Northern Rising - Durham Cathedral Occupation 1569
Who Fought
Approximately 700 rebel soldiers assembled at Brancepeth Castle prior to the Durham occupation; no specific figure recorded for royal forces at Durham itself (a much larger royal army of roughly 10,000 under the Earl of Sussex confronted the rebellion overall).
History & Significance
Northern Rising - Durham Cathedral Occupation 1569 was a Tudor occupation, fought at County Durham, England in 1569. Royal forces prevailed over Northern Earls. Rebels (led by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland) occupied Durham and celebrated Catholic Mass in the cathedral in a symbolic act of defiance, ripping up the English Bible and Book of Common Prayer, before marching south. The wider Rising of the North rebellion collapsed under pressure from a much larger royal force under the Earl of Sussex, forcing the rebels to retreat north into Scotland by January 1570.
The ground they fought on
The site of Northern Rising - Durham Cathedral Occupation 1569 lies on Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation And South Wales Middle Coal Measures Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Moscovian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.
- No casualties recorded for the Durham occupation itself, which was unopposed; over 600 rebels were executed after the wider rebellion was crushed.
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