Lord Hunsdon, commanding Elizabeth's forces, met Leonard Dacre's rebel army at the River Gelt in February 1570 and defeated it in a sharp engagement. Dacre's force of approximately 3,000 men was routed by Hunsdon's smaller but more professional army. Dacre himself fled northward to Scotland with a small following, leaving his adherents to the mercy of the crown. The Battle of Gelt Bridge was the final military action of the combined Northern Rising and Dacre rebellion and marked the definitive end of armed northern Catholic resistance to Elizabeth's settlement.
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