In 1507 John Sackville married Margaret Boleyn of Blicking Hall. Their son Richard did rather well from the dissolution of the monasteries having a role in the Court of Augmentations. And since Margaret was Anne Boleyn’s aunt, it is perhaps not surprising that Elizabeth I, who valued her Boleyn kin, should give preferment to family after she ascended to the throne. Richard’s son, Thomas, was something of a favourite with Elizabeth and it was she who promoted the family to the peerage and granted them Knole. It was at about the same time that the Sackvilles, who’d arrived in England with the Conqueror, began to use a coat of arms supported by two snow leopards or ounces.
In 1604, Thomas was created Earl of Dorset but it was the reign of George I, in 1720, before the family attained its dukedom. The new earl rebuilt Knole, making sure to place his heraldic emblem in prominent positions in stone, wood and glass. His descendant, the duke, who added to the building, did the same. The screen in the Great Hall was carved by William Portington, Elizabeth I’s carpenter, Unsurprisingly it is topped by the Sackville coat of arms and, of course, the snow leopards.
The Sackvilles were using their heraldry to demonstrate their status – they were after all descended from someone who arrived with William the Conqueror – but the leopard has a hint of royalty about it…. and who doesn’t want to hint at that, especially if they’re building what was once described as the largest private residence in the country. Buildings associated with the family will often have an ounce on display somewhere, the almshouses in East Grinstead for example, as a code to remind people of its association with the Sackvilles.
The Lord Leycester, a medieval range of buildings, sits on Warwick’s Westgate, a hop and a skip from the castle. iIs chapel is above the narrow gateway. The chapel was originally built by one of the Norman earls of Warwick on the site of an earlier Saxon one. It was rebuilt in 1383 by the 12th Earl of Warwick – one of the Lords Appellant who opposed Richard II. When Thomas Beauchamp met with the usual fate of men who opposed kings, the chapel was gifted to the Guild of St George. By the 15th century the chapel and the associated site belonged to the amalgamated guilds of Warwick – the Holy Trinity Guild and the Guild of the Blessed Virgin and St George. The United Guilds created a large complex of buildings. The current guildhall was built by Richard Neville a.k.a. The Kingmaker.
Once the Reformation began many guilds lost their lands but in Warwick the guild master passed ownership of the property, and associated rental as far afield as Gloucester and Lancaster to the town’s corporation which meant that the income continued to be used for the benefit of Warwick rather than the king. At one point it even served as Warwick’s grammar school. In 1571, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester established a hospital – somewhere to live- for disabled and infirm soldiers at the request of Queen Elizabeth I. The corporation gave Dudley the guildhall because who wants to irritate Elizabeth Tudor or her favourite. Dudley was keen to please the queen and it raised his credentials as a pious man. The earl ensured that an act of Parliament was passed for the foundation of his hospital – the only private act he ever secured (Howard, p.149) and sent his surveyor, William Spicer to oversee work.
The hospital, which was independent of the town because of its associated with Leicester, accommodated a master, twelve soldiers and their families. It retains its role as an almshouse today but has offered a home to eight retired servicemen since the 1960s rather than the original twelve. When the hospital was first created there was a common kitchen for use by the twelve brethren rather than individual hearths. When Elizabeth I visited Warwick in 1572, the Master of the Hospital was on hand to present her with some verse in Latin to mark the occasion. It was the summer that the Earl of Leicester presented the queen with lavish entertainments as well as matching portraits in a bid to win her hand. The Princely Pleasures at nearby Kenilworth lasted for three weeks.
Meanwhile, the guildhall was used to entertain James I in 1617 and was fortunate to escape the blaze that incinerated much of Warwick in 1694. The courtyard was renovated by the Victorians who added the ornamental gables, plaster bears and Robert Dudley’s crest. The porcupine is the Sidney family crest. Ultimately, it was Dudley’s sister, Mary, who inherited the hospital. Initially the countess of Leicester, Lettice Knollys, claimed some of the estates belonging to the hospital as her dower and withheld the income which belonged to the hospital. (Howard, pp.150-151). It took another Act of Parliament and the support of William Cecil to ensure that the terms of Leicester’s will in the matter of the hospital were honoured.
Howard, Maurice. The Building of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007)
The Lord Leycester Hospital guidebook
The Lord Leycester Hospital. An Account of the Hospital of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester in Warwick (Warwick: HT Cooke and Sons, 1870).
I seem to be drawn to the bear and ragged staff. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester gained his earldom when Elizabeth I proposed that he marry her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots in 1564 – it might have been a method of ensuring that Dudley had a title that made him a worthy candidate for a royal match, or it might simply have been a way for Bess to make Robert an earl, knowing that Mary wouldn’t be keen on the idea of marrying a second-hand favourite. Little did I realise that two books on I would find myself writing about Anne Beauchamp and her daughters. And the link between the two groups?
Robert Dudley was descended from Margaret Beauchamp, the eldest of the three half-sisters of Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick (The Kingmaker’s wife and mother to Anne Neville).
Robert’s grandfather, Edmund Dudley, the hated tax collector of Henry VII was married to Elizabeth Grey who was Margaret Beauchamp’s great granddaughter. Margaret married to John Talbot who became the 1st Earl of Shrewsbury . Robert Dudley and his brother Ambrose were both exceptionally proud of their descent from the Beauchamp Earls of Warwick and the Talbot Earls of Shrewsbury. Robert Dudley adopted the bear and ragged staff device of Warwick’s earls and acquired Kenilworth Castle while brother Ambrose was given the earldom of Warwick.
For more on the Kingmaker’s women – check out the Pen and Sword blog for Women’s history month.
Where did January go? In my case, it was spent typing manically to hit my deadline -I did it – just. So, where next? Opus Anglicanum – or the English embroidered tradition is where Zoom classes will be heading. Hopefully by the end of next week I shall have sorted some dates out. And do not fear, this will not be a class focusing on stitching techniques. It will be about luxury, commerce, power and politics. There will be wool merchants, the Silk Road, popes, kings and a mermaid.
For now though, I’d like you to meet Sir Hugh Jonys or Jones. This chap needs a book! I found out about him because Johnys tutored Henry Tudor, in the art of warfare while he was under the guardianship of the Herberts. Unfortunately I couldn’t include everything I found out about him in the ext – so here he is now. Sir Hugh’s career began as a soldier of fortune before he eventually served in the army against the French. He rose to the rank of deputy marshal in the service of John Mowbray, Duke of York. He was also well versed in the rules of chivalry. In 1453, he even took part in a trial held by the Court of Chivalry, in a case of treason. The court, a military tribunal, was not part of England’s system of common law. Its judges were the constable of England and the earl Marshal and its remit was to judge cases relating to deeds of war including disputes about ransoms and the use of coats of arms. Robert Norris was accused of treason. It’s unclear exactly what Robert Norris said or did to be accused of treason on 11 May by John Lyalton. However, it was decided that Norris would answer the charge on 25 June at Smithfield in a trial by combat. Johnys was one of the seven-man panel assigned to advise the defendant. He was described as ‘an established martial reputation’[1] and was undoubtedly an excellent choice to be William Herbert’s weapon’s master. His kinship to Herbert through the Vaughan family[2] may have been another reason he was selected for the task of training Herbert’s sons and wards.
The splendid memorial brass of Johnys and his second wife, Maud, at St Mary’s Church, Swansea depicts him in a cuirass and mail skirt reaching to his knees. It records that Sir Hugh went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem where he became a member of the confraternity, or lay guild, of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre and that he fought against the Turks for five years following the date that he entered the knighthood on 14 August 1441. Arrangements for admission into the knighthood lay in the hands of the Holy Sepulchre’s Franciscan friars who were entrusted with Christian custody of the Holy Land and the tomb of Christ following the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1291 to the Mameluk Sultanate. On his arrival in Jerusalem, Johnys was deemed worthy of the honour of knighthood by the friars, or at least made them a generous donation.
Prior to travelling to the Holy Land, Johnys served John VIII, Emperor of Constantinople, joining his forces, possibly as a mercenary, in 1436. An additional incentive for men who wished to defend Christian Constantinople was the issuing of papal indulgences, which pardoned earlier sins, which in turn would mean that men like Johnys believed that they would spend less time in purgatory, before gaining entry to heaven, after they died. Johnys service is known to have taken him to Troy, Greece and Turkey where he fought at sea as well as on land, although it is impossible to pinpoint exactly which battles he took part in.
When he returned to Europe, Johns served under, Lady Margaret Beaufort’s father, John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset in France as the duke’s knight marshal. From 1446, he transferred his service to Richard of York. On his return to England, he served as a deputy to the Duke of Norfolk who was the Marshal of England. It served Norfolk’s purposes to have someone he could trust in the Gower region of South Wales with oversight of his lands there. Johnys proved to be as capable an administrator as he was a soldier. In 1452, he was appointed steward to the manors of Redwick and Magor in Monmouthshire by Henry VI. The king made the grant because of Johns’ military service in France and his career as a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. The Byzantine emperor wrote personally to Henry commending Sir Hugh to him. By the time that the duke died in 1461, Johnys was part of the regional gentry fulfilling essential administrative roles on behalf of his patron.
Johns first wife, Mary, died at some time during the early 1450s. He sought a second wife with the aid of his patrons Richard Duke of York and Richard Neville, 3rd Earl of Warwick. During his first protectorate, the duke wrote in support of his knight’s desire to marry, commenting on Johny’s ‘gentillesse’.[3] Despite the recommendation, the woman Johnys wanted to marry declined his proposal. The letters held by the British Museum are undated but gave rise, due to a small transcription error, to the belief that Johnys sought Elizabeth Woodville’s hand in marriage whereas, in reality, he wished to wed a twice-widowed, and consequentially, wealthy woman named Elizabeth Woodhill. In about 1455, the knight married Maud Cradock, the daughter of another landowning family in the Gower.
On 15 1468, Sir Hugh became one of poor knights of Windsor, who were part of the college of St George’s Chapel. It is likely that Maud, who was co-incidentally a cousin of Matthew Cradock who served in the household of Prince Arthur at Ludlow, was dead by that time. The poor knights were a group of men in receipt of alms, totalling 40s each year and care during their old age. In return, Windsor’s ordinances stipulated that they were expected to attend chapel three times a day for which they received a daily payment of 12d. Knights who did not attend services forfeited their 12d which was shared among the knights who were present. By the time Hugh became a poor knight the college had arrived at a situation that rather than the twenty-six military men envisioned by Edward III there were never more than three knights in residence at any one time. This arose from the necessity of ensuring that there were sufficient funds to go around. There was also a rule that stipulated that no poor knight should have an income of more than £20 per annum. Johnys was anything but poor since he was still in receipt of the incomes granted to him by the Duke of Norfolk and King Henry VI. He certainly had sufficient funds to purchase a tenement on Fisher Street in Swansea on 19 March 1460. Hugh’s affluence was ignored. He took the place of Thomas Grey who died in Spetember 1468[4] and is listed as being residence from 1 January 1469 to September 1480.[5]
Records show that Johnys did not attend all of the required services. It may reasonably be assumed that his absences reflect trips to the Gower supervising his lands during the summer months, at harvest and when rents fell due at Michaelmas, as well as fulfilling his other commitments[6] in Wales. He spent the winter months at Windsor fulfilling his obligations to the chapel. In 1483 parliament absolved the dean and chapter of the need to support the knights. It gave occasion to Henry VII remembering his old weapons master at Raglan. On 15 October 14 155 Johnys was compensated with a grant of £10 for the loss of his position as a poor knight ‘in consideration of the good service that Sir Hugh John, knyght, did unto us in our tender age’ [7] Johns did not have long left to enjoy life. His name does not appear after the end of 1485.
Of Johnys seven children, two daughters are known to have married into the Gower’s gentry while a son, Robert Jones, became constable of Llantrisant Castle, keeper of Clun Park and of Barry Island from December 1485 until his death in 1532. He served in the household of King Henry VII as a groom of the king’s chamber and was one of the ushers at Henry’s funeral in 1509. He went on to serve King Henry VIII and present at the marriage of Mary Tudor to King Louis XII.[8]
[7] Robinson, ‘Sir Hugh Johnys: A Fifteenth-Century Welsh Knight’, p. 31. Ibid., pp.25-6; Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, I, p. 581.
One of the things I really enjoyed about last year was finding out more about the flowers on the #unstitched coif and, in the process, learning a bit more about the woman who intended to sew it. I also enjoyed the topic I covered during lockdown on the history of plants – et voila – another new ‘spot’ for the blog – reading the past – I’m no good with the emoticons and emoji’s of modern technology. This is much more my thing.
The image of a carved passionflower, or passiflora, is taken from a Victorian headstone in a local churchyard and just happens to be the firth thing I found when I started scrolling through my photos.
Welcome to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It’s the age of exploration and some Jesuits are wandering around modern Paraguay and Peru. The conquistador, Pedro Cieza de Leon mentions the plant in writing for the first time in 1553 in the context of its fruit. The Christian symbolism associated with the five wounds of Christ that could be identified within the flower was described soon after: 10 petals for the number of disciples who were still loyal at the time of the crucifixion; filaments representing the crown of throne; five anthers for the wounds of Christ; the stamen looking a bit like the hammer that drove the nails; even the tendrils were described as being like the whips with which Christ was beaten. And bingo! A valuable teaching aid and a flowery justification for invading and Christianising the Americas. The plant was there, so obviously God wanted a bunch of conquistadors terrorising the locals in his or her name.
The story spread and in 1609, Giacomo Bosia, one of the knights of Malta, included the passionflower in a book about legends and miracles associated with the cross. Three years later passionflowers were being cultivated in Paris and England. It was originally called the Virginian Climber in Britain as no one wanted to mention the Catholic connection. However, after Charles I had his head removed in 1649, the late monarch was sometimes described by his supporters as ‘the passionflower’ because they believed he had been martyred. The Tradescants who were royal gardeners and plant collectors made it very popular -for a price- after the Restoration.
By the Victorian period it was a popular adornment for gravestones representing as it did Christ’s crucifixion, redemption and mankind’s salvation. The jesuit element of the equation and even Charles I had been discarded, or never even had the chance to get going. To be honest I don’t recall seeing it on Stuart or later embroideries, no point looking at the Elizabethans – and of course the expansion of trade changed English attitudes to embroidery and ornament as indeed did the Commonwealth. England had a rich embroidered tradition prior to the English Civil War. By 1661 the royalists who’d spent their exiles in the Low Countries and France thought that European art was much more sophisticated than anything home grown. And, by the eighteenth century beautiful fabrics were arriving from China and the Indias – no more sitting around embroidering your bed curtains and night hats!
I think I’ve seen a passionflower on an alta-frontal but that was Victorian as well. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a seventeenth century version in embroidered form. Stumpwork and crewel work were popular during that century. Please let me know if you spot any old needlework productions of the passionflower on your travels! A photograph (assuming its permitted would be even nicer).
Bleichmar, Daniela, Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin (Yale: Yale University Press, 2017) pp.82-89
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.
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 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.
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.
The rebellion took place in the autumn of 1569 -in all the crisis lasted for three months, possibly prompting William Cecil to say ‘I told you so!’ when the council considered that it was Mary’s presence in England that triggered the uprising.
The North had a reputation for recusancy – or Catholicism. In 1536 as the smaller monastic houses were being shut the Pilgrims of the North rebelled under a banner bearing the five wounds of Christ. The following year Bigod’s Rebellion was similarly associated with a demand for Henry VIII to return to Catholicism, restore the Mass and bring back the monasteries. The Rebellion of 1537 gave Henry the excuse to punish the rebels of the previous year. He sent an army north, imposed martial law and had 100s of rebels hanged virtually on their own doorsteps.
In 1569, the desire to place Mary Queen of Scots on the throne and restore the country to Catholicism wasn’t the only reason for the rebellion. Oh no – not by a long chalk.
The northern earls were somewhat rattled by the administrative interference coming from London. They were not keen on William Cecil. Men like Northumberland and Norfolk also felt frozen out of power by Elizabeth’s choice of advisers.
For reasons best known to themselves a group of powerful men including Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Arundel decided that in order to cancel out the threat posed by Mary that she should marry an English nobleman, convert to Protestantism and then the English could help rule Scotland and everything would be simply wonderful. No one quite plucked up the nerve to tell Elizabeth this cunning plan or that the proposed groom was Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk (think vain and ambitious and you’ll be in the right ball park).
The plot when it first began was not a Catholic plot! Mary’s half brother James Stewart, Earl of Moray is for the plan to begin with but after he’s had a think about it decided that he doesn’t really want Mary back in Scotland whatever her faith might be, and certainly not with Norfolk at her side. For the English earls loyal to Elizabeth who came up with the idea this was a killer blow – the game, which was never a good one if the truth was told, was over by the start of the autumn. Besides which they still haven’t told Elizabeth about their plan to marry Mary off to one of themselves …and no one wanted that particular job. So they probably all heaved a sigh of relief.
However, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk had also had some thinking time and he rather fancied a crown of some description…and besides which he resented William Cecil who he regarded as having too much power, which he thought ought more rightfully to have belonged to him….so asked the northern earls for support to marry Mary.
Robert Dudley, the queen’s favourite, recognising that things were getting out of hand told Elizabeth in September 1569 that Norfolk intended to marry Mary without the consent of the privy council – which was treason. Norfolk had also left court without royal permission. By October Howard, who really wasn’t rebel material and hadn’t done any serious planning before he asked his northern pals to lend a hand, was back in London and begging for mercy. Elizabeth had him sent to the Tower.
In the north, the Earls of Westmorland and Northumberland, who were both Catholics, were still plotting but not, it appears, actually doing very much. In reality although they had an alternative to Elizabeth in the form of Mary they really weren’t very organised and were a bit vague about their aims. They were hauled up in front of the president of the Council of the North who cleared them of any wrongdoing and sent them on their way.
In London, Elizabeth wasn’t so convinced about the loyalty of the two men, so decided that she wanted a little chat with Northumberland and Westmorland. Not to put too fine a point on it, the earls panicked. Not wanting to end up in the Tower with Norfolk the two terrified men finally…rebelled, raising about 4,600 men from among their tenantry and kinship networks. They marched south. One of their key demands was that Cecil had to go – And the second was that they wanted the Religious Settlement of 1559 overturned so that the Mass could be restored.
On 14 November, 1569, Westmorland and Northumberland captured Durham; restored it to Catholicism, threw out the Protestant hymn books, and celebrated the Mass. They also called on all Catholics to take up arms in the defence of the true faith. Fortunately for Elizabeth most of England’s Catholics ignored the demand. Even though Barnard Castle and the port at Hartlepool fell to the rebels – the whole affair was really rather restricted.
It should be noted that James Pilkington was made Bishop of Durham in 1561 and had imposed Protestantism on his diocese despite the fact that the locals really weren’t that keen on the idea. His attitude helped rubbed the earls up the wrong way and added to the opinion that London was interfering in the way things were done in the north.
In London there was some difficulty raising a force to resist the rebels. Finally the Earl of Sussex (who wasn’t a fan of Robert Dudley) was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the North, put an army together and headed north to restore order. Elizabeth had Mary moved for safe keeping to Coventry and by December it was all over. Mary Queen of Scots and King Philip II of Spain hadn’t backed the rebels and neither had the majority of the kingdom. Recognising that the game was up the earls fled to Scotland.
Elizabeth registered her irritation by having at least 400 rebels executed for treason. The Earl of Westmorland spent the rest of his life in exile and the Earl of Northumberland was executed in 1572 when he was captured and given back to the English.
It was the only armed rebellion of Elizabeth’s reign – discounting the Earl of Essex’s failed uprising at the end of her life. The lack of support at the time is an indicator of her popularity. Her response to the rebels indicated that she was a chip off the old block and not to be trifled with. And laws were passed that made any further Catholic threat punishable as treason. She also appointed Robert Dudley’s brother-in-law Henry Hastings 3rd Earl of Huntingdon as the President of the Council of the North after Sussex (who held the post from 1569 until his death in 1572.) Huntingdon was an active Puritan who spent the next 23 years keeping the north in check.
