19. =Mary's Case before English Commissioners. 1568-1569.= Elizabeth could hardly replace her rival in power, and was still less inclined to set her at liberty, lest she should go to France, and bring with her to Scotland another French army. After innumerable changes of mind Elizabeth appointed a body of commissioners to consider the case against Mary. Before them Murray produced certain letters contained in a casket, and taken after Bothwell's flight. The casket letters, as they are called, were alleged to be in Mary's handwriting, and, if genuine, place out of doubt her guilty passion for Bothwell, and her connivance in her husband's murder. They were acknowledged by the commissioners, with the concurrence of certain English lords who were politically partisans of Mary, to be in her hand. Mary--either, as her adversaries allege, because she knew that she was guilty, or as her supporters allege, because she was afraid that she could not obtain justice--withdrew her advocates, and pleaded with Elizabeth for a personal interview. This Elizabeth refused to grant, but on the other hand she denied the right of the Scots to depose their queen. Mary remained virtually a prisoner in England. She was an interesting prisoner, and in spite of all her faults there were many who saw in her claim to the English crown the easiest means of re-establishing the old Church and the old nobility. 20. =The Rising in the North. 1569.=--The old Church and the old nobility were strongest in the North, where the Pilgrimage of Grace had broken out in =1536= (see p. 397). The northern lords, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, longed to free Mary, to proclaim her queen of England, and to depose Elizabeth. They were, however, prepared to content themselves with driving Cecil from power, with forcing Elizabeth to acknowledge Mary as her heir, and to withdraw her support from Protestantism. Mary, according to this latter plan, was to marry the Duke of Norfolk, the son of that Earl of Surrey who had been executed in the last days of Henry VIII. (see p. 411). On October 18 Elizabeth, suspecting that Norfolk was entangling himself with the Queen of Scots, sent him to the Tower. Northumberland and Westmorland hesitated what course to pursue, but a message from the Queen requiring their presence at Court decided them, and they rose in insurrection. On November 14, with the northern gentry and yeomanry at their heels, they entered Durham Cathedral, tore in pieces the English Bible and Prayer Book, and knelt in fervour of devotion whilst mass was said for the last time in any one of the old cathedrals of England. Elizabeth sent an army against the earls. Both of them were timorous and unwarlike, and they fled to Scotland before the year was ended, leaving their followers to the vengeance of Elizabeth. Little mercy was shown to the insurgents, and cruel executions followed this unwise attempt to check the progress of the Reformation.