igned by themselves, were the restoration of the old
religion, the removal of evil counsellors, and the liberation of the
duke of Norfolk and other imprisoned nobles. But even their attachment
to popery appears to have been entirely subservient to their views of
personal interest; and so little was the duke inclined to blend his
cause with theirs, that he exerted himself in every mode that his
situation would permit to strengthen the hands of government for their
overthrow; and it was in consideration of the loyal spirit manifested by
him on occasion of this rebellion, and of a subsequent rising in
Norfolk, that he soon after obtained his liberty on a solemn promise to
renounce all connexion with the queen of Scots.

In the northern counties, however, the cause and the persons of the two
earls, who had well maintained the hospitable fame of their great
ancestors, were alike the objects of popular attachment: the miserable
destiny of the outlawed and ruined Westmorland, and the untimely end of
Northumberland through the perfidy of the false friend in whom he had
put his trust, were long remembered with pity and indignation, and many
a minstrel "tuned his rude harp of border frame" to the fall of the
Percy or the wanderings of the Nevil. There was also an ancient
gentleman named Norton, of Norton in Yorkshire, who bore the banner of
the cross and the five wounds before the rebel army, whose tragic fall,
with that of his eight sons, has received such commemoration and
embellishment as the pathetic strains of a nameless but probably
contemporary bard could bestow. The excellent ballad entitled "The
Rising in the North[69]" impressively describes the mission of Percy's
"little foot page" to Norton, to pray that he will "ride in his
company;" the council held by Richard Norton with his nine sons, when

"Eight of them did answer make,
Eight of them spake hastily,
O father! till the day we die
We'll stand by that good earl and thee;"

while Francis, the eldest, seeks to dissuade his father from rebellion,
but finding him resolved, offers to accompany him "unarmed and naked."
Their standard is then mentioned: and after recording the flight of the
two earls, the minstrel adds,

"Thee Norton with thine eight good sons
They doomed to die, alas for ruth!
Thy reverend locks thee could not save,
Nor them their fair and blooming youth!"

[Note 69: See Percy's "Reliques," vol. ii.]

But how slend