A traitor death

(While I know I keep advancing in time, I think i'll  go couple a few years in future issue, I may have skip a few things)

So today I've decide to look into the reason why Henry Carey seem to have a few issue with issuing the execution of the earl of Northumberland. To give futher context, what happen after the failure of the rebellion the earl tried to fleed to Scotland only to be sold back to england for 2000 pounds and sent to Berwick. (Source).  Its not really that Henry Carey was a guy who had a lot of ahead of his time idea regarding the death penalty. In fact several years later he will say that he is more use  with hanging than hunting or hawking (source). Remember he job involves law enforcement and execution are quite common as punishment at the time. Weirdly enough should you look at the previous page of the work, it will say that he preferred to talk hound and Hawks rather than political matters.

The answer seem to present itself in the Memorial of the rebellion of 1569. Page 331, sorta start with telling us that Elizabeth asked Hunsdon to use any mean necessary to get a confession out of him. Exactly what method he use for his interrogation, a bit hard to say for sure, but the rest of the page give us the answer is that apparently he though (if I am reading this correctly) that the the execution of nobleman wasn't of his domain as his he was charge of the warden and of Berwick. I guess the "Justification in giving him to Sir John Forster maybe that he was warden of middle marches and so technically the earl was of his territory.

Also if you want an idea of how brutal the rebellion got Berwick-upon-Tweed: The History of the Town and Guild will tell you on page 170 that Hundson, Essex and destroyed 90 castles and lay waste to 300 villages.

Carey vs Dacre

Leonard Dacre had gotten enough time to gather a force of about 3000 people at his Naworth castle (it wasn't up until 1570 that the english seem to go against him), his obstination not to leave his stronghold marked him as much more suspicious. By february 15 it was decided that Henry Carey should apprehend him and five days later the battle would take place. Hundson however decided that it was preferable at first to have reinforcement before assaulting the castle, however Dacre decided instead to follow the english troops and assault them and act Hunsdon would that was the proudest  charge he saw. (source), mind you it might have the only he saw in his life (since this is the only major battle he was in) . Dacre throwing every he had at him and Hunsdon force being about half of his. The showdown happened at the river gelt.

Henry Carey separated his force from the one of John Foster, warden of the middle marches,  leaving him with 500 men and charged Dacre Foot with horses. Saying his force slayed between 300 and 400 people and captured between 200 and 300.  I sorta wondered how exactly Hundson could have defeat a force that was half of his, if previously he had judged that he didn't have people. Maybe his troops were of better quality or terrain or perhaps there is mild exaggeration. It seem that once he had managed to stand his ground against Dacre men, he was in position to flank them and despiste their numerical advantage the rebels fled .  ). When things turned sour they scattered. While Elizabeth was planning to hang 600 of them Henry and local magistrate decided to lower the number of execution(source, who also has the good word put in by Elizabeth for his victory) . He also tried to preven the execution of Lord Northerburland , a major player of the rebellion, but to no avail. (source) prefering to send the man to another jurisdiction than to his.

One thing that apparently is odd about this is that a lot of Dacre forces seem to have been made of women(source) Dacre fled to Scotland and seem to have died in exile a few years later.

Hundson victory actually his mentionned in the Faerie Queen. Here the extract.  . I also found this who claim that Dacre challenged Hundson to single combat to settle the claim of the two queen, but its the only time I saw it is in the stray leaves of history,  (source. Page 326) but also Catholic world where apparently Dacre asked for single combat with Hundson to decide the faith of the kingdom and who between the two queens would rule it, but its the only place I saw it.

You can see Sir Hundson account of the battle and a lot about the rebellion in the memorial of the 1569 at page 219. Though mind you its actually a though read because a lot of the text is written by the standard of the time. The devon Cary also talk about the battle (source)

Fighting spirit

They are a couple reason why the rebellion didn't last too long. The rebel had a fairly simple objective which was to take out Mary Stuart of captivity, though that was taken care of fairly quickly by moving her more south, where her partisan had less support.  While the rebel had number in the thousands, when England had properly gathered up its strenght it could bring a much bigger fighting force (source), but the problem was that it needed to be gather up which took time, luckily for them the Northern rebels had little support.  I'd love to say that our dear baron was behind all this, but really its earl of Sussex (Although apparently Elizabeth wasn't sure he was loyal). The queen had asked him to stay at berwick when thing started to flare up (November 16 entry),.

Though the reason why Hunsdon involvement is important, is essentially because he saw the most fighting in the war and that because he was in a numerical disadvantage (and it was in the last moments of the rebellion). Sir Leonard Dacre was essentially a noble that covertly supporting the Marian partisan while declaring he was a supporter of the crowd, which enable him to gather up his force at his fortress. So it was now up to Henry Carey to smash it up.

Here a pretty good resume of the events.

Rebellion

So here some more general context to the rising of the North. We have essentially a mix of reason as to why thing happen, most of them having to do with protestantism of the crown while the local lord are catholic, but it also goes along with a centralising government against more feudal lord. At the same time you have the duke of northfolk seeking to get wed to Mary Stuart. Henry effectively an agent of that centralisation (he himself having no ties whatsoever to the region, but he is getting appointee to the matters by the central authority in London). I very much doubt that Henry had any sort of conflicting loyalty here, in fact the suppressing of the rebellion pretty much get brutal. Though most account actually put his force at numerical disadvantage.