A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



This curious entry about the Scottish clergy finds a parallel in what is 

 said by the bishop in 1564 : 



The Scottish priests that are fled out of Scotland for their wickedness and here be 

 hired in parishes on the border because they take less wages than the other, and do 

 more harm than other could or would in dissuading the people. 



The same document refers to dispossessed clergy (evidently the six extruded 

 canons and the like) who kept sending in from Louvain 



books and letters which cause many times evil rumours to be spread and disquiet the 

 people. They be maintained by the hospital of the New Castle and the wealthiest of 

 that town and the shire as it is judged, and be their near cousins.^'' 



The hints of hostility to the new regime which appear in such docu- 

 ments as that just quoted prepare us for the next great episode in Durham 

 church history. The rebellion of the northern earls was in its inception a 

 Durham rising. It broke out in November, 1569, when Tempest and Swin- 

 borne, two bishopric gentlemen, began to agitate.^" The bishop opportunely 

 left for his health a month before this.^^* The standard of the earls of 

 Westmoreland and Northumberland was raised at Brancepeth on the 8th. 

 Durham was entered a few days later, and mass was said in the cathedral."* 

 The whole bishopric seemed to be in sympathy with those who now declared 

 for the restoration of the old religion."** Emboldened by the gathering force 

 altars were restored in divers parts of the country."* The host swept on to 

 Darlington and reached Ripon on the 20th. A prudential retreat began. In 

 Durham mass was again sung on St. Andrew's Day, and a skirmish with the 

 queen's musters took place in or near the city. At the approach of Sussex the 

 rebels fled to Hexham. Retribution came with the new year : lands were 

 to be forfeited, and ringleaders were to be executed. °" Some of the pre- 

 bendaries who had shown sympathy were threatened with death. "^ Execution 

 took place on January i ith, and the whole district was put under martial law. 

 An aftermath of discontent manifested itself, and it was not until June that 

 Sussex dismissed his troops, and even so with orders to be ready if need be."' 

 A year later, indeed, Pilkington wrote to Burghley of the ill state in the north, 

 which he ascribed to ' the connexions of the persons engaged in the late 

 rebenion.'^'" 



After the terrible warning given by the punishments which followed the 

 rebellion, it is natural to find Romanism less in evidence. Indeed, Puritanism 

 began to flourish. Bishop and dean were both of puritan sympathy. Lever 

 as prebendary was a congenial spirit, and was joined for a year by John Foxe, 

 the martyrologist. The triumph over the Romanizing party was complete, 

 and confession of destroying church books or building altars was extorted 



"' The ecclesiastical proceedings described in Surtees Soc. Publ. vol. xxi, include libels against hearers 

 of mass, 130 ; erecters of altars and holy-water stoups, 129 ; burners of church books, 132. 



»" S.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. i 5, No. 4. '" Ibid. vol. 14, No. 98. 



"* See a resumd of the history from the state papers in Dixon, Hist. Ch. Engl, vi, 231. 



'" S.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. 15, No. 100. 



•'* See the informing proceedings in Surtees Soc. Publ. vol. xxi. 



'" S. P. Dom. Eliz. Add. vol. 17, No. 10. Ibid. 14, a list is given of those prisoners who are to be 

 executed. Eighty were ' appointed to die ' in Durham, including thirty aldermen and townsmen. Mr. M'Call 

 has made it highly probable {I'orkshire Arch. Soc. Proc.) that a small proportion only really were put to death. 

 In the whole county 3 1 4 were ' appointed to die.' 



'" Ibid. vol. 1 7, No. 76. '" Cal. S. P. Scot, iii, 284. 



"° S. P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 81, No. 48. 



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