Chapter VI · 1565-1569 (continued 2)

It was indeed time that so dangerous a guest should be promptly asked to depart; for this was the most critical juncture of Elizabeth’s reign and her Crown trembled in the balance. All the lords were not so pusillanimous as Norfolk. Both Dacre and Northumberland had formally notified to de Spes that they were ready to take up arms in Philip’s service. For many months the imprudent ambassador had been going beyond his instructions and encouraging these nobles to expect effective aid from Philip. If only a small number of arquebusiers were sent to them from Flanders, said Northumberland and Westmorland, they would undertake to release Mary, subdue the North of England, restore Catholic worship, and make friends with Spain. “I feel sure,” wrote de Spes, “that they will attempt the task; and it will be better effected by them than by the Duke of Norfolk, as they are better fitted for it, and the Queen of Scots will have greater freedom in the choice of a husband.”

The questionable attitude of Westmorland and Northumberland caused Elizabeth to summon them to her presence. They disobeyed and, raising their standard, marched into Durham in force on the 14th November. Destroying the communion table in the cathedral, they caused Mass to be solemnly celebrated; and then pushing rapidly onward towards Ripon, Wetherby and Tadcaster, they finally assembled on Clifford Moor. The Earl of Sussex, the Queen’s Lieutenant in York, was for a time reduced to act on the defensive; and now, if Alba had been prompt and Philip ready, it is possible that the die might have been cast a winning number; and Mary Stuart, rescued from Tutbury, whither she had been rapidly carried, might have been made Queen of a Catholic Britain, under Spanish protection. When news came to de Spes of the southward march of the lords and their renewed prayers for aid from Flanders, he wrote to the King: “I have on several occasions written to your Majesty of the goodwill of these nobles, and I have given a letter in cipher to the gentleman they are sending to the Duke of Alba to ask for aid. They beg for prompt reply, as communications will soon be stopped.... It is certain that there has never been so good an opportunity either of punishing those who have so grievously opposed your Majesty’s interests, or of restoring the Catholic religion, in which consists the maintenance of our old alliance and friendship with this country.” To Alba de Spes wrote in jubilant strain on the 1st December. “The rebels,” he said, “were twelve thousand strong and were marching to release Mary and give battle to the Queen’s forces;” but he ominously adds that none of their confederates have yet risen. Ciappino Vitelli was still lingering at Colebrook, near Windsor, on the pretext of gout, though messages were being sent to him from the Queen that she considered his continued stay in England highly suspicious, as indeed it was, considering that he told de Spes, who doubtless conveyed it to the rebels, that they ought to march straight to London, where nothing could withstand them, seeing the confusion at Court, whilst their other friends would have a greater chance of moving.

And de Spes, the man who, before all others, had led these unfortunate lords to believe that Spanish aid would not fail them, was obliged, now that the crisis had come, to assure the Duke of Alba that he would “do nothing without orders from your Excellency.” The northern lords could not wait for Philip’s leaden pondering, nor upon Alba’s need, and, disheartened at the lack of response, they fell into disunion and wasted the precious time besieging Barnard Castle until the approach of Sussex with a newly organised army struck them with panic and they fled to Scotland—Northumberland to be sold basely to the English and to the scaffold; Westmorland, more unfortunate still, to seek lifelong exile in Spanish lands—a pathetic, poverty-stricken pensioner upon Philip’s irregular bounty, striving to earn his poor living by joining in plots to hand his native country over to the King of Spain. The rebellion in the North, for a time so threatening, was begun, as we have seen, without due preparation and conducted without ability to an inglorious termination.⁠[187] But not a little of the blame for the miserable fiasco must be laid at the door of de Spes, who for months had been holding out hopes—as we see now, without authority—that an armed Spanish force from Flanders would be ready to support the rising. Alas! English Catholics, even after this first hard lesson, had yet to learn that Philip’s aid was not so lightly given, or given at all, without ample assurance that he alone should reap the harvest of success without incurring the penalties of failure.