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276 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
" Neville is utterly dismayed,
For promise fails of Howard's aid ;
And Dacre to our call replies,
That he is unprepared to rise,"
fled in all directions ; 500 horse and 300 Scottish horse escaped into
Lidderdale. The Earl of Westmoreland and his wife, Egremont Ratcliffe,
and some others, escaped to the Netherlands. The Earl of Northumberland,
with Norton, Makinfield, Tempest, and a few companions, crossed
the border into Scotland, and put themselves under the protection of the
Humes, Scots, Kerrs, and other border clans. But the Regent Murray
bribed Hector Graham, of Harlow, and he betrayed the Earl of Northumberland
into his hands, by whom he was confined in the same rooms in
Lochleven Castle which had been occupied by Mary.
In May, 1572, he was delivered up to Elizabeth, and after having
been carried along the line of his rebellion to Durham, to Raby, and to
his own house at Topcliffe, he was beheaded August 22nd, in the Pavement,
at York, and his headless body buried beneath the pavement of the
now ruined church of St. Crux. About 600 artizans, labourers, or poor
tenant farmers, were hanged in the different towns through which the
insurrection had passed, and some at York. The great estates of the Earl
of Westmoreland, with his castles of Raby and Brancepeth, were confiscated,
and he died, after years of exile, in great poverty abroad.
Wordsworth in his poem describes Norton and his sons brought to
the castle here :
" I witnessed when to York they came,
What, lady, if their feet were tied !
They might deserve a good man's blame ;
But marks of infamy and shame
These were their triumph, these their pride."
Francis visits his father in prison, is reconciled to him, and promises to
obtain the sacred banner and "lay
it on St. Mary's Shrine" at Bolton Priory.
"Then Francis answered fervently,
'
If so God will, the same shall be.'
Immediately this solemn word
Thus scarcely given, a noise was heard,
And officers appeared in state
To lead the prisoners to their fate.
They rose ;
embraces none were given,
They stood like trees when earth and heaven
Are calm. They knew each other's worth,
And reverently the band went forth.
They met (when they had reached the door)
The banner, which a soldier bore,
One marshalled thus with base intent,
That he in scorn might go before,
And holding up this monument,
Conduct them to their punishment.