"At home, a secret negotiation for a marriage between Queen Mary and the Duke of Norfolk had received the approval of many of the chief English nobles. The Queen discovered the plot, threw Norfolk and some of his friends into the Tower, and summoned Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, immediately to appear at court. These two earls were known to be holding secret communications with Mary, and longing to see the old faith restored.
"On receiving the summons, Northumberland at once withdrew to Brancepeth Castle, a stronghold of the Earl of Westmoreland. Straightway all their vassals rose, and gathered round the two great earls. The whole of the North was in arms. A proclamation went forth that they intended to restore the ancient religion, to settle the succession to the crown, and to prevent the destruction of the old nobility. As they marched forward they were joined by all the strength of the Yorkshire dales, and, among others, by a gentleman of ancient name, Richard Norton, accompanied by eight brave sons. He came bearing the common banner, called the Banner of the Five Wounds, because on it was displayed the Cross with the five wounds of our Lord. The insurgents entered Durham, tore the Bible, caused mass to be said in the cathedral, and then set forward as for York. Changing their purpose on the way, they turned aside to lay siege to Barnard Castle, which was held by Sir George Bowes for the Queen. While they lingered there for eleven days, Sussex marched against them from York, and the earls, losing heart, retired towards the Border, and disbanded their forces, which were left to the vengeance of the enemy, while they themselves sought refuge in Scotland. Northumberland, after a confinement of several years in Loch Leven Castle, was betrayed by the Scots to the English, and put to death. Westmoreland died an exile in Flanders, the last of the ancient house of the Nevilles, earls of Westmoreland. Norton, with his eight sons, fell into the hands of Sussex, and all suffered death at York. It is the fate of this ancient family on which Wordsworth's poem is founded."
This statement as to the fate of Norton's sons, however, is not borne out by the historians. Mr. Froude says (History of England, chap. 53), "Two sons of old Norton and two of his brothers, after long and close cross-questioning in the Tower, were tried and convicted at Westminster. Two of these Nortons were afterwards pardoned. Two, one of whom was Christopher, the poor youth who had been bewildered by the fair eyes of the Queen of Scots at Bolton, were put to death at Tyburn, with the usual cruelties."
IV. (See [p. 127].)
For we must fall, both we and ours—
This Mansion and these pleasant bowers,
Walks, pools, and arbours, homestead, hall—
Our fate is theirs, will reach them all.
Little now remains of Rylstone Hall but the site. "Some garden flowers still, as when Whitaker wrote, mark the site of the pleasaunce. The house fell into decay immediately after the attainder of the Nortons; and, with the estates here, remained in the hands of the Crown until the second year of James I., when they were granted to the Earl of Cumberland. Although Wordsworth makes the Nortons raise their famous banner here, they assembled their followers in fact at Ripon (November 18, 1569), but their Rylstone tenants rose with them."
V. (See [p. 137].)
Until Lord Dacre with his power
From Naworth come; and Howard's aid
Be with them openly displayed.
Naworth Castle, at the head of the vale of Llanercort, in the Gilsland district of Cumberland, was the seat of the Dacres from the reign of Edward III. George, Lord Dacre, the last heir-male of that family, was killed in 1559; and Lord William Howard (the third son of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk), who was made Warden of the Borders by Queen Elizabeth, and did much to introduce order and good government into the district, married the heiress of the Dacre family, and succeeded to the castle and estate of Naworth. The arms over the entrance of the castle are the Howard's and Dacre's quartered.
VI. (See [p. 137].)