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340 YORK.
There was dislike enough to the new service-book
in the diocese of York, though concealed for a time
under the veil of an outward conformity. But it was
on the part of a different set of peoijle, and the outcome
of a totally different state of religious feeling.
The Puritans, as the extreme reformers began to be
termed about the year 1 565, had gained little or no
footing in the North of England. The sympathies of
its inhabitants were at that time wholly with the old
religion. Sir Ralph Sadler writes, in 1569, that
" there be not in all this countrey ten gentilmen that
do favour and allowe of her Majestie's proceedings in
the cause of religion." ^ He describes the lower
orders also as being strongly imbued with the " olde
popish doctryne." Nowhere, indeed (to use the
words of Surtees), did " the first pale and struggling
ray of the Reformation break with more unwelcomelustre
" than in the northern counties, the attachment
of whose inhabitants to the ancient faith was deep
and strong. It was a feeling which " lay like lees at
the bottom of men's hearts, and if the vessel were
ever so little stirred came to the top.'' -
The " vessel " was " stirred by ' the ill-starred
enterprise of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland
in 1569, the objects of which were to rescue
Mary Queen of Scots from the custody of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, to subvert the government of Elizabeth,
and to re-establish the ancient faith. The feeling
which " lay like lees at the bottom " was manifested
by the way in which so many of Yorkshire's gallant
' " State Papers," ii. p. 55.
^ Lord Bacon.