Under Elizabeth the Bishopric underwent a process of reconstruction in various ways. It was not a pleasant process. Socially the old system of land-tenure, which had been breaking up since the Black Death, was abolished, and a new method of leaseholds was evolved after much friction between the tenants on the one side, and the Dean and Chapter, or the Bishop, on the other. The power of the Bishop was now further attenuated, for the Queen laid hands upon large estates which were the undoubted possession of the see, with a history of many centuries’ attachment to the Patrimony of St. Cuthbert. The settlement of religion carried out in the early years of the Queen’s reign was largely unpalatable in Durham. Certainly the majority of the clergy acquiesced, but the acquiescence was largely external. So the people at large tolerated the changes that were wrought in churches and services, when the English liturgy took the place of the Latin offices restored by Mary, and when altars were broken down, and the church furniture in general was destroyed. The great Bishopric families--Nevilles, Lumleys, and others--scarcely concealed their dislike of the new régime in Church and in State, and after some years of endurance, they rose at last in 1569. Feeling sure of wide sympathy in Northumberland and Durham, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland gathered retainers together, and restored the old order in Durham Cathedral, whilst the people of Durham, lowly kneeling, were absolved from the guilt of schism. But inferior leadership caused the rising to collapse outside the Bishopric, and when the Queen’s army marched through Durham it swept the undisciplined forces of the Earls across the Tyne to be dissipated in the rigours of a cold Northumbrian winter. But, although the rebellion came to nothing, passive resistance was maintained. As the reign proceeded, this quieter condition was roused into greater activity by the seminary priests and the Jesuit missionaries who came into the country from institutions abroad, which sent over into England, and not least into Durham, a long succession of these emissaries. They went up and down the district, welcomed and protected by friends who received their ministrations, but not seldom hunted down by the vigilance of the Ecclesiastical Commission, which increased the stringency of its measures as the century drew to its close.