they instantly resumed
their mischievous designs; and they were actually preparing for an
insurrection, which was to be supported by troops from Flanders promised
by the duke of Alva, when a summons from the queen for their immediate
attendance at court disconcerted all their measures.

To comply with the command seemed madness in men who were conscious that
their proceedings had already amounted to high treason;--but to refuse
obedience, and thus set at defiance a power to which they were as yet
unprepared to oppose any effectual resistance, seemed equally desperate.
They hesitated; and it is said that the irresolution of Northumberland
was only ended by the stratagem of some of his dependents, who waked him
one night with a false alarm that his enemies were upon him, and thus
hurried him into the irretrievable step of quitting his home and joining
Westmorland, on which the country flocked in for their defence, and they
found themselves compelled to raise their standard.

The enterprise immediately assumed the aspect of a Holy War, or crusade
against heresy: on the banners of the insurgents were displayed the
cross, the five wounds of Christ, and the cup of the eucharist: mass
was regularly performed in their camp; and on reaching Durham, they
carried off from the cathedral and committed to the flames the bible and
the English service books.

The want of money to purchase provisions compelled the earls to
relinquish their first idea of marching to London; they took however a
neighbouring castle, and remained masters of the country as long as no
army appeared to oppose them; but on the approach of the earl of Sussex
and lord Hunsdon from York, with a large body of troops, they gradually
retreated to the Scotch borders; and there disbanded their men without a
blow. The earl of Westmorland finally made his escape to Flanders, where
he dragged out a tedious existence in poverty and obscurity, barely
supplied with the necessaries of life by a slender pension from the king
of Spain. Northumberland, being betrayed for a reward by a Scottish
borderer to whom, as to a friend, he had fled for refuge, was at length
delivered up by the regent Morton to the English government, and was
beheaded at York.

Posterity is not called upon to respect the memory of these rebellious
earls as martyrs even to a mistaken zeal for the good of their country,
or to any other generous principle of action. The objects of their
enterprise, as ass