.

Morris, David, The Honour of Richmond

The Earldom of Richmond and the Dukes of Brittany

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I’ve posted about Alan the Red before – and his brother, the originally named, Alan the Black. Alan the Black was the kind of baron no one wished to encounter during The Anarchy – he was heavily into ravaging and plunder, even going so far as assaulting the Archbishop of York in Ripon at the shrine of St Wilfred. In about 1145 he granted the town of Richmond its first known charter before going to Brittany where he died in 1146. So far, so good.

Alan was married to Bertha, a cousin of Conan III of Brittany and his heir. After Alan’s death, Bertha remarried to Eudo, Viscount Porhoët who became Duke of Brittany by right of his wife. Alan’s son by Bertha, Conan, became the new Earl of Richmond and well as inheriting of all Alan’s other estates. Obviously Conan should also have become Due of Brittany but he was a minor and Eudo took charge.

In time Conan took control of the honour of Richmond – supported by King Henry II and having crossed the Channel trounced his step-father and became Conan IV of Brittany as well. In 1160 he married Margaret of Scotland, a daughter of Henry Earl of Huntingdon.

A daughter, Constance was born from the union. She eventually married Henry II’s son Geoffrey but the betrothal was a childhood one. After Conan’s death Henry II held Richmond on behalf of his daughter-in-law and son as well as administering Brittany for the 9-year old.

Geoffrey became Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond by right of his wife in 1181 after the marriage was finally celebrated. The couple’s son Arthur would eventually disappear in King John’s custody. Their daughter, Eleanor, would remain in Plantagenet royal custody throughout her life – no one wanting her to take a husband who might attempt to claim the duchy of Brittany and the earldom of Richmond.

After Geoffrey’s death in 1186 in Paris, Constance married Randulf de Blundeville, Earl of Chester – who also acquired the Earldom of Richmond. It wasn’t a happy union. Randalf incarcerated Constance for a year. Richard the Lionheart used the excuse to take control of Richmond.

Constance was eventually freed from her unhappy union and married for a third time toGuy de Thouars- The duchess now bore two more children , Alice and Catherine.

After Constance’s death in 1201 – Richmond was divided. Part of it was handed to Robert de Beaumont, 4th Earl of Leicester in the first instance. He died in 1204. Ranulf de Blundeville regained that portion of the honour for a brief time.

Alice’s husband, Peter de Braine, acquired the southern portion of the honour and eventually reunited the earldom. Peter was the son of the Count of Dreux and the marriage to Alice had been arranged by King Philip Augustus of France. Peter became Duke of Brittany by right of his marriage to Alice, irrelevant of the fact that her elder half-sister was still alive. Peter is pictured at the start of this post (Meluzína, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons). In 1215 King John granted him the honour of Richmond in an attempt to build up an army – it was the time of the First Barons War. Philip took the honour but continued to fight on behalf of the French. Ultimately though Peter served whichever side best suited his own aspirations. It left swathes of Yorkshire outside England’s ultimate control – remember John lost his continental lands. Even so it was 1230 before the honour of Richmond was confiscated from Peter and the honour reverted to the Crown.

Peter received some support from Henry III’s brother, Richard of Cornwall, but Peter, who was also kicked out of Brittany, found it sensible to go off on Crusade in 1239 where he was captured and died after his release in about 1250.

So far so good. The Crown now held a large earldom and Henry III knew many men willing to take it on. Peter of Savoy, one of Eleanor of Provence’s uncles, was a man in search of an income and preferment. Eleanor relied on her uncle’s guidance and Henry wanted to please his queen. Peter of Savoy was promptly knighted and granted part of the honour of Richmond in 1240.

Part II to follow.

Morris, David, The Honour of Richmond (York:2000) – an informative and carefully researched text which explains the lineage of the men and women who held the honour of Richmond as well as the political shenanigans that saw them gain or lose a region long important to the stability of the realm.

Sir Richard Croft

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Croft Castle church is older than it looks. Historians think that the church as first built in about 1300. In the seventeenth century the clock tower was added and the interior provided with box pews. All well and good. I failed to photograph the sun in splendour on the stained glass window, representing an association with the House of York, and although I noted the medieval floor tiles I didn’t photograph them either. I was sidetracked! I nearly didn’t photograph the fortified house (ok I know that later architects have romanticised the whole concoction)

Sir Richard Croft died on 29 July 1509 and is depicted in effigy form with his wife Eleanor, the widow of Sir Hugh Mortimer. Eleanor ran the royal household of Edward, Prince of Wales a.k.a one of ‘The Princes in the Tower’ while he was at Ludlow learning how to be a king. Croft was Henry VII’s treasurer, fought at Mortimer’s Cross (Yorkist), Towton (Yorkist) , Tewkesbury (Yorkist) and Stoke (Tudor). The Pastor Letters record that plain Richard Croft was knighted in the aftermath of Tewkesbury. He also became High Sheriff of Herefordshire, as did his son.

Sir Richard inherited Croft Castle when he was just 14-years of age in 1445. He and his younger brother were tutored with Edward Earl of March and Edmund Earl of Rutland. History knows this because in 1454 a letter was sent to Richard of York complaining about their behaviour. He owed loyalty to his powerful Mortimer neighbours. He was their steward but rose under the Yorkists before transferring allegiance to Henry VII who made him Prince Arthur’s steward at Ludlow making him a key official educating the prince (p.528 -Anthony Emery, Great Medieval Houses of England and Wales volume 2).

Sir Richard was very much part of the “famous and very Knightly family of the Crofts”, as William Camden called them in his Britannia. Somehow, a member of the minor gentry became a key player serving as a royal official for Kings Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII. Sir Richard was one of the nobles who wished for the young King Edward V to be crowned at once to avoid the need for a protectorate. Rumours of their murder spread throughout court. Believing the boys’ deaths to have been ordered by their uncle, Sir Richard Croft, an astute player of court politics, remained a royal official to Richard III while secretly offering his support to Henry Tudor’s cause it would appear although Breverton records that Croft was in exile with Henry Tudor and played an important part in his coronation.

And you’ll love this (not a lot) Richard Croft had a brother who was younger than him also called Richard! Richard the Younger was born in 1437 and died in 1502. Little brother was one of Edward Prince of Wales’ tutors at Ludlow. The Younger Richard fought for Henry at Bosworth as did Richard the Younger’s illegitimate son Thomas who was appointed a ranger at Woodstock but got himself into a spot of bother over a murder in the marches.

The Crofts did not get on well with the Stanley family. The latter were rather too acquisitive of land and the Crofts weren’t keen on losing territory to their neighbours.

I love the happy looking Croft lion laying at Sir Richard’s feet but most historians are fascinated with the boar on the wonderfully carved tomb. The hog actually belongs to St Anthony, one of the saints decorating the niches behind Sir Richard’s head, but its impossible to escape the thought of Richard III with his white boar…and then there’s that sun in splendour.

And because I can…Sir Richard Croft was the great grandfather of Henry VIII’s mistress Bess Blount making him the 2x great grandfather of Bessie and Henry’s son, Henry FitzRoy.

Bremerton, Terry, Henry VII: The Maligned King

George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury

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George, whose mother was Mary Dacre, spent much time in the borders. He was one of the men who invaded Scotland on the orders of Protector Somerset while Edward VI was king. He inherited his earldom in 1560.

In 1568 George married Bess of Hardwick – no doubt she was a very attractive bride not to mention a very wealthy one. His first wife had been Gertrude Manners who was the mother of all his legitimate children. So eager was George to ally himself to Bess and her Cavendish children that he married his eldest surviving son Gilbert to Bess’s daughter Mary Cavendish and his own daughter Grace Talbot to Bess’s eldest son Henry Cavendish even though she was only 8 at the time. It wasn’t a happy marriage and Henry didn’t get on with his mother either (a different post I think). Meanwhile George and Bess didn’t have long to enjoy wedded bliss because the following year Shrewsbury was handed the poisoned chalice of being Mary Queen of Scots’ custodian…er, host.

George moved the queen between Tutbury, Wingfield Manor and Sheffield Castle. In 1570 she went to Chatsworth which was a property belonging to Bess of Hardwick. And on occasion Mary took the waters in Buxton. In part Talbot was selected for the job because he owned extensive properties in the middle of the country where it would be hard to rescue Mary. He was also well off and that meant that Queen Elizabeth wouldn’t have to dip into the royal pockets for the care of Mary as often as they might otherwise have needed to do. The next fifteen years saw Shrewsbury becoming increasingly worn down, not to mention cash strapped, by the burden of his responsibilities.

His marriage with Bess became increasingly difficult. Even Elizabeth I turned her hand to marriage guidance between 1586 and 1589 in a bid to reconcile the couple. It was to no avail, the couple separated and George lived out the rest of his life in Sheffield with his mistress, Eleanor Britton.

The earl died on 18 November 1590. He was buried in the Shrewsbury Chapel of Sheffield Church – now Sheffield Cathedral. The chapel was built in 1520 by the 4th earl whose effigy can also be viewed there as can the effigies of his two wives. George was succeeded by his second son Gilbert, his eldest son having predeceased him. Bess outlived him dying in 1608. She chose to be buried in Derby rather than Sheffield.

The earl’s effigy rests with its feet on a Talbot dog – a white hunting hound and which was one of the Talbot families heraldic supporters.

And because I’m getting ever so slightly obsessed about these things – George’s great grandparents were Richard Neville Earl of Salisbury (executed at Pontefract 1461 after the Battle of Towton) and Alice Montagu or Montacute depending on your frame of mind, suo jure Countess of Salisbury – demonstrating once again that everyone was related one way or another!

Coifs as headwear and An Unstitched Coif project

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So, as if I haven’t got enough to keep me out of mischief I’m very excited to have been accepted as part of the ‘Unstitched coif’ project. The goal is to embroider a blackwork coif as part of Toni Buckby’s Phd project at Sheffield Hallam University in association with the V and A. She is collecting the experience of stitching from 140 volunteers. The coif I’ll be stitching is a version of this unworked coif in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A accession number T.844-1974 in case the link breaks, image quoted from their website). Hopefully you should be able to follow the link for more information about the original if you wish. There is evidence that someone started seed stitching the coif but didn’t like their work and unpicked it.

At least they started! My work is on the frame but I’m having a minor panic as I’ve never worked such fine fabric – the linen for the project is 74 count and comes from Italy. Unpicking will not be an option. I don’t think I shall opt for seed stitching (the red hood further down the blood makes use of seed stitching). I prefer the geometric diaper patterns of the earlier Tudor period but the flowers and insects are quite small so I shall have to pick my patterns carefully so that they show to best effect. Modern blackwork embroidery uses a shading technique by adding threads into to make a more dense pattern as it progresses which would also be tricky to add into this design. I am lucky enough to be using some silk thread of different thicknesses that I was given several years ago which might lend itself to toning. I am also rather partial to layering patterns in different colours but again don’t think this is the occasion for it.

As many of you know I love blackwork embroidery and have been doing it for many years although on one occasion I did have something of a disaster when I decided to stitch a medieval knight and his lady from a copy of The People’s Friend. All went swimmingly until it was pointed out to me that I had managed to create a pattern of swastikas. Now, while I realise that in other parts of the world its meaning is rather better than in Europe, once they’d been pointed out to me – all I could see was the unfortunate pattern and it wasn’t as though I could remove the design or even amend it to hide what I’d created.

Back to the history of the coif as head gear. Men, women and children all wore coifs and all classes of people wore them. On the plus side they helped keep you warm – isn’t there a saying about heat being lost through lack of head gear? Respectable women kept their hair covered. Practically, it also meant that their hair stayed clean for longer. Coifs were the underwear of the hat world – or if you want to be a bit more precise – a foundation layer. The shape and method of securing the coif depended on the fashion of the period.

Some women wore a triangular cloth under their coif to pull their hair back from their forehead, hence the alternate name forehead cloth, and to keep it covered – this was worn in a manner similar to a head scarf tied at the back of the neck or under the chin. Then the coif was worn over the top of the ‘cross-cloth’ as it was sometimes called. Evidence from wills suggests that respectable women owned a lot of head linen whether they were called cross-cloths, quarters, kerchiefs or headrails. It makes sense as an undecorated triangular cloth was easier to wash than the more ornate and expensive outer layers of headwear. Having said that, forehead cloths were often made to match the coif that sat on top of the cloth – and the one pictured on the left is covered with gold spangles.

The coif was a close fitting cap made of a light fabric such as linen. Originally it would have had strings to tie under the chin but by the Tudor period the strings were disappearing and more likely to be secured by being tied around the woman’s hair which was tied in a low bun at the back of her head. Coifs might be plain, decorated with lace or embroidered. Wealthy women wore forehead cloths and coifs made from more expensive fabrics such as silk and the embroidery might have been more ornate. In 1562 Queen Elizabeth received three cloths and a coif made with cambric and netted with gold.

At the beginning of the Tudor period coifs were worn by women under the heavy gable hoods and French hoods that were fashionable at the time. They were also worn indoors, in private, without the additional heavy headgear and at night time as part of the night attire – think warmth and hair less likely to be tangled. By the seventeenth century women wore a coif indoors and put their hat on top of the confection before going out.

So that’s what they were – and unsurprisingly there’re many examples in museums around the country as well as depicted in portraits of the period. The embellishment on the coifs is reflective of the style of embroidery that was popular at the time. The one featured here is from the seventeenth century and can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The Tudor Tailor: Reconstructing Sixteenth Century Dress.

de Courtais, Georgine, Women’s Hats, Headdresses and Hairstyles.

Getting the Katherines and Catherines right

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There are no prizes for spotting that I mentioned Herny’s last queen in my previous post. Blame the brain cell going on holiday. It’s Katherine of Aragon who died in 1536. She was his longest surviving wife but only provided him with a living daughter Mary. By 1525 Henry had gone off her and in 1531 following Henry’s failure to have the marriage annulled she was banished from court.

I can only apologise the brain fog that clearly descended.

Elizabeth I rebellions, conspiracies and associations

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It’s been said that you don’t need to know any dates to pass a GCSE History exam but quite frankly without chronology and some grasp of the important dates its just a series of stories. A vital concept in physics is the space-time continuum – they’re also rather important for the study of history and the evolution of all those tangled political, social and economic webs! So, and this final sentence is specifically from my granddaughters who are studying History at GCSE, please learn the dates below…. I will be checking!

Elizabeth was born on 7 September 1533.

She was bastardised in 1536 when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was found guilty of adultery and executed. 1536 was the year of the three queens – Catherine, or Katherine, of Aragon died; Anne was executed and Henry VIII married Jane Seymour. Oh yes, and Thomas Cromwell started shutting down small monastic houses and there was a revolt – The Pilgrimage of Grace which saw things get rather nasty in 1537 when Henry VIII stamped his authority on the places that objected to the closure of monasteries and changes to religious belief.

1544 Third Act of Succession identifies Elizabeth’s place in the order of succession – Edward, Mary, Elizabeth.

1553 Mary becomes queen after Edward VI’s death and the nine days when John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland tries to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne having married her to his youngest son Guildford Dudley. Life becomes very difficult for Elizabeth who is Mary’s heir but is Protestant. Mary is trying to turn back the cloth to Catholicism.

1558 Elizabeth becomes Queen Elizabeth I

1562 Elizabeth licences sailors as privateers – they attack Spanish shipping and she takes a share which helps treasury finances.

1568 Mary Queen of Scots flees Scotland, crosses the Solway Firth and arrives in Workington. She spends the next 19 years in captivity but is also the focus for Catholic plotting.

1569 The Northern Rebellion – involving the Duke of Norfolk, and the earls of Westmorland and Northumberland.

1570 Pope Pius V excommunicates Elizabeth I

1571 Treason Act makes it illegal to deny Elizabeth I is queen.

1572 The Ridolfi Plot

1570s increased number of Jesuit Priests arriving in England.

1583 The Throckmorton Plot

1584 Murder of William of Orange (Protestant leader of the Dutch by a Catholic assassin). The Bond of Association

1585 Official start of the Anglo-Spanish War which will continue intermittently until 1604. Elizabeth sends the Earl of Leicester with an army to the Low Countries to fight the Spanish.

1586 The Babington Plot

8 February 1587 Mary Queen of Scots executed at Fotheringhay.

1587 Drake goes with a fleet to Cadiz which he burns to slow down the launch of Philip II’s invasion fleet.

1588 The Spanish Armada – the English victory was celebrated by the Armada Portrait pictured at the start of this post – although the weather was what really did for the Spanish.

The Throckmorton Plot

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The Throckmorton Plot of 1583 was named after Sir Francis Throckmorton. He was the cousin of Bess Throckmorton, a lady-in-waiting who married Sir Walter Raleigh, demonstrating that families can arrive at very different religious viewpoints. Francis’ father John Throckmorton was a prominent Catholic during the reign of Queen Mary. It should be noted though that John conformed outwardly to the change in faith after Mary’s death even though his sons were raised as Catholics. Bess Throckmorton’s father Nicholas was raised in the household of Catherine Parr and had leanings towards the reformation as a consequence. He was also part of Edward VI’s circle as well as a friend of Elizabeth from her childhood.

It was planned that the Spanish would back a French invasion led by the Duke of Guise. Having subdued the heretic protestants and killed Elizabeth the plan was to put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne. Guise was not popular in Protestant Europe. He played a leading role in the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572 – which Sir Francis Walsingham (pictured at the start of the post) witnesses as he was in Paris at the time.

In 1579 Nicholas Throckmorton was suspended from the office of Chief Justice of Chester and fined. His beliefs had become a problem. He died the following year. But Francis now began to be involved in Catholic conspiracies against Elizabeth when he journeyed to France in 1580 with his brother Thomas and were recruited by the Catholic exiles Charles Paget and Thomas Morgan.

The latter was the Earl of Shrewsbury’s secretary and had made contact with Mary Queen of Scots who was in the earl’s custody. Morgan acted as the Scottish queen’s go between until 1572 when he was sent to the Tower for three years before going to France. He continued to correspond secretly with the queen. Throckmorton was not the only English Catholic that Morgan was involved with. He would be involved with the Babington plot in 1585.

When Francis returned to London from Paris he carried messages to Mary and to Bernadino Mendoza, Philip II’s ambassador in London. All the messages passed through the French embassy which was headed by Michelle de Castelnau.

One of Walsingham’s spies in the French embassy alerted him to Throckmorton’s involvement. Francis was arrested in November 1583 along with a list of Mary’s Catholic supporters and a letter to Mary that he was in the process of encoding. Nor was he alone in the Tower. Another man, George More, was also arrested but he arrived at an agreement with Walsingham and was released. Throckmorton, who wasn’t really a key player, was racked until he provided names and admitted that Mary was involved.

Mendoza could not be arrested because he had diplomatic immunity but in January 1584 he was invited to leave England. There would be no more Spanish Ambassadors in England during Elizabeth’s reign. Throckmorton was put on trial in May and execution on 10 July 1584. He was the only one of the plotters to be executed. His brother Thomas who was also involved managed to escape.

In many respects the plot was as inept as the earlier plans to topple Elizabeth and restore Catholicism. However, the 1571 Treason Act made it illegal to deny that Elizabeth was queen of England and since the 1570s trained Jesuit priests had been arriving in England encouraging the Catholic population to hold firm to their beliefs. In 1581 it had become more difficult for Catholics not to attend church on a Sunday. If they persisted the recusants, as they were called, could be fined £20 per month and imprisoned.

Mary’s imprisonment became ever more restrictive. She was sent to Chartley in Staffordshire. Walsingham and William Cecil drew up the Bond of Association. All its signatories agreed that if anyone attempt to usurp the throne or to assassinate the queen that they should be executed as should anyone who benefitted from the queen’s death i.e. Mary Queen of Scots. Mary signed the bond even though it was effectively her own death warrant.

Francis Throckmorton’s execution on 10 July 1584 coincided with the murder of William of Orange, the leader of the Dutch Protestants. He was assassinated by a Catholic. In part the Bond of Association was a response to the murder of the Dutch leader.

Elizabeth had stated that she did not wish ‘to make windows into men’s souls’. Her way had been a middle way but the Catholic plots and threats to her life and realm which had gradually escalated meant that men like Walsingham were increasingly convinced that Mary had to die.

The Ridolfi Plot

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When the Earls of Westmorland and Northumberland seized control of Durham in November 1569 it was the first time that a Catholic Mass had been celebrated for a decade.  So many people attended the Mass held in Durham Cathedral that it was almost impossible to get through the throng.

When the earls rallied their men at Durham they also marched under the banner of the Firve Wounds of Christ. More importantly at home, many people set about overturning communion tables and destroying protestant prayer books in their parish churches. At Sedgefield they made a bonfire from the Protestant prayer books.  The churchwarden, who had attended services regularly, fanned the flames! It was also an opportunity to have babies baptised and to get married the old way. This demonstrates that the majority of people in the north accepted official changes even if they did fully adopt those changes in their minds.  

For Queen Elizabeth the Northern Rebellion was part of the testing times dating from the arrival of her cousin Mary in 1568. Pope Pius V’s excommunicated Elizabeth in 1570. The crisis extended to 1572 when the Duke of Norfolk was finally executed because of his implication in the Ridolfi Plot which also sought to put Mary on the throne and which is usually regarded as the first of the major plots against Elizabeth.

When the pope excommunicated the queen, Parliament responded to the Papal Bull with a new Treason Act. It became treason to say that Elizabeth wasn’t the rightful queen and illegal tp publish the papal bull. Some Catholics left the country. Parliament gave them a year to return home or else their lands would be confiscated by the states. 

The key plotters in 1572 were Roberto Ridolfi, an Italian banker, The Spansih Ambadassador, de Spes and the Duke of Norfolk who was released from custody but still fancied being king of England. He was descended from George Duke of Clarence so had his own claim to the throne. In addition Mary was becoming increasingly desperate to escape custody so she was more willing to be involved as was her priest, Bishop Leslie.

Ridolfi had taken a very minor part in the northern uprising but his role as messanger carried him deeper into the new intrigue. He visted the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands carrying letters in coder with the aim of encouraging the Spanish army to invade England. A Spanish army, it was argued, would topple Elizabeth from power and place Mary on the throne, restoring Catholicsm to England. Mary agreed to the plan in May 1571.

From the Low Countries, Ridolfi carried messages from Queen Mary to Pope Pious V and to Phiip II of Spain in Madrid. He was able to travel as a banker without attracting too much attention. 

King Philip was not keen on the idea of assassinating Elizabeth but he was fed up of English privateers attacking Spanish ships carrying gold destined for the Netherlands to pay the army under the command of the Duke of Alva.

Fortunately for Elizabeth one of Queen Mary’s messengers, Charles Baillie, carrying a message to Ridolfi was intercepted by William Cecil’s agents at Dover. He eventually revealed the plot under torture. Bishop Leslie was arreseted and so were  two of Norfolk’s secretaries were also arrested. They provided helpful information. Leslie blamed Mary. 

Norfolk who was already in trouble with Elizabeth was returned to the Tower and convicted of treason.  He was executed on 2 June 1572. 

Ridolfi had the common good sense to remain in Italy (He died in France in 1612). Mary acknowledged that she sought financial advice from Ridolfi. She had dower lands in France.However, she absolutely denied trying to topple Elizabeth from power. Elizabeth did not want to execute her cousin so Mary was kept in closer confinement.  There were also diplomatic repercussions. The Spanish ambassador was expelled from England.

In England the crisis was a test of Elizabeth’s political and religious settlement. It also saw a hardening of attitudes – religious identities became more polarised with the passage of time. As the treason laws tightened, Catholics who had the money to do so went abroad or had to practise their faith in secret.