The Catholics in the North were seething with discontent; the Reformation had taken root in the centre and south of England, but the ancient religion flourished in the more inaccessible part of Elizabeth’s kingdom, where it was supported by the two nobles most powerful in land and seniority next to the Duke himself. The Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland were staunchly Catholic and they were too influential to be terrified into apostasy by Cecil’s government. For ten years they had kept a truce with Elizabeth until the woman they believed to be the rightful Queen of England came over the Scottish Border as a fugitive. Her charm, her beauty, and her professed piety were like a match dropped in straw. But it was a clumsy intrigue, and Mary made the first of many errors when she suggested that it should be supported by a landing of Spanish troops from the Netherlands. If Northumberland and Westmorland were guilty of rash judgment, Philip of Spain was not; he agreed to support the rising, but only when Mary had been released from custody and Elizabeth assassinated.
